By: James Poulos

James Poulos — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:06:21 +0000

Note the near-Freudian slip: ‘first you educate the public, then you quantify public sentiment’…then you tell them what they think, meaning what to think. Smooth move, choco-lax.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:42:31 +0000

“…because embryos are equivalent to human lives…”

Is it so difficult to present the actual position?

By: Ivan Kenneally

Ivan Kenneally — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:54:19 +0000

I sort of wish I could relax but not until the book is done. The claim to pragmatism is a way of avoiding the more difficult disputes over the good–the implication is that these disputes are not pragmatic or practical since obstructionist or un-scientific. Of course, the priority over the pragmatic, or the superificial denial of ideology, is just another way to import a clandestine ideology under the radar of democratic consent. When Plato talks of our perception of pragmata he means a naive or trusting acceptance (pistis) of that which unproblematically presents itself in ordinary experience. In this sense, to be pragmatic is to give a principled argument against metaphysics or philosophy which begins with wonder, often arising from the problematizing of experience and the rupture of that original naive trust. The technocrats wants our ethical problems surrounding science to be understood like this, as so obvious that further interrogation is useless. Thanks for the plug and good post

Comments on: Bioethics and Question-Begging

By: James Poulos

By: Jonathan

By: Ivan Kenneally