The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
Robert Lux ·
Dec 3, 2011 at 1:36pm
In light of this video and its intimations of the totalitarian mindset, people might also want to (re)read Prof. Flagg Taylor's Ricochet post from October 17th, "The Nature of Nature" -- Flagg, of course, being someone equipped with a vastly deeper grasp of the true nature of philosophy than malevolent bioethicists à la Peter Singer who risibly arrogate to themselves the crap-weasel status of "philosopher."
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May '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
Just please no calling for government licensing of ethicists!
Nov '11
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
I have nightmares about living in a society where the dominant intellectuals are men like Peter Singer and Noam Chomsky.
Aug '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
Yes, this was my first thought, too. The more she keeps on asking if he has a license, the more the video makes it sound like bioethicists could be a Good Thing if only they were properly licensed.
Jun '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
There's a book and movie by Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go that is absolutely chilling. I have only seen the movie but it is an absolutely brilliant and compelling way of dealing with this subject. Art can be used so effectively in discussions like these. Never Let Me Go will stay with you for a long time. I really recommend the movie -- in terms of both the story and the high quality of the movie-making. I have the book but I am almost fearful of reading it.
Jan '11
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
Philosophy is intended to challenge assumptions. It isn't supposed to concoct them out of thin air and impose them.
May '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
The license idea is that someone grants authority, like the government. Doctors are given the authority to practice medicine by the state, through a set up of their peers.
Jun '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
I've read the book, but haven't seen the movie. The book is superb, and it does explore these issues in a readable, compelling, but discomforting manner. Read it. Ishiguro is a great writer.
Another thought: when one's only claim for authority is that he has a degree in philosophy, you know you're in trouble.
Jun '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
tabula rasa
I've read the book, but haven't seen the movie. The book is superb, and it does explore these issues in a readable, compelling, but discomforting manner. Read it. Ishiguro is a great writer.
Another thought: when one's only claim for authority is that he has a degree in philosophy, you know you're in trouble.
OK, I will read it. Thanks.
The worst thing about a degree in philosophy (and why it makes such a good foil here) is that it so undefined and so variable across a huge spectrum of the greatest and worst aspects of intellectual life.
Nov '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
Interesting Larry -- I'd never heard of the movie, but I'd of course heard of Ishiguro. Will have to see it.
Mar '11
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
Tell that to Marxists.
Apr '11
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
Sounds to me like this bioethicist horse hooey comes out of 1930's. The name Josef Mengele keeps popping into my head as I listen to this.
Nov '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
Good points about the character's emphasis on credentialism. The video is good even where it is mistaken, because it indicates weaknesses of many on our side. Essentially the female character, in emphasizing credentialism, gives tacit assent to the utilitarian -- and thus, in a certain highly unwitting way, to the nihilist -- presuppositions of Peter Singer and his epigones.
Peter Singer et. al. represent the dangerous side of certain predilections within analytic philosophy: in fine, its inclination toward abstraction and the evisceration of common sense with its grounds in human nature. We see this in full bloom not only in Singer, but also in Richard Rorty and even in the ever so bien pensant John Rawls. David Schaefer, professor of political philosophy at Holy Cross, gets at this quite nicely, bottom of 326 to top of p. 327 of his rather devastating book on Rawls.
Edited on Dec 3, 2011 at 4:11pmAug '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
In freshman year of college I told my parents I was thinking about a major in philosophy. The freaked out and demanded I study something useful, instead of wasting my time and money.
I should have told them I was going into the bio-ethicist track. That would have made it sound more respectable!
(Also, I definitely owe them a belated thank-you note for berating me out of the idea.)
Edited on Dec 3, 2011 at 4:10pmDec '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
About 120 years ago philosophy began its descent into the agnostic/atheist morass. The philosophical defense of both Gd and full deontological morality, which had been so prevalent in the 19th century, came under direct attack. The atheist determinists attacked frontally with marxism, socialism and fascism. However, the agnostic attack was much more subtle and much more devastating. The logical positivists, lovers of science and logic, denied the meaning of concepts such as Gd, Freedom, Good and Evil. They predicted a single formal mathematical system called 'The Program' that would literally explain everything. The defeat of this madness was what Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorems were about. The Existentialists, lovers of art and emotion, held the same view as the positivists but employed different means to bring about the same hyper-skeptical end.
External to philosophy fullscale totalitarianism was 'enforcing' atheism. Also, external to philosopy the profession of psychology promoted agnosticism. It is not unfair to call Freud an agnostic positvist crypto-fascist. It is not unfair to call Jung an agnostic existentialist crypto-bolshevik.
One thing to remember. PHD stands for Doctor of Philosophy. All Academia rests on this foundation. We can not allow this to go on.
Edited on Dec 3, 2011 at 5:41pmAug '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
I'm curious. My (admittedly quick) Google searching has failed to turn up any obvious references to a Positivist formal mathematical system named "The Program". Could you provide some? I'd really like to know what it was and why they thought it would work.
Thanks.
Oct '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
The Havel quote Dr Taylor uses in the post you quote, "The natural world, in virtue of its very being, bears within it the presupposition of the absolute which grounds, delimits, animates, and directs it, without which it would be unthinkable, absurd, and superfluous, and which we can only quietly respect. Any attempt to spurn it, master it, or replace it with something else, appears... as an expression of hubris for which humans must pay a heavy price.” , just about sums it up. Funny thing about presuppositions, you ignore them at your own risk!
Jul '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
Study conclusively proves that bioethicists have no soul. Film at 11.
May '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
But don't forget: the best antidote to bad philosophy is good philosophy, not no philosophy.
What was the intellectual force behind, for instance, the Polish solidarity movement that proved a catalyst for the end of Soviet communism? The carefully worked-out and widely disseminated philosophical personalism of their great bishop/ethics professor-turned Pope, Karol Wojtyla.
Dec '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
I'm curious. My (admittedly quick) Google searching has failed to turn up any obvious references to a Positivist formal mathematical system named "The Program". Could you provide some? I'd really like to know what it was and why they thought it would work.
Thanks. · Dec 3 at 6:12pm
Sorry MFR but I slightly mispoke. The Program referred to a grand attempt by all the major mathematicians to create the single formal system. David Hilbert one of the greatest mathematicians of all time led 'The Program'. The logical positivists led by Bertrand Russell had a pure philosophical co-movement. This started around the turn of the century. Kurt Godel wrote the incompleteness theorems in 1931. By about 1935 Hilbert raised the white flag and admitted that Godel was right and 'The Program' could never be done. The Positivists were never satisfied and went on trying to overturn the incompleteness theorems. Of course, they never did.
If you like mathematics I can recommend Rudy Rucker's "Infinity and the Mind". He makes extremely difficult mathematical subjects clear and he is great fun to boot.
Jun '10
Re: The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist
katievs
But don't forget: the best antidote to bad philosophy is good philosophy, not no philosophy.
What was the intellectual force behind, for instance, the Polish solidarity movement that proved a catalyst for the end of Soviet communism? The carefully worked-out and widely disseminated philosophical personalism of their great bishop/ethics professor-turned Pope, Karol Wojtyla. · Dec 3 at 7:25pm
So TRUE. What we are suffering from is bad philosophy injected straight into the mainstream of the middle class. Very bad medicine.
And regarding John Paul II... you know, he should be canonized really. (Yeah, yeah, I know: he's on his way.)
What a saintly life he had -- nothing like it in centuries!