The Rare Achievement of Disagreement

There’s a great article from First Things reporting on a recent panel discussion with the subject “Is It Wrong to End Early Human Life?”.  Participants included Robert George, Peter Singer, Don Marquis, Patrick Lee, Jeff McMahan, John Haldane and Elizabeth Harman, a mix of prominent pro-life and pro-abortion choice scholars.  “On any measure, these are among the most prominent voices in contemporary philosophy and bioethics, and to have them together on one three-and-a-half-hour panel was an intellectual treat.”

From the article:

Many, no doubt, will find Harman’s comparison of human fetuses to plants—not to mention Singer’s moral defense of infanticide—deeply repugnant. I certainly do. But these are merely the conclusions of a chain of (gravely mistaken) moral reasoning, and such intellectually honest reflection is to be preferred, in fact welcomed, over the unprincipled rationalization that often takes its place. When people like Harman and Singer speak openly and follow their premises to their logical conclusions, the audience realizes what is at stake when a commitment to intrinsic human dignity and equality is rejected—and that realization is a very good thing.

Though ethical disagreement about such important matters as killing human beings, restricting women’s liberty, and forestalling scientific research often generate more heat than light, one of this panel’s many virtues was its consistent civility. The participants themselves stressed that intelligent and reflective people of goodwill can and do disagree. Eschewing ad hominem attacks, they opted to offer arguments and rebuttals, a mutual exchange whose currency is reason. This brought to mind Fr. John Courtney Murray’s famous remark that “disagreement is a rare achievement, and most of what is called disagreement is simply confusion.” So it is a credit to the panelists that the discussion was marked by a lack of confusion, albeit much disagreement.

There is some insightful coverage of the symposium and the positions of the speakers.  Especially look out for the summary of Patrick Lee’s thought experiment that succinctly and effectively argues for the pro-life position, even against the most sophisticated pro-abortion choice claims.

The point of the article is that this sort of debate not only highlights the philosophical strength of the pro-life position, but also shows the unpleasant implications of the alternatives.

Taken as a whole, the discussions revealed several salient points. It was instructive to witness the ease with which various speakers could embrace infanticide or dehumanize unborn life—recall Harman’s argument that unborn children “really are a lot like plants.” But even more instructive was how unalarmed many in the Princeton audience seemed to be by any of this. I had forgotten that, for more than a few in the academic elite, this is just par for the course…

…it must be said that the internal inconsistencies among the various pro-choice views was telling: Whereas the pro-choice panelists all agreed that there was nothing wrong with killing an unborn baby, they couldn’t agree on why. And their internal disagreements actually undermined aspects of their competing pro-choice views.

Read the whole thing, definitely worth your time.