Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 12:08:05 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: HAB: "On The Way to Liberal Eugenics?" (Fred)


Now that I'm through working with JH's essay (for a while)...

--- Vunch-AT-aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 10/29/2001 4:25:25 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
> gedavis1-AT-yahoo.com writes:
> 
> >So, I don't believe that JH is wrong about most of his discursive
> >views, but the research basis for those views is outdated (Piaget,
> >Mead, Peirce-let alone JH's passion to bring Kant into the 20th
> >century). 
> 
> This simply is just not a sum of Habermas' sources.  This is not a 
> responsible statement. Sorry.

Fred,

I wasn't trying to be comprehensive in a parenthetical listing; I
could have used "e.g.,".  But the indicated sources do seem outdated
to me. It's a responsible statement. You don't need to apologize for
misreading. :)


> 
> >Ultimately, JH is an exemplar in a discourse that belongs to a
> >community (The Philosopher is no longer positioned to remain a
> >discursive Center, like a Kant or a Hegel, but remains a leading
> >participant in various discursive formations. But what is the name
> of
> >that discursive formation?). 
> 
> I agree that JH is an exemplar in a discourse, but not in the
> community.  


"...a community," I said. I had academia in mind. Social theory,
specifically. 

 
[...] 

> The name of the discursive 
> formation that can and does utilize JH's philosophy is social
> justice. JH is for judges.


I'm looking for a name for what JH is originarily doing--which is
philosophical (covering the fundamental nature of his work, including
formal pragmatics, philosophical anthropology, etc.)--not which
existing communities would find a segment of his work useful. The
problem is, so many different kinds of communities might find his
work fruitful, while JH rightfully distances himself from traditional
notions of philosophy; it's therefore difficult to find a proper
rubric that names what he's altogether doing that's not just an
expression of his particular set of interests (i.e., not something
essentialistically Habermasian, which is ultimately idiosyncratic).
It's not Critical Theory (given the communication-theoretical
analysis of social evoution, etc.). It's not just social theory
(given the broad philosophical interests, e.g., postmetaphysical
thinking, discourse of modernity). Is it just *Habermasian*
philosophy? Then, it's philosophy, of his particular species (like:
Rawlsian philosophy or Rortyean philosophy). But is this it? Is,
then, one's learning from Habermas that appreciatively moves beyond
him just one's own species of philosophy? If there can be cultural
species (ethnicities), why not discursive species (like meta-genres
or something). What, then, is the "nature" of a discursive species? A
kind of high-conceptual modelling? Do we again reach a mode of
discourse credibly named *evolution of mind* (no longer constituted
metaphysically)?


> 
> > 13--- asserting an unclear ethics of the species as deontological
> > when regulative moral argument is not yet compelling; 
> > 
> > 
> When JH used the term species, several ideas occured  to me.  In
> evolutionary biology,...

Maybe you've had a chance to look at JH's "Liberal Eugenics" essay. A
general biological model isn't relevant. Somehow, though, our species
being is an eonic emergence from biology, in terms of evolutionary
bases of cognition across species, as it relates to primate
intelligence. But the "symbolic species" (_Symbolic Species_,
Terrence W. Deacon, Norton, 1998) is millions of years beyond its
paleoanthopological brethren.


> but now we have a 
> new force to reckon with: biotechnology which gives us additional 
> decision-making power over the quality of life.  Consider the
> statistics related to mental health,
> chromosomal abnormality, and childhood diseases that are
> potentially identifiable
> during the germinal stage of development, roughly off the top of my
> head, 
> over 20% of the population! 


This is why much of JH's essay is on PID: Pre-Implantation
Diagnostics, vis-a-vis the ethical issues associated with declining
to carry a defective embryo (I prefer to talk this way, rather than
of rejection or disposal).


>  Now, with the surging influence 
> of biotechnology the demographics of the population could shift
> perceptibly in any number of directions depending on the competency
of both the  biotech industry and the public.  


A key issue, which JH doesn't address, but which is common in
bioethics, is the economics of access to genetic services. This can
lead to speciation in the biological sense, inasmuch as the highly
developed cultural regions (and wealthier persons within highly
developed regions) have regular access to genetic services over
decades, and others don't. This caused Lee Silver, Princeton
Microbiologist, in _Re-Making Eden_ (1998) to write a fictional
scenario of the 24th century in which this has become a policy
problem: multiple human species, the "GenRich" and the "GenPoor",
where members of one can't reproduce with the other. 

The issues facing humanity will get hairy (so to speak). Now, though,
it's all still science fiction. 


> Where I think the critics of JH are mistaken is in 
> the taking up of claims concerning the subject-object dialectic:
> all objects including the self are objectifications, merely 
> representations, and therefore subjective.  


In my view, a subject-object dialectic is untenable as an account of
how things normally go. It expresses alienated life; it's good for
modeling distortion though. S-O dialectic is an artificial model of
nature and mind, falsified by biology and psychology. A sociocentrism
that loves dialectics is an anachronism. But the model is fruitful as
a supplement to other ways of thinking that consider how distorted
understanding may go.

> The thing-in-itself is the subject. 

"Subject" as topic? 

Subjectivity isn't a thing-in-itself, in any general sense of thing 
(unless maybe one takes a Heideggerian stance on things thinging,
like the granting and bearing of a vase outpouring).


>... that which is 
> knowing cannot be known (time-space-causality are only known by
> their representations). 


Cognitive science antedates this kind of rhetoric. So MUCH can be
known about our knowing.  And the field is young.  (References
available) 


> The question is: will the subject which is Homo sapiens 
> change due to biotechnological interventions?  


I believe: yes.


> This question bears upon the moral and the ethical
> in different ways.  Morality refers to what is right 
> and is rule-oriented 

So does ethics: It's not right to forget your promise, to waste away
your potential. It's wrong to break your promises to those you care
about. Projects and plans are necessary in order to realize your
potential; they become the background and foreground
rule-orientations that govern the actualization of your aspirations. 

> (yes the law and morality are the same), ethics refers to what is
> fair given 
> the foundational equality of each individual. 

This is standardly what is associated with jurisprudential morality:
entitlements. (Rights are entitlements).

> Will decisions made during genetic counseling, 
> gene therapy, basic research, etc. adversely
> effect the race?  

'Race' isn't in my vocabulary.

> particular groups?  particular organs?

Yes.


Best regards,


Gary





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