Intergenerational Amnesia

Suppose a 10 year old child had a life-threatening illness that could only be cured at the cost of amnesia. She would lose all memory of her first 10 years, but go on living. It would be bad to forget her early years, but surely worth it to stay alive.  I think we should say roughly the same thing about the practice of saving babies' lives by placing "baby boxes" hear hospitals. When a desperate

"Life begins at conception"

 
Mary Elizabeth Williams declares herself a pro-choice liberal, but wants to concede that "life begins at conception". To her, this is undeniable common sense. But in fact, there is actually a very solid reason to doubt that any human's lifespan starts as early as conception.  At conception, what exists is a single-celled zygote.  That zygote contains the makings of not just the embryo (fetus

What is a placenta? (And why does it matter?)

credit: www.birthingfromwithin.com

Norman Ford's book When Did I Begin? is a treasure trove of information about fetal development, plus some very interesting reflections on how the biological facts bear on whether each of us was once a zygote or once a fetus. This is a matter of pure metaphysical interest but also with possible ethical implications.  Ford offers several reasons to doubt that

Must Philosophers Be Parents?

Philosopher Justin E. H. Smith rebels against pressure to be a parent here. He resents the fact that philosophers are always telling him there are things he just can't know, because he's childless.

All the hyperventilation about parenthood can be excessive, but how can it not be the case that parenthood gives people special experiences and insights?   For example, parenthood makes you think

The Metaphysics of Corpses

Continuing to explore whether I was ever a zygote (or embryo, or fetus) ....

Current favorite picture of things:  I am an organism, essentially (so: Animalism). But must I think I began to exist as a zygote? Maybe not. First there was a zygote, which developed and grew into an embryo, and then a fetus (etc.) and at some point the fetus became me.  There's a lot to say about why that picture is

Feminist Science Criticism, 300 BC

Yesterday I happened to be reading Aristotle's account of reproduction, and came upon a nice example where having a feminist science critic on the scene would have been helpful.  Let us imagine one Kallista, (imaginary) champion of women from 300 BC, responding to this passage from Generation of Animals (Book I, ch. 21, trans. Platt) --



Aristotle says here that a female is passive and a

The Hidden Cost of Following the Principle of Procreative Beneficence

Lately I've been thinking (and writing) about the principle of procreative beneficence that's been advocated by Julian Savulescu (lots of links here). Here's the basic idea, from an abstract to one of his papers--



It seems to me there is at least a tension between following the principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB) and having what you might call a "parental attitude".  But the tension is

"I wish my mother had aborted me"

"Aeolus" sent me an article from the Guardian with that very puzzling title. The author, Lynn Beisner, says she's tired of all the abortion deliverance stories that pro-lifers like to tell.  They seize upon accounts of people who were nearly aborted, but whose mothers changed their minds.  She writes--

What makes these stories so infuriating to me is that they are emotional
blackmail. As

Must we read letters from our past selves?

My daughter wrote letters to her future self when she was about 8 years old. She had noticed that perfectly nice kids sometimes turn into grumpy teenagers, and she wanted to tell herself not to do that. Now that she's 15, she refuses to read these letters. She thinks her 8-year-self has nothing to teach her.  Possibly cute, but something of a dolt -- I think that's about how she sees her past

First Contact (2)

So (I was asking, here)--when do we make first contact with our children? Did they exist way back when they were developing in the womb, or do they come into existence only once they are conscious selves or full persons? I'm not quite at the "full conviction" stage yet, but I'm finding Eric Olson very persuasive. His book The Human Animal: Personal Identity without Psychology is a thing of

A Puzzle About Twins

Suppose people start existing on the first day after conception--just suppose.  Here's an argument that seems to show that identical twins must be an exception.  Take Betty and Casey, who come into existence as my diagram depicts--


Jeff McMahan makes this argument--

[Betty and Casey] ... cannot both be identical with the original zygote for, given the transitivity of identity, that would imply

Aristotle on Parenthood

Here are some passages from Aristotle that I've been pondering (all from Nichomachean Ethics Book VIII, Chapter 12). Maybe you'd like to ponder too--

A parent is fond of his children because he regards them as something of himself; and children are fond of a parent because they regard themselves as coming from him.
The parent regards his children as his own more than the product regards the

Circumcision Debate

Interesting debate here that touches on my post about religious circumcision at several points. Fuzzy picture quality, unfortunately. How to pronounce "Kazez"? Kuh-ZEZ.  Looks exotic, sounds pretty plain vanilla!

Religious Circumcision

picture from www.brityy.org


I am against infant circumcision. That said, I hasten to add that I don't think circumcising boys is the world's greatest crime.  Many circumcised boys have lived to tell the story.  They are not enormously deprived.  Circumcising boys is nothing like "circumcising" girls.  Still--I think the practice is wrong and should stop.



But what if you're Jewish? Don't

Bullying

I've been on the road a lot in the last month, so away from a full-size computer. For rest and relaxation, I've been on Twitter quite a bit. Hey, it's fun compressing messages! Except some things are too complicated to talk about in tiny bursts.

Like Bullying.  Someone started a Twitter hashtag, #FTBullies, meant to call attention to bullying at Free Thought Blogs. If you don't define your

The American Atheists' Harassment Policy

While we all wait to find out what the Supremes think of the Affordable Care Act, let's have a look at the Harassment Policy hammered out by American Atheists in the wake of the recent online brouhaha about such things.  Here's the core of the policy--


That all sounds exactly right. [Update10:10 am:  Is there stuff to quibble with? I just read this, and maybe so, but it strikes me as being

Mothers at Work

On a recent trip I had a chance to read Anne-Marie Slaughter's much-discussed Atlantic article on working mothers. She says many things that need to be said. For example: we must acknowledge the importance children have for women (and men) and accommodate the demands of parenthood in the workplace.  One nice new point Slaughter makes is that this is no different from accommodating the schedule of

Blaming the Victim?

What is it with the atheist online community in the summertime?  Last summer "elevatorgate" was endlessly discussed. This summer there's another brouhaha, also involving the treatment of women. Three years ago there was another interminable debate about very, very little.  You might be forgiven for suspecting that the no-God hypothesis leaves atheists with not enough "meat" on their plates,

Conference Behavior

I think this is funny.  So you
give a speech at a conference, and afterwards a couple comes up to you and
hands you a business card, saying (essentially) "care to join
us?"  For details and the card see
here.   Question:  when
should moronic behavior be treated as private vice, to be discouraged
informally; and when should moronic behavior be proscribed by the quasi-legal
standards of a community

Attachment Parenting

I guess I have to read Elisabeth Badinter's book The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women, but I think it's going to be supremely irritating, judging by this review and Katha Pollitt's column, both in The Nation.  The bad guy du jour is "attachment parenting," which says good mothers/parents need to be in super-contact with their children, wearing them in slings,