From pia06jw at sheffield.ac.uk Sun Jul 20 12:17:10 2008 From: pia06jw at sheffield.ac.uk (J M Whiteley) Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:17:10 +0100 Subject: [Bups-dis] Three Approaches to Defending Abortion Message-ID: <1216581430.48838f36510f0@webmail.shef.ac.uk> PREFACE It seems that this list has been fairly inactive for many moons now and is, generally-speaking, in need of a good kick up the arse. In order to do this, I want to start things off with a subject that everyone currently capable of reading this text can engage with at some level: Abortion. Of course, I?m not going to ask you whether it?s okay to get out the gin and coat hangers, not just because I genuinely think it is, but because that debate is readily-available in all its prejudice-laden, fist-beating glory to anyone who wants to know via the medium of Google. Instead, I?m going to try to sketch three approaches to justifying abortion. Those of you who?ve done Applied Ethics/Feminism courses may be bored to tears with these arguments, and for this I apologise. THE NON-PERSONHOOD APPROACH Nobody can reasonably deny that the unborn foetus is biologically human, and this is not what this approach tries to do. Instead, it tries to drive a conceptual wedge between ?human? and ?person?, which it turns out is not that difficult. Typically, we take humans and persons to be one and the same, but that is not the case. ?Human? is a biological category whereas ?person? is a moral category ? if you?re human then you have a particular genetic make-up and if you?re a person you hold a particular moral status. That all existing persons just so happen to be human may be behind this supposed interchangeability, but now we?ve recognised the difference we can leave this behind. The crucial point is that being human is not a sufficient condition for being a person. Cancer cells in a culture dish may be biologically human, but I need not worry too hard about incinerating them, and (to use a cruder example) spermatozoa may also be human, though we wouldn?t consider fellatio to be morally equitable to cannibalism. We might now go further and ask whether personhood logically entails humanity ? the pigs in Orwell?s Animal Farm appear as people, though they aren?t human ? but this would be straying a little off topic. How this distinction relates to justifying abortion should be obvious by now. Abortion can be justified because it doesn?t involve the killing of a person, just a non-person human, which seems fine: If we can herd foetuses into the subordinate moral pen alongside the sperm and the cancer cells, then it seems that we have a defence of abortion ready-made for us. It is at this point that we run into a hurdle, because we haven?t actually shown that the foetus isn?t a person, because we haven?t laid-out the criteria for personhood and pointed to where our foetus falls short. This is a difficult task, as we have to ask the puzzling ? and somewhat clich?d ? question ?What makes a person a person?? There are a million ways you could answer this: I will offer one. A person is an organism that ?has experiences, is capable of thought and of using language? (Tooley, 1972). This model is usually characterised as ?persons have a sense of self?, which is a worryingly fuzzy definition, but one I?m willing to run with. This definition has immediate intuitive appeal: We like to think that we have this sense of self, and this is really at the heart of what makes us a person. Moreover, it helps us form a great defence of abortion, because the foetus does not meet its rigid criteria and must take its place as a non-person human. Problems arise, however, when we start to consider the implications of this view. Newborn infants do not have this sense of self that we demand of persons, and so they are not persons. Tooley recognises this issue, but digs his heels in, grudgingly accepting that there is no relevant difference between abortion and infanticide. Another group shunned from the personhood club are the mentally disabled ? and whilst it seems to be the case that severe mental handicaps could bring about a situation where life is not worth living (Singer, 1993), we would be less willing to admit that killing an adult human who has no sense of self is no different from performing an abortion, or destroying the cancer cells. Perhaps this doesn?t cause a problem for you, the reader, as you may just be willing to shrug off the wrongness of these consequences as ?irrational nonsense?. Furthermore, you may think we can condemn infanticide and killing the handicapped for auxiliary reasons without heavy-handedly considering them as murder: After all, no one is going to argue that no abortions are wrong, forced abortions are most definitely bad things, but for reasons that have nothing to do with murdering the foetus. To respond to this, we could go on to discuss the idea of the self being central to our personhood, asking the question ?Just what is so important about having a sense of one?s self?? After all, contemporary thinking concerning what the self actually is doesn?t seem to support the claim that it is of great moral importance (see Dennett, 1991 and Blackmore, 1999): But I will drop this here because, yet again, I fear I would be straying too far off topic. Treating foetuses as non-persons does throw up challenges. Even if you find Tooley?s position, and its seemingly disastrous consequences, convincing you will not still be able to say that you are standing in a particularly firm position. The tide is coming in, and you?re stood down on the beach, its time to seek higher ground THE AILING VIOLINIST APPROACH Judith Jarvis Thomson?s article A Defence of Abortion (1971) has shaped the abortion debate over the past thirty years, lifting it out of a fist-beating limbo, and catapulting it back into the realm of reasoned debate. The clever ? revolutionary even ? trick she pulls is to assume nothing about the moral status of the foetus throughout: It could have all the rights of a fully grown human, or all the rights of a sperm, but this makes no difference to a right to abort. To illustrate her point she gives an imaginative analogy: One day, you wake up in hospital, only to find that your kidneys are connected to the circulatory system of a famous violinist. A doctor walks in and tells you that whilst you slept, a group of music fanatics kidnapped you and hooked you up to their ailing idol, who is suffering a kidney defect. The doctor reminds you that the violinist himself is not to blame in this regrettable state-of-affairs, and that if you unplug yourself you will be killing an innocent man. Would it be wrong to unplug yourself? Of course not! This analogy plays cleverly off our intuitions about the acceptability of killing biological dependants. The violinist clearly has a right to life, but this does not mean that he can make unlimited demands on our body, because no one can demand that we make that much of a personal sacrifice for them. If it were the case that our business with the violinist could be over inside of an hour then he may have claim on us and the use our kidneys, but pregnancy is not like this. Thomson?s position is a much stronger one, we don?t get bogged down in metaphysical debate about persons and we have a justification of abortion that rests comfortably with our intuitions. The analogy in its raw form draws a parallel with pregnancy-due-to-rape, as it assumes that you are completely without fault in the whole situation, though it doesn?t take a monumental leap to imagine how it could be altered to account for accidental pregnancy ? Thomson suggests that maybe you were visiting a friend in hospital and foolishly got out of the lift on the wrong floor, walking straight into the ward for violinist-benefactors. So far, so good, Thomson seems to have cracked it, but this is where niggling doubts may start to creep in and eat away at the ailing violinist approach. Does the analogy still work when we consider the case of women who genuinely mean to get pregnant, but then decide it was a poor idea and opt for an abortion? We want to allow these women the same rights we would allow the careless woman or the rape victim, but the violinist approach just doesn?t seem to allow for it. If you were briefed fully about the violinist procedure and still volunteered willingly, we would say it is absolutely wrong for you to unplug yourself once the procedure is under way: backing out of a contract is bad enough, but when it results in an innocent?s death it is clearly unacceptable. We don?t want to leave behind our indecisive woman, but if we were to run with Thomson?s position we?d just have to. Even so, whilst we fend off this problem, we are flanked on the other side by a different criticism, attacking the analogy itself. The mother-foetus relationship is a parent-child relationship, a special sort of relationship that cannot be exploded by any amount of fannying around with talk of violinists. It?s been thirty-seven years since Thomson published her paper, and it?s due a good kicking THE GESTATIONAL-INTIMACY APPROACH We?re now at a point where we have to make a serious decision, we have two radically different approaches to justifying and essentially, the only way we can move forward is by developing one approach whilst discarding the other. The approach I want to develop is Thomson?s approach, because whilst the central violinist analogy is slightly faulty, the basic architecture of the approach is perfect. The reason I don?t want to run any further with the non-personhood approach is that whilst it raises many interesting questions it doesn?t provide us with a very stable platform upon which to argue for abortion. Even if we tried to pinpoint scientifically an exact point in human development where a human turns magically into a person, we won?t be able to silence the sceptics. Margaret Little, in her paper Abortion, Intimacy, and the Duty to Gestate (1999) provides the step-up we need. She starts from very much the same point as Thomson, aiming to argue for a defence that assumes nothing of the foetuses moral status. Little coins the term ?gestational intimacy? to describe the mother-foetus relationship alluded to above, though her approach tries to challenge the notion of its intrinsic importance. To explain how gestational intimacy relates to justifying abortion, we must first look at how relationships ? according to Little, and our intuitions ? can generate obligations: Imagine a perfect stranger asks you out on a date, you clearly don?t have an obligation to accept her proposal, but do you need good reasons to turn down this stranger? We would say no, you need no other reason than not wanting to go out on a date. Now imagine that your cousin is in town, and wants you to go out for a meal with her, we may say again that you have no obligation to partake in this ?date?, but it seems that you need a reason to decline her offer. As your cousin, she has a far greater claim on you than the stranger. This point probably needs a bit more labouring over, so I?ll use another example: On your way to lectures, you pass a tramp who asks if you have any spare change, you have change but you frankly don?t want to give it to him, so you politely decline. As you pass around the next corner, you come across another tramp begging for change, only this one just so happens to be your best friend. Now maybe you still don?t have an obligation to dig deep, but the fact this tramp is your friend does seem to give him some claim on the change in your pocket - assuming, of course, that he isn?t going to spend the money on crack/smack/White Lightning. Our relationships with others do seem to affect their claims on us, even in the case of parenthood. If there were a child with a kidney ailment ? not entirely dissimilar to that of our violinist ? that meant he required a kidney transplant from his genetic father, we would have to ask whether the father was obliged to give up a kidney. If the father is a traditional father ? or as Little puts it, has a ?history of shared experiences? with the child ? then we would say that he does have this obligation, but if the father simply had a one-night-stand with the mother, or was just a sperm donor, and had no formal ties with the child, we might say that he has no such obligation. Little?s argument is that the relationship of ?parenthood? does create particular obligations, as the conservative would concede, but that it is not reducible to mere biology. The question we have to ask now is whether gestating women share this relationship with the foetus, and whether gestational intimacy is a parenthood relationship. The answer is, strangely, both ?yes? and ?no?. Whether there is a genuine relationship between gestating woman and foetus rests on the gestating woman?s perception of the relationship. For many, being pregnant is a wonderful experience, and they feel an instant connection with the foetus and conceive of themselves as being in a deeply personal relationship, but for others, being pregnant is an unwanted intimacy. Put simply, if the woman sees herself in a personal relationship, then she has full obligations towards the foetus, otherwise, this is not the case. This may strike you as problematic, and that there may be some disanalogy between the example of the tramps and the gestating woman: The tramp has no claim on the money in my pocket, but he does have a claim that I don?t smother him to death with his own sleeping bag. To address this, we have to return to the violinist: An unwanted intimacy is like the relationship between you and the violinist, he can?t make that claim on you, even if it results in his death, whereas a wanted intimacy would be like the relationship of parenthood, with all its corresponding obligations. AFTERWORD Above I have sketched three responses, which I will now condense: 1) Abortion is not morally wrong because it does not involve the killing of persons. 2) Abortion is not morally wrong because no one, no matter how vulnerable or innocent they are, has a claim on the use of anyone else?s body. 3) Abortion is not morally wrong because for someone to want it they must not be in a personal relationship with the foetus, and hence have no obligation to provide sustenance for it. It?s likely that even on first reading, you will find many problems with these arguments, or the way I have characterised them. Please comment freely ? and fiercely, if you so wish ? on any aspect of this that takes your fancy. SUGGESTED READING Little, M (1999) ?Abortion, Intimacy, and the Duty to Gestate? in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Vol. 2 pp.295-312 Thomson, J (1971) ?A Defence of Abortion? in Philosophy & Public Affairs 1, No.1 (reprinted in Singer (Ed.) Applied Ethics Oxford: OUP pp.37-56) Tooley, M (1972) ?Abortion and Infanticide? in Philosophy & Public Affairs 2, No.1 (also reprinted in Singer, pp.57-85) From joshuaseigal1986 at hotmail.co.uk Sun Jul 20 14:52:10 2008 From: joshuaseigal1986 at hotmail.co.uk (josh seigal) Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:52:10 +0100 Subject: [Bups-dis] A query regarding the translation of Frege's 'On Sense and Reference' Message-ID: Dear all, Is anyone here familiar with German? The reason I ask is because I have for some time now been frustrated at the way in which there is no single, universally-accepted translation for Frege's 'Uber Sinn Und Bedeutung'. Usually, but not always, 'Sinn' is translated as 'sense' and 'Bedeutung' is translated as 'reference'. However, I have also come across texts that render 'Sinn' as 'meaning', as well as texts that render 'Bedeutung' as 'meaning', with the confusing consequence that Frege's famous text is sometimes called 'On Sense and Meaning' and sometimes called 'On Meaning and Reference'. Furthermore, on reading Dermot Moran's 'Introduction to Phenomenology' I came across the word 'Bezeihung', which Moran translates as 'reference'. If this is the case, then can anyone tell me what the difference is between 'Bezeihung' and 'Bedeutung'? I realise of course that the subteties inherent in these terms mean that they are probably very difficult to translate. However, I would be most grateful if anyone is able to shed light on the differences between 'Sinn', 'Bedeutung' and 'Bezeihung', and the correct translations for these terms. Regards, Josh _________________________________________________________________ Invite your Facebook friends to chat on Messenger http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/101719649/direct/01/ From ishmel at hotmail.co.uk Sun Jul 20 14:59:11 2008 From: ishmel at hotmail.co.uk (Merlina Merlina) Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:59:11 +0000 Subject: [Bups-dis] Three Approaches to Defending Abortion In-Reply-To: <1216581430.48838f36510f0@webmail.shef.ac.uk> References: <1216581430.48838f36510f0@webmail.shef.ac.uk> Message-ID: Thanks. Though this may be a repeat of old arguments, it is still interesting to see them used slightly differently. I am intriged by the gin and coathangers comment. I would argue that when abortion cannot be done without being fairly sure that the woman in question is safe (at least as safe as she would be bearing the child) then there is some claim that it is wrong. If you will reject the born child that is slightly different in this case as well. For example, there are lots of Greek myths that include attempts to get rid of children by abandoning them to die after they are born. If the reason that you argue for abortion is to do with the rights of women over their own bodies, then that surely includes a certain right to medical safety? There is another reason why I would say that this was wrong, which is a problem with the idea of choice, as it feeds into abortion, which is that women in the early stages of pregnancy often have an increased tendency to do what they are told. I am not saying that they become irresponsible, but often more suggestible (there are several reasons why this could be so) and this is often (somewhat immorally) exploited comercially by advertisers. This means that it is needful, before abortion is carried out to check carefully that it is her own choice, and that she is not being unduely influenced. You say forced abortion is wrong, but isn't home made abortion a good way to allow it? I would also take issue with the idea that no one has a claim on another's body, ever, for any reason. Any claim on the person is surely, in part, a claim on the body of that person. For example, it is often considered, that if someone marries, particually if they have children, they should give up dangerous sports; they should not do certain things with their bodies. And in a Western marriage, they also promise not to have sexual relations with anyone but that person, whom they offer their body. These things are down directly to choice, and by analogy I think one could claim that this, given alone as an argument for abortion, would mean that in certain circumstances (of sexual choice) women did not have a right to an abortion, as in the fact that in the violinist analogy the woman has been raped, had she not been, this would not apply. But if we claim on one hand that it is not something that can always be forbidden, can we claim that it cannot always be permitted? Though all the examples above rest on choice, there are claims that do not. Suppose I witness an aciedent? At the very least, it is thought that I ought to summon help (in France, I could be taken to court for not doing so). This is a claim on my person and time that is considered reasonable. But it is also a claim on my body, on my hands, my breath, my voice and my mind. Though this may be rather trivial, it is enough to say that it is not always the case that we are always freely chosing the claim that others make on our bodies. There is one final point I would like to make. We tend to argue about the law surrounding abortion, because that is the most relevant point of the debate. But if someone actually asked you, "In these circumstances do you think it would be right for me to have an abortion?" to whom would you say yes and to whom no? Because except at a Sartrean extreme of freedom and responsiblity, that remains a problem seperate from the legal issues. I'd love to hear what anyone thinks about any of this. > Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:17:10 +0100> From: pia06jw at sheffield.ac.uk> To: bups-dis at list.bups.org> Subject: [Bups-dis] Three Approaches to Defending Abortion> > To reply to this message or start a new topic please email: BUPS-DIS at bups.org> -> > PREFACE> > It seems that this list has been fairly inactive for many moons now and is,> generally-speaking, in need of a good kick up the arse. In order to do this, I> want to start things off with a subject that everyone currently capable of> reading this text can engage with at some level: Abortion.> > Of course, I?m not going to ask you whether it?s okay to get out the gin and> coat hangers, not just because I genuinely think it is, but because that debate> is readily-available in all its prejudice-laden, fist-beating glory to anyone> who wants to know via the medium of Google. > > Instead, I?m going to try to sketch three approaches to justifying abortion. > Those of you who?ve done Applied Ethics/Feminism courses may be bored to tears> with these arguments, and for this I apologise.> > THE NON-PERSONHOOD APPROACH> > Nobody can reasonably deny that the unborn foetus is biologically human, and> this is not what this approach tries to do. Instead, it tries to drive a> conceptual wedge between ?human? and ?person?, which it turns out is not that> difficult.> > Typically, we take humans and persons to be one and the same, but that is not> the case. ?Human? is a biological category whereas ?person? is a moral> category ? if you?re human then you have a particular genetic make-up and if> you?re a person you hold a particular moral status. That all existing persons> just so happen to be human may be behind this supposed interchangeability, but> now we?ve recognised the difference we can leave this behind. > > The crucial point is that being human is not a sufficient condition for being a> person. Cancer cells in a culture dish may be biologically human, but I need> not worry too hard about incinerating them, and (to use a cruder example)> spermatozoa may also be human, though we wouldn?t consider fellatio to be> morally equitable to cannibalism. We might now go further and ask whether> personhood logically entails humanity ? the pigs in Orwell?s Animal Farm appear> as people, though they aren?t human ? but this would be straying a little off> topic.> > How this distinction relates to justifying abortion should be obvious by now. > Abortion can be justified because it doesn?t involve the killing of a person,> just a non-person human, which seems fine: If we can herd foetuses into the> subordinate moral pen alongside the sperm and the cancer cells, then it seems> that we have a defence of abortion ready-made for us.> > It is at this point that we run into a hurdle, because we haven?t actually shown> that the foetus isn?t a person, because we haven?t laid-out the criteria for> personhood and pointed to where our foetus falls short. This is a difficult> task, as we have to ask the puzzling ? and somewhat clich?d ? question ?What> makes a person a person?? There are a million ways you could answer this: I> will offer one.> > A person is an organism that ?has experiences, is capable of thought and of> using language? (Tooley, 1972). This model is usually characterised as ?persons> have a sense of self?, which is a worryingly fuzzy definition, but one I?m> willing to run with.> > This definition has immediate intuitive appeal: We like to think that we have> this sense of self, and this is really at the heart of what makes us a person. > Moreover, it helps us form a great defence of abortion, because the foetus does> not meet its rigid criteria and must take its place as a non-person human.> > Problems arise, however, when we start to consider the implications of this> view. Newborn infants do not have this sense of self that we demand of> persons, and so they are not persons. Tooley recognises this issue, but digs> his heels in, grudgingly accepting that there is no relevant difference between> abortion and infanticide. Another group shunned from the personhood club are> the mentally disabled ? and whilst it seems to be the case that severe mental> handicaps could bring about a situation where life is not worth living (Singer,> 1993), we would be less willing to admit that killing an adult human who has no> sense of self is no different from performing an abortion, or destroying the> cancer cells.> > Perhaps this doesn?t cause a problem for you, the reader, as you may just be> willing to shrug off the wrongness of these consequences as ?irrational> nonsense?. Furthermore, you may think we can condemn infanticide and killing> the handicapped for auxiliary reasons without heavy-handedly considering them> as murder: After all, no one is going to argue that no abortions are wrong,> forced abortions are most definitely bad things, but for reasons that have> nothing to do with murdering the foetus.> > To respond to this, we could go on to discuss the idea of the self being central> to our personhood, asking the question ?Just what is so important about having> a sense of one?s self?? After all, contemporary thinking concerning what the> self actually is doesn?t seem to support the claim that it is of great moral> importance (see Dennett, 1991 and Blackmore, 1999): But I will drop this here> because, yet again, I fear I would be straying too far off topic.> > Treating foetuses as non-persons does throw up challenges. Even if you find> Tooley?s position, and its seemingly disastrous consequences, convincing you> will not still be able to say that you are standing in a particularly firm> position. The tide is coming in, and you?re stood down on the beach, its time> to seek higher ground?> > THE AILING VIOLINIST APPROACH> > Judith Jarvis Thomson?s article A Defence of Abortion (1971) has shaped the> abortion debate over the past thirty years, lifting it out of a fist-beating> limbo, and catapulting it back into the realm of reasoned debate. The clever ?> revolutionary even ? trick she pulls is to assume nothing about the moral> status of the foetus throughout: It could have all the rights of a fully grown> human, or all the rights of a sperm, but this makes no difference to a right to> abort.> > To illustrate her point she gives an imaginative analogy: One day, you wake up> in hospital, only to find that your kidneys are connected to the circulatory> system of a famous violinist. A doctor walks in and tells you that whilst you> slept, a group of music fanatics kidnapped you and hooked you up to their> ailing idol, who is suffering a kidney defect. The doctor reminds you that the> violinist himself is not to blame in this regrettable state-of-affairs, and> that if you unplug yourself you will be killing an innocent man. Would it be> wrong to unplug yourself? Of course not!> > This analogy plays cleverly off our intuitions about the acceptability of> killing biological dependants. The violinist clearly has a right to life, but> this does not mean that he can make unlimited demands on our body, because no> one can demand that we make that much of a personal sacrifice for them. If it> were the case that our business with the violinist could be over inside of an> hour then he may have claim on us and the use our kidneys, but pregnancy is not> like this.> > Thomson?s position is a much stronger one, we don?t get bogged down in> metaphysical debate about persons and we have a justification of abortion that> rests comfortably with our intuitions. The analogy in its raw form draws a> parallel with pregnancy-due-to-rape, as it assumes that you are completely> without fault in the whole situation, though it doesn?t take a monumental leap> to imagine how it could be altered to account for accidental pregnancy ?> Thomson suggests that maybe you were visiting a friend in hospital and> foolishly got out of the lift on the wrong floor, walking straight into the> ward for violinist-benefactors.> > So far, so good, Thomson seems to have cracked it, but this is where niggling> doubts may start to creep in and eat away at the ailing violinist approach. > Does the analogy still work when we consider the case of women who genuinely> mean to get pregnant, but then decide it was a poor idea and opt for an> abortion? We want to allow these women the same rights we would allow the> careless woman or the rape victim, but the violinist approach just doesn?t seem> to allow for it. If you were briefed fully about the violinist procedure and> still volunteered willingly, we would say it is absolutely wrong for you to> unplug yourself once the procedure is under way: backing out of a contract is> bad enough, but when it results in an innocent?s death it is clearly> unacceptable.> > We don?t want to leave behind our indecisive woman, but if we were to run with> Thomson?s position we?d just have to. Even so, whilst we fend off this> problem, we are flanked on the other side by a different criticism, attacking> the analogy itself. The mother-foetus relationship is a parent-child> relationship, a special sort of relationship that cannot be exploded by any> amount of fannying around with talk of violinists.> > It?s been thirty-seven years since Thomson published her paper, and it?s due a> good kicking?> > THE GESTATIONAL-INTIMACY APPROACH> > We?re now at a point where we have to make a serious decision, we have two> radically different approaches to justifying and essentially, the only way we> can move forward is by developing one approach whilst discarding the other. > The approach I want to develop is Thomson?s approach, because whilst the> central violinist analogy is slightly faulty, the basic architecture of the> approach is perfect.> > The reason I don?t want to run any further with the non-personhood approach is> that whilst it raises many interesting questions it doesn?t provide us with a> very stable platform upon which to argue for abortion. Even if we tried to> pinpoint scientifically an exact point in human development where a human turns> magically into a person, we won?t be able to silence the sceptics.> > Margaret Little, in her paper Abortion, Intimacy, and the Duty to Gestate (1999)> provides the step-up we need. She starts from very much the same point as> Thomson, aiming to argue for a defence that assumes nothing of the foetuses> moral status. Little coins the term ?gestational intimacy? to describe the> mother-foetus relationship alluded to above, though her approach tries to> challenge the notion of its intrinsic importance.> > To explain how gestational intimacy relates to justifying abortion, we must> first look at how relationships ? according to Little, and our intuitions ? can> generate obligations: Imagine a perfect stranger asks you out on a date, you> clearly don?t have an obligation to accept her proposal, but do you need good> reasons to turn down this stranger? We would say no, you need no other reason> than not wanting to go out on a date. Now imagine that your cousin is in town,> and wants you to go out for a meal with her, we may say again that you have no> obligation to partake in this ?date?, but it seems that you need a reason to> decline her offer. As your cousin, she has a far greater claim on you than the> stranger.> > This point probably needs a bit more labouring over, so I?ll use another> example: On your way to lectures, you pass a tramp who asks if you have any> spare change, you have change but you frankly don?t want to give it to him, so> you politely decline. As you pass around the next corner, you come across> another tramp begging for change, only this one just so happens to be your best> friend. Now maybe you still don?t have an obligation to dig deep, but the fact> this tramp is your friend does seem to give him some claim on the change in> your pocket - assuming, of course, that he isn?t going to spend the money on> crack/smack/White Lightning.> > Our relationships with others do seem to affect their claims on us, even in the> case of parenthood. If there were a child with a kidney ailment ? not entirely> dissimilar to that of our violinist ? that meant he required a kidney> transplant from his genetic father, we would have to ask whether the father was> obliged to give up a kidney. If the father is a traditional father ? or as> Little puts it, has a ?history of shared experiences? with the child ? then we> would say that he does have this obligation, but if the father simply had a> one-night-stand with the mother, or was just a sperm donor, and had no formal> ties with the child, we might say that he has no such obligation. Little?s> argument is that the relationship of ?parenthood? does create particular> obligations, as the conservative would concede, but that it is not reducible to> mere biology.> > The question we have to ask now is whether gestating women share this> relationship with the foetus, and whether gestational intimacy is a parenthood> relationship. The answer is, strangely, both ?yes? and ?no?. Whether there is> a genuine relationship between gestating woman and foetus rests on the> gestating woman?s perception of the relationship. For many, being pregnant is> a wonderful experience, and they feel an instant connection with the foetus and> conceive of themselves as being in a deeply personal relationship, but for> others, being pregnant is an unwanted intimacy. Put simply, if the woman sees> herself in a personal relationship, then she has full obligations towards the> foetus, otherwise, this is not the case.> > This may strike you as problematic, and that there may be some disanalogy> between the example of the tramps and the gestating woman: The tramp has no> claim on the money in my pocket, but he does have a claim that I don?t smother> him to death with his own sleeping bag. To address this, we have to return to> the violinist: An unwanted intimacy is like the relationship between you and> the violinist, he can?t make that claim on you, even if it results in his> death, whereas a wanted intimacy would be like the relationship of parenthood,> with all its corresponding obligations.> > AFTERWORD> > Above I have sketched three responses, which I will now condense:> > 1) Abortion is not morally wrong because it does not involve the killing of> persons.> 2) Abortion is not morally wrong because no one, no matter how vulnerable or> innocent they are, has a claim on the use of anyone else?s body.> 3) Abortion is not morally wrong because for someone to want it they must not be> in a personal relationship with the foetus, and hence have no obligation to> provide sustenance for it.> > It?s likely that even on first reading, you will find many problems with these> arguments, or the way I have characterised them. Please comment freely ? and> fiercely, if you so wish ? on any aspect of this that takes your fancy.> > SUGGESTED READING> > Little, M (1999) ?Abortion, Intimacy, and the Duty to Gestate? in Ethical Theory> and Moral Practice, Vol. 2 pp.295-312> > Thomson, J (1971) ?A Defence of Abortion? in Philosophy & Public Affairs 1, No.1> (reprinted in Singer (Ed.) Applied Ethics Oxford: OUP pp.37-56)> > Tooley, M (1972) ?Abortion and Infanticide? in Philosophy & Public Affairs 2,> No.1 (also reprinted in Singer, pp.57-85)> > > > > _______________________________________________> > -> Browse or search the BUPS-DIS archives, or unsubscribe from the mailing list at: http://www.bups.org/mailinglist.shtml _________________________________________________________________ 100?s of Nikon cameras to be won with Live Search http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/101719808/direct/01/ From andrew.bacon at philosophy.ox.ac.uk Sun Jul 20 15:29:52 2008 From: andrew.bacon at philosophy.ox.ac.uk (Andrew Bacon) Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:29:52 +0100 Subject: [Bups-dis] A query regarding the translation of Frege's 'On Sense and Reference' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20080720222952.D3DBEEB05F@webmail221.herald.ox.ac.uk> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://list.bups.org/pipermail/bups-dis/attachments/20080720/720c07e1/attachment.pot From dac43 at cam.ac.uk Sun Jul 20 16:07:59 2008 From: dac43 at cam.ac.uk (Duncan Crowe) Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:07:59 +0100 Subject: [Bups-dis] A query regarding the translation of Frege's 'On Sense and Reference' In-Reply-To: <20080720222952.D3DBEEB05F@webmail221.herald.ox.ac.uk> References: <20080720222952.D3DBEEB05F@webmail221.herald.ox.ac.uk> Message-ID: <4883C54F.6050903@cam.ac.uk> I recall there being a discussion of the issue of translating bedeutung somewhere in Michael Beaney's 'The Frege Reader'. I don't quite recall what it said but I believe the jist was simply that it was a convention prompted by Michael Dummett to leave bedeutung untranslated because he felt 'meaning' was undesirable because obviously what Frege is talking about is (if you'll pardon the awkward expression) an aspect of meaning and he felt 'reference' mistakenly gave the impression that what Frege meant by bedeutung was the same thing as what Russell meant by reference*. I advise looking it out if you're particularly interested in the issue. Duncan. *One reason this clearly can't be the case - I've the nagging feeling I'm stealing this from Alex Miller - is because Frege talks about the bedeutung of all true sentences as being 'the true' which is complete gibberish if we understand bedeuting in Russell's sense, but becomes a bit more comprehensible if we understand it as 'the value' of something or 'the thing which determines the truth value of the linguistic unit concerned'. P.S. For the sense/reference distinction you should also look at the Letter to Jourdain which is both short and clear. It can also be found in Beaney. Andrew Bacon wrote: > To reply to this message or start a new topic please email: BUPS-DIS at bups.org > - > > I think I heard that quite literally "bedeutung" translates as "meaning". > However Frege has a very specific and technical use of the words "sinn" and > "bedeutung", which of course, neither English nor German had a name for prior to > his writings. > > I'm not sure anything illuminating about Frege's distinction between sense and > reference could be gleaned from a correct translation of these words. But the > best place to look to see how Frege is using these terms would be his original > writings. (He gives a relatively clear exposition of the distinction in 'on > sense and reference' and in 'on function and concept'.) > > > > >> To reply to this message or start a new topic please email: BUPS-DIS at bups.org >> - >> >> >> Dear all, >> >> Is anyone here familiar with German? The reason I ask is because I have for >> > some time now been frustrated at the way in which there is no single, > universally-accepted translation for Frege's 'Uber Sinn Und Bedeutung'. Usually, > but not always, 'Sinn' is translated as 'sense' and 'Bedeutung' is translated as > 'reference'. However, I have also come across texts that render 'Sinn' as > 'meaning', as well as texts that render 'Bedeutung' as 'meaning', with the > confusing consequence that Frege's famous text is sometimes called 'On Sense and > Meaning' and sometimes called 'On Meaning and Reference'. > >> >> Furthermore, on reading Dermot Moran's 'Introduction to Phenomenology' I came >> > across the word 'Bezeihung', which Moran translates as 'reference'. If this is > the case, then can anyone tell me what the difference is between 'Bezeihung' and > 'Bedeutung'? > >> >> I realise of course that the subteties inherent in these terms mean that they >> > are probably very difficult to translate. However, I would be most grateful if > anyone is able to shed light on the differences between 'Sinn', 'Bedeutung' and > 'Bezeihung', and the correct translations for these terms. > >> >> Regards, >> Josh >> _________________________________________________________________ >> Invite your Facebook friends to chat on Messenger >> http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/101719649/direct/01/ >> _______________________________________________ >> >> - >> Browse or search the BUPS-DIS archives, or unsubscribe from the mailing list >> > at: http://www.bups.org/mailinglist.shtml > > From goldenwolf at netcabo.pt Sun Jul 20 18:03:41 2008 From: goldenwolf at netcabo.pt (lurdes melo) Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:03:41 +0100 Subject: [Bups-dis] =?iso-8859-1?q?A_query_regarding_the_translation_of_Fr?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ege=B4s_=27_On_Sense_and_Reference=27?= Message-ID: <71m895$gitrfq@mx.netcabo.pt> Concerning Frege?s translations of ' Sinn' and ' Bedeutung' , I used to have the same doubt. I say ' I used to have' because some time ago I came across a text in Logic that somehow gave me a clearer idea of what could be a unofficial translation and yet one that throws some light on the problem. And I quote: " (...) Thus, on the Frege-Church theory, a sentence has a proposition as its sense, and it has its truth-value as its denotation (...) a sentence denotes one of the truth-values and it connotes (has its sense) a proposition. Sentences having the same denotation, may differ in connotation. Both of the sentences, ' 2=2' and ' The earth is a planet' are true, and so denote truth, but they differ in sense, that is, they express different propositions. (...) Frege?s terms in German are ' Sinn' for sense and either ' Bedeutung' or 'Bezeichnung' for denotation. (...) Other words used in place of ' denotation' are ' designatum' (which is the literal Latinization of ' Bezeichnung' ) For example, the phrase, ' The Morning Star' and the phrase, ' The Evening Star' both denote the planet Venus but seem to have different meanings (...)" Thus, in my opinion, whereas I?ve found it useful to think of ' Sinn' as connotation and of ' Bedeutung' as denotation, I?ve found it a bit confusing to attend both to the various translations one may usually see and to the translation directly from the German once naturally it doesn?t take into account Frege?s theory. I apologize for the length of the quoting, but I do think it is of some use. Regards, Maria From pia06jw at sheffield.ac.uk Tue Jul 29 09:03:13 2008 From: pia06jw at sheffield.ac.uk (J M Whiteley) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:03:13 +0100 Subject: [Bups-dis] Response to Merlina, on 'Three Approaches to Defending Abortion' Message-ID: <1217347393.488f3f4113162@webmail.shef.ac.uk> Cheers for replying to the post, I'd like to try and clear up/clarify a couple of the points you made. Firstly, the gin and coathangers thing was a joke - albeit one in poor taste. Of course abortions, if performed at all, need to be performed safely and I no more think this ought not to be the case than I think that kidney transplants should be performed using cutlery. Lay people aren't allowed to perform any other complicated medical procedure in their own home, abortion should be no different The question of women are influenced, bullied even, into having abortions because of their fragile state is a genuine pickle. It does happen, and presumably any political sustem that allowed abortion would have to offer some sort of protection to ensure that abortion decisions are the woman's decision alone. In any case, the door swings both ways, and presumably women can also be goaded into bearing children they do not want. You are right to point out that any claim on me is also a claim on my body, and that people can readily assert these claims. Thomson isn't arguing against this though. Claims on your body can be made, but there are limits. An injured man by the french roadside may have the claim on your time, energy and phone credit by demanding that you call an ambulance, but he doesn't have the claim that you carry him several miles down the road to the nearest hospital, even if it would jolly nice to do so. Equally, if you only had to be plugged into the violinist for five minutes it would downright callous for you to pull the plug. Drawing an exact line where claims on the body end would be near-impossible, but it is sufficient to say that the foetus crosses it. The next problem you seem to raise is the problem of actively consenting: If I fully consent to the helping the roadside victim, I can't drop him halfway because I'm tired. Whether performing consensual sex, in the knowledge that you could become pregnant, equates to consenting to the foetus's use of your womb. Sex could be seen as tacit consent to pregnancy, though I'm not sure this is a very stable position. If I go out on a night-out in my flashest clothes, I know I am exposing myself to the risk of mugging, but this facts don't seem to amount to consent: If I do get mugged, I may admit I was foolish, but I would hardly say I consented to it. In the case of people who really do fully consent, in my post I admit that Thomson's argument comes a cropper, and instead introduce Little's argument. Your last point is particularly interesting, and I probably should have talked more about this sort of thing. The abortion debate is multi-faceted, and cannot really be reduced to one prepackaged question. You characterised my arguments as legal arguments, but I'm afraid this is not how I see them. They are arguments for a moral right to abortion, and the question of whether their ought to be a corresponding legal right is a seperate question: You may think abortion is wrong, but there ought to be a legal right to put a stop to dangersous backstreet abortions, or you may think women have a moral right but that transforming it into a legal right creates such a minefield - because questions could could arise about the moral and then legal status of other groups - that we're better off just banning it altogether. The question you raise is just another face of abortion ethics, and I can't offer an answer, though I will admit that it is very interesting. Thank you very much for your contributions. I hope you - and others - have further comments to add. Johnny