From: "Mark Tippett" <mwtippett-AT-sympatico.ca>
Subject: RE: [HAB:] Objective Purposiveness, Teleological Judgments & system(s) of "ends"
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 10:02:14 -0400


Gary and Others, 

"What do all these systems desire?  They desire to explain our teleological
judgments about nature, and they go so to work therewith that some deny
their truth and, consequently, explain them as an idealism of nature
(represented as art); others recognize them as true, and promise to
establish the possibility of a nature in accordance with the idea of final
causes."  

Kant, Critique of Judgment (Dialectic of the Teleological Judgment, section
73 "None of the Above Systems Give What They Pretend".)  Bernard
Translation.  



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-habermas-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
[mailto:owner-habermas-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU] On Behalf Of matthew
piscioner
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 7:50 AM
To: habermas-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: [HAB:] Bio-Tech & species ethic

Not happy Gary. Ten days out from final draft deadline, and you post this 
tantalizing topic. I'll be brief & thanks for the biblio. ref:

Distasteful reading by Fukayama. The *should* is problematic:

>F: John Rawls argued in _A Theory of
Justice_ that the unequal distribution of natural talents
was inherently unfair. A Rawlsian should therefore want to
make use of biotechnology to equalize life chances by
breeding the bottom up, assuming that prudential
considerations concerning safety, cost, and the like could
be settled.

>relative to concerns about
social policy, Stock argues that an enhancement market is
inevitable, so we should need---I infer from his
discussion---to pre-emptively foster its *rational*
development, rather than making cases for why it should be
banned. But is deontic thinking the appropriate way to
*foster* ethical practices?

>NO.

But is pragmatic thinking (Stock's pre-emptive strategy) an appropriate way 
to ameliorate ahead of time the worst of the inevitable excesses. Probably.

>I see Stock and Habermas as important poles in the
Conversation about the future of human nature

Voices blowing in the wind I'm afraid :- ). The bio-tech issue is the last 
gasp of human nature as we understand natural. The evolutionary transition 
is depicted in the term even: bio ------ tech. The rise of the machines is 
NO joke. I would see a bio-technical stage of humanoid development to last 
anywhere from 200-500 years, after that it's goodbye carbon-based humanoid 
life forms. hello AI & Machines.

>Dennett, Stock and others (Dworkin?) overtly and covertly
subscribe to the view that "We" are making our evolution
(in a sense which isn't ultimately tautological), inasmuch
as "we" create means that are evolutionary in the emergent
(undesigned consequential) sense, and "we" includes the
"biopower" that effectively (i.e., in effect) "governs
evolution" (W. T. Anderson, _To Govern Evolution_, 1987).
It's NOT as if humanity will pull back from this.
Oppositional critique of this won't do.

This isn't all that far from the position I argued on the Yahoo! List 
recently. Once you smudge out the categorial divide lines carried over from 
religion into philosophy and the {critical} social sciences things clarify 
remarkably. Yes "we" a.k.a nature are making our evolution.

Remember: It's ALL natural.

>We have to get
ahead of the trends and contribute to ethical governance,
since banning the strong trends in the self-formativity of
our species won't work.

IMO, nothing's going to work. Anyway Darwin understood that the species has 
a finite species-lifetime.

>Discursive reflection, discourse ethics, ethic of the
species---what is a self-respecting neo-Habermasian to
think?

Let go Gary.no attachments allowed on this List remember :- ). Why be 
concerned about the destiny of the human species?

MattP.


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