Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Ben Domenech ·
February 4, 2012 at 7:07pm
Watch this. Now.
Marco Rubio always seems to follow Peter's four word advice about speech-giving: "Crack jokes. Tell stories." It's a rarity in the Senate, where so many are in love with the sounds of their own voices. But the principles that undergird these words are the key element, the aspect so often sorely lacking in political speeches today.
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May '10
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Noesis Noeseos
Perhaps you mean to say that personality is not a static or an abstract trait.
Yes. There seems to be no one trait which defines a person. What makes one person different from another begins as simply as DNA itself, becomes ever more complex as one matures, and then recedes in old age as once-essential traits disappear.
I misspoke. Katie is correct that everyone has an objective personal identity. But, like the body, it changes throughout one's life. Like a limb can be severed, a personal trait by which others relate to you can disappear. Who others know us to be is forever changing and always judged according to both perspective and circumstances.
Abortion and euthanasia boil down to debates over personhood because we disagree on the circumstances under which a "who" can become a "what" and vice versa.
We agree to war because we recognize that some things are more important than life itself. Animals merely survive. Humans instinctively desire to do more than survive. To define personhood is to define what makes human beings inherently more valuable than other animals, even before and after an age when we can act on such an instinct.
Jan '12
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Aaron Miller:
So what is a person?
It's not defined by intelligence, or we would value the adult chimp more than a human baby for its greater self-awareness, greater logical abilities and greater potential for interaction.
What makes a human being a "who" rather than a "what"? · 2 minutes ago
If you think solely in terms of separate individuals that manifest diverse qualities accidentally, then you will never be able to answer this question with irrefutable precision.
If you think in terms of the species, then it is clear that man is a rational animal and that apparent departures among individuals follow only from contingency. "Animal" means a living being with the capacity for mobility and an active means of gaining nourishment. "Rational" means the ability to think in intelligable universals--concepts--and the ability by conscious effort to approximate action to these in the form of laws.
No other animal, no chimpanzee, is capable of this rationality. An embryo as an embryo is not, but it has the potential to receive the education that will actualize it. A "who" takes its laws inwardly. A "what" acts only by impulses that it cannot name.
May '10
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
katievs
Ningrim
Aaron Miller:
So what is a person?
homo sapien, no exceptions
Yes. But "homo sapiens" is a animalistic term that does not, IMO, adequately reflect the radical distinction between lower forms of life and persons.
Nor does it acknowledge God as a personal being.
And note that God is a relationship within Himself (the Trinity). This is what Christians mean when we say, "God is love." We mean that literally.
Whatever personhood is, it seems inseparable from relationships with other living beings.
The non-theistic argument is simple: There is no circumstance under which it is acceptable for one person to avoid hardship by killing an innocent human being.
Not in poverty and not in rape. No pain justifies killing an innocent person to make life easier for yourself.
... which brings us back to personhood, because an abortion advocate would say the "fetus" is not morally equivalent to a born baby.
That said... Mothers kill their children willfully, not logically.
May '10
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Noesis Noeseos
.... An embryo as an embryo is not [rational], but it has the potential to receive the education that will actualize it. A "who" takes its laws inwardly. A "what" acts only by impulses that it cannot name.
Potential value is not actual value. Killing born babies isn't illegal merely because of who those babies might become in later years. It's illegal because of who they already are.
Jan '12
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Aaron Miller
Potential value is not actual value. Killing born babies isn't illegal merely because of who those babies might become in later years. It's illegal because of who they already are. · 0 minutes ago
If I had been speaking of value, I might agree with Hitler that I break no law if I kill a Jew, for the state has declared that a Jew's life is without value.
I might as an ancient Greek expose my baby girl because, relative to boys, my community devalues living girls because of what they already are.
But in a rational state, value is too highly charged with subjectivity to stand as a criterion for when homicide may be justifiable.
Edited on February 5, 2012 at 2:41amMay '10
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Noesis Noeseos
If you think solely in terms of separate individuals that manifest diverse qualities accidentally, then you will never be able to answer this question with irrefutable precision.
ROSAP here: "Irrefutable precision," I propose, is less important than basic truth. Rubio's speech was full of imprecision, but its overwhelming drift was truthful, which is rare in the public square.
I think we ought to think less in terms of species, which in itself, classifies us with animals.
We are rather embodied persons.
May '10
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Noesis Noeseos
But in a rational state, value is too highly charged with subjectivity to stand as a criterion for when homicide may be justifiable. · 5 minutes ago
Again: PROTEST!!!
Values are objective.
May '11
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
I think in terms of species as far as defining what has rights and deserves protection.
Obviously that's not enough to explain why they do.
Edited on February 5, 2012 at 2:54amJan '12
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
katievs
Noesis Noeseos
If you think solely in terms of separate individuals that manifest diverse qualities accidentally, then you will never be able to answer this question with irrefutable precision.
ROSAP here: "Irrefutable precision," I propose, is less important than basic truth. Rubio's speech was full of imprecision, but its overwhelming drift was truthful, which is rare in the public square.
I think we ought to think less in terms of species, which in itself, classifies us with animals.
We are rather embodied persons. · 0 minutes ago
But how do you know what a person is unless you know what a rational animal is? To say that we are embodied persons is a pleonasm without the notion of disembodied persons. This, however, leads us into the realm of faith, most likely to Christian faith. You may wish it otherwise, but in America, faith by itself does not inform law.
Basic truth may be elusive, more a matter of confession than ratiocination, but imprecision is always false.
Jan '12
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
katievs
Noesis Noeseos
But in a rational state, value is too highly charged with subjectivity to stand as a criterion for when homicide may be justifiable. · 5 minutes ago
Again: PROTEST!!!
Values are objective. · 15 minutes ago
Values have both an objective and a subjective component. It is the subjective component that lends to arguments for abortion what persuasiveness they show.
PROTESTS are, uh, emphatic, but they are not refutations.
Jan '12
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Ningrim: I think in terms of species as far as defining what has rights and deserves protection.
Obviously that's not enough to explain why they do. · 15 minutes ago
Edited 15 minutes ago
Not in 200 words. Explaining what it is about the nature of rationality that implies rights requires more space. I'll just start by saying that thinking is not truly thinking unless free. If the essence of man should be thought, then man is essentially free. Freedom itself claims a right against compulsion or servitude. More basically, a thinking being requires the right to its life. From that right follow the others.
Why is this so? One can construct syllogisms from the right to life, say, to the right to acquire property, etc. The first why? Why are there thinking beings at all? Well, in the space allowed, let me just say that were it otherwise, the question would never arise at all.
Edited on February 5, 2012 at 3:22amRe: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Pilli, I was born and raised in Florida but now reside in California. Given the two knucklehead senators we have out here representing our slice of the left coast, I am going to stretch things a bit and proudly say, "That's my Senator, too."
The Reagan magic and youth to boot. I can't wait for President Rubio one day soon.
May '10
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Noesis Noeseos
Values have both an objective and a subjective component. It is the subjective component that lends to arguments for abortion what persuasiveness they show.
Rather, it is that the fact that there is such a thing as subjective values that leads too many to leap to the unwarranted presumption that all values are subjective.
Whether a cigarette has value for me depends entirely on whether I happen to like smoking. A person has value, objectively, whether I acknowledge it or not.
When we abandon "the language of values" we effectively concede that there is no such thing as objective values.
Jan '12
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
George Savage
Pilli, I was born and raised in Florida but now reside in California. Given the two knucklehead senators we have out here representing our slice of the left coast, I am going to stretch things a bit and proudly say, "That's my Senator, too."
The Reagan magic and youth to boot. I can't wait for President Rubio one day soon. · 2 minutes ago
Ah, yes, "nothing but feelings" Babs and Pacific Heights Di, who owe their seats in the upper chamber to Californians' hedonistic insistence on evading the consequences of their "private" actions.
Jan '12
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
katievs
Noesis Noeseos
Values have both an objective and a subjective component. It is the subjective component that lends to arguments for abortion what persuasiveness they show.
Rather, it is that the fact that there is such a thing as subjective values that leads too many to leap to the unwarranted presumption that all values are subjective.
Whether a cigarette has value for me depends entirely on whether I happen to like smoking. A person has value, objectively, whether I acknowledge it or not.
When we abandon "the language of values" we effectively concede that there is no such thing as objective values. · 3 minutes ago
I'll grant that most people's thinking is hazy on this issue. Rather than laboring through all the complexities in their own minds, they just pass what seem to be authoritative opinions.
Edited on February 5, 2012 at 3:37amMay '10
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Noesis Noeseos
But how do you know what a person is unless you know what a rational animal is?
This is a question of epistemology (How do you know?) rather than metaphysics (What is a person?).
One can grasp the notion of disembodied persons without any faith commitment.
"Rational animal" makes the person basically of the genus "animal" with "rationality" as the specific difference.
"Embodied person" sees the reality of personhood as more fundamental, and the specific difference as having a body. I think human experience bears out the idea that the soul is the more fundamental human reality than the body.
Imprecision is, emphatically, not always false. How can you say such a thing? If we are trying to describe something ineffable, we are almost bound to be imprecise and incomplete, because of the limits of language. But we can still speak more or less truly.
Dec '10
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Ben,
I just got back from Shabbos and turned the Computer on. I saw this and immediately listened to the whole speech.
PLEASE MARCO, PLEASE SON, PLEASE RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jan '12
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Alright, what is a person that is not a rational animal? To what genus and species does it belong? What is its differentia?
A notion is a notion of something. It is an imaginary notion if its object should not exist except among the play of images that pass before an individual's subjective gaze. It is an actual notion if its object should exist "out there." An object may be present to the senses, such as an individual tree, present to the intelligence, such as the axia of mathematics, or present to faith, such as the dogmas of the religions. There is little dispute about the first two, but there have been severe, even murderous contentions over the latter. Frankly, I have no interest whatsoever in grounding either ontology or epistemology on faith.
"Ineffable" means "unutterable." Here we cannot speak even imprecisely; we cannot speak at all. We cannot even say what kind of "thing" it might be, even though we may feel "something" very strongly.
Edited on February 5, 2012 at 4:28amAug '10
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
Rubio's speech is amazing. Next paycheck I can find $40 to give to the Pro-Life Campaign. It's the least I can do when young people like Rubio are willing to risk their careers speaking out. God bless him.
May '10
Re: Marco Rubio Gives the Greatest Pro-Life Speech in a Generation
God is a person. He is not an animal. Angels are persons, though they have no bodies. These are two types of persons whose nature can be intellectually apprehended, even if their existence is in (subjectively) doubt. (Whether their existence is generally believed or disbelieved has no effect whatsoever on either their essence or their existence.)
Anyway, as to differences among species of persons: God's personhood is divine and uncontingent. Angelic persons are not divine and lack bodies.
I am saying nothing that doesn't have a firm footing in the philosophical tradition of the west.
Ineffable has more than one sense--at least as I use it. It can also refer to something that is too great, too transcendent to be adequately captured in words. We do better with hymns and poems, which though thought they may be profoundly true, are often imprecise.
Edited on February 5, 2012 at 4:31am