Pro-life feminism

[morality_play]

There's a thread on the abortiondebate community, here, about pro-life feminism, started by user sunovermountain. Usually, no thinking except the most elementary can escape the crushing gravity of the vast, droning, intellectual black hole that is that community, but a few stray particles of critical thought made it out this time. They originated with the_alchemist, who was

Comments

[morality_play]

Well, the matter of species rights is fairly broad. I don't mind expanding on any point I made above, but the breadth of the subject makes it cumbersome to tackle as a whole. Obviously part of the matter falls under the rubric of moral philosophy. What are the necessary qualities that moral worth follows from, and what do we mean by expressions like "moral activity?" My preoccupation is with the minimum requirements for an action to have an intelligible moral status. I'd submit one absolute minimum necessity is intellectual subjectivity attributable to the subjects involved. There's actually a region of inquiry at the intersection of cognitive science and moral philosophythat takes this as it's subject matter. Neurophilosophy and cognitive ethology for example. And I often prefer people begin with the cog sci to establish what's under analysis in the philosophy. So if you were looking for literature, I'd begin there.

More specifically, the Center for Consciousness Studies is an excellent resource for the current scholarly work in the neurosciences and cognitive ethology. I enthusiastically recommend Medina's "Clock Speed of Consciousness and Moral Worth of Mind" and Panksepp's "Cross Species Affective Neuroscience." You'd probably be able to find these in current reprints of their journal. Bradshaw's "Evolution Of Lateral Asymmetries: Language, Tool Use, and Intellect" is a great comprehensive overview of our the historical evolution and dispersal of cognitive function across species that still manages to be compact.

The cognitive/phenomenal states of non-human animals has attracted a lot of popular literature in the last couple of decades, but I've found much of it disappointing. There's a tremendous amount of ideological baggage writers bring with them to this topic, and when they're writing for a popular audience they seem to get away with a lot more. Bekoff and Allen have done some first rate work though. Their "Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology" and "The Cognitive Animal: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition" are valuable reading. I also Recommend Lesley Rogers work.

Obviously there's also a political/legal component to the issue, but I've been less interested in it's legal aspects. Cass Sustein edited a compilation of recent essays that covered the spectrum from cog sci, to moral phil , to political. I don't recall the title, but I'll retrieve it.

This is a completely inadequate selection to represent the issue. It might help to know what you were specifically interested in. The distinction between agency and patienthood is fairly straightforward. Patienthood refers to the quality of possessing moral worth and entitlement to protections from aggression while agency refers to the ability to make internal rational judgments. In this case, moral ones.

As for my use of "neonate," you're correct in a sense to say I misuse it. I know that in medicine it's used to designate newborn's up to a few weeks. My use of it is something I assimilated from moral philosophy, where neonate is occasionally used as a convenient blanket expression to designate unborn organisms from blastocyst through the last stage of fetal development. It spares me the need to enunciate what variety of fetal or pre-fetal organism I'm describing when it isn't pertinent. I'm told my contributions are tediously long as it is.

Do we know each other from lj or the really real world? Or are you just a passer by?

[monocrat]

We're LJ friends, at any rate! I see my comment is still screened, was it perhaps logged anonymously?

[morality_play]

It was, as you can now see. My livejournal commentary on the subject of abortion inspires more drama than it ever should. I recieve a number of anonymous comments from a few individuals who prefer not to attract recriminations from the moderators at the abortiondebate community. Thinking you were one of them, I thought it best to leave your comment screened.

I now assume _you_ are not concerned about the recriminations of sixteen year old girls.

This is a little awkward. As it happens, I'm in the middle of another long series of journal entries about "why libertarians are nasty-bad people." I don't want you to think it was designed to be provocative. Until I saw your comment... Well, I contribute to this journal so infrequently, I assume you and eleventoes don't even read it. I mean, life is too short.

[monocrat]

Life is indeed short, which is one reason I'm less engaged with LJ than in the past, but you're posts catch the eye if only because they're so rare. "A cautionary word..." and "Techno Demonology," well written as ever, have indeed been provocative, of thought.

I was tempted to comment on the first, but decided against it: sadly, since it comes without martinis and French cuisine, I've lost most of my taste for internet debate. But this post was enthralling. Thanks for it, and for the references. Was it perhaps Sunstein who wrote the collection you mentioned?