Margaret Somerville weighs in on "dignity" here.
Udo Schuklenk takes apart the concept of "dignity" here.
Who do you think has made a better case?
Showing posts with label Somerville. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Somerville. Show all posts
Monday, January 04, 2010
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Margaret Somerville in "Academic Matters"
Here's a piece by McGill philosopher Margaret Somerville in the OCUFA publication Academic Matters. (OCUFA is the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations.) I found it very shoddily argued.
For example, she rightly decries the suppression of speech on campus (something that I have also done; see here). But she then says "some people are going even further: they want to force physicians to act against their conscience under threat of being in breach of human rights or subject to professional disciplinary procedures for refusing to do so". I think these cases are not remotely comparable. The latter question revolves around whether physicians have the right to shirk their professional duty and engage in discrimination simply by calling their view "religious". Would Somerville also support the right of a physician to refuse to treat black patients, because the physician belongs to an Aryan church that views blacks as subhuman? I doubt it. Then how can she support the "right" of physicians to treat lesbian couples differently from heterosexual couples?
She says, "Political correctness operates by shutting down non-politically correct people's freedom of speech. Anyone who challenges the politically correct stance is, thereby, automatically labeled as intolerant, a bigot, or hatemonger. The substance of their arguments ... is not addressed ..." But then, just a few paragraphs later, she labels Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as "fundamentalists". I do not know exactly what she means by "fundamentalist" in this context, but it seems to me she is doing here exactly what she decried previously: applying a label to them without addressing the substance of their arguments.
Later she says "Only the decision not to abort when the fetus has Down's syndrome is not a eugenic decision". But here she is begging the question: why are decisions that she labels as "eugenic" necessarily bad? Why, exactly, would the world be better off with more Down's syndrome children? By her reasoning, positive assortative mating would be considered "eugenic"; yet most of us practice some form of it.
She seems to imply that religion deserves an equal place at the table as science. But she doesn't say why, other than to point out the obvious fact that many people hold religious views. Many people believe that 9/11 was a US government conspiracy, too, but I don't see why we are obligated to take their views seriously. With respect to religion, why should religious dogma, which maintains ridiculous and unverifiable claims, be treated in the same way as science and rational thinking?
Probably you can find more examples of shoddy argument in this piece. Academic Matters has a history of publishing anti-science and anti-rationalist screeds.
For example, she rightly decries the suppression of speech on campus (something that I have also done; see here). But she then says "some people are going even further: they want to force physicians to act against their conscience under threat of being in breach of human rights or subject to professional disciplinary procedures for refusing to do so". I think these cases are not remotely comparable. The latter question revolves around whether physicians have the right to shirk their professional duty and engage in discrimination simply by calling their view "religious". Would Somerville also support the right of a physician to refuse to treat black patients, because the physician belongs to an Aryan church that views blacks as subhuman? I doubt it. Then how can she support the "right" of physicians to treat lesbian couples differently from heterosexual couples?
She says, "Political correctness operates by shutting down non-politically correct people's freedom of speech. Anyone who challenges the politically correct stance is, thereby, automatically labeled as intolerant, a bigot, or hatemonger. The substance of their arguments ... is not addressed ..." But then, just a few paragraphs later, she labels Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as "fundamentalists". I do not know exactly what she means by "fundamentalist" in this context, but it seems to me she is doing here exactly what she decried previously: applying a label to them without addressing the substance of their arguments.
Later she says "Only the decision not to abort when the fetus has Down's syndrome is not a eugenic decision". But here she is begging the question: why are decisions that she labels as "eugenic" necessarily bad? Why, exactly, would the world be better off with more Down's syndrome children? By her reasoning, positive assortative mating would be considered "eugenic"; yet most of us practice some form of it.
She seems to imply that religion deserves an equal place at the table as science. But she doesn't say why, other than to point out the obvious fact that many people hold religious views. Many people believe that 9/11 was a US government conspiracy, too, but I don't see why we are obligated to take their views seriously. With respect to religion, why should religious dogma, which maintains ridiculous and unverifiable claims, be treated in the same way as science and rational thinking?
Probably you can find more examples of shoddy argument in this piece. Academic Matters has a history of publishing anti-science and anti-rationalist screeds.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
