GETTIN’ UP AND SLIP SLIDIN’ AWAY AGAIN
Okay, I’ve had a few email exchanges about the “SLIP SLIDIN’ AWAY” post below and so I obviously haven’t eschewed obfuscation. Let me take another swing: My point was that if you acknowledge a slippery slope argument, you have to have, as Lindsey puts it, a "continuum" for it to apply. When someone denies that a blastocyst is a person as someone like Charles Krauthammer does in his arguments against research cloning, and then invokes a slippery slope argument, as Krauthammer does, they have denied the continuum required for a slippery slope argument to take effect. Here I think Lindsey is correct. No continuum = no slippery slope argument. But I was suggesting that Lindsey, in denying the continuum when he says "It seems totally obvious to me that a zygote is not the moral equal of a living, breathing person . . .", is still going to have a problem because "no continuum" implies that the blastocyst has to become a person at some point.

Anyone who denies a continuum between blastocyst and baby must somehow be making a claim the he or she knows what a person is and when a person exists. But a claim to such knowledge opens a Pandora's Box of concerns: if I claim to know what a person is and when a person exists, what's to stop me from denying personhood to a two-week old, two-month old, two-year old, etc. human being? Isn’t one of the strongest arguments (from reason, not faith) against abortion, research cloning, and other related issues the argument that goes something like this?:

A human person is a mystery. We might know the tip of the iceberg about what kind of thing a person is, e.g. “The classic definition is that given by Boethius in De persona et duabus naturis, c. ii: Naturæ rationalis individua substantia (an individual substance of a rational nature)”, but we’ll never plumb the depths of the mystery of what a person is and when a person exists in that which has the potential to be a person. Therefore, if one cannot know for certain through reason what a person is and when a person exists, one cannot act as if such knowledge is certain. Destroying a blastocyst requires a certitude that none of us can muster.

This is why I said a different and deeper kind of slippery slope is possible when we deny a continuum from blastocyst to baby. When someone claims to comprehend the mystery of personhood at a depth to know what a person is and when a person exists, he or she is then poised to start making distinctions about what is and is not a person, especially near the beginning and end of the spectrum of human life.

So, my point somewhere was that Lindsey doesn't seem to realize that his criticism of slippery slope argumentation centered around things that are a matter of degree (e.g. day and night, legal age, speed limits) rather than on the judgment of existence or non-existence of human life or a human person. And thus, while his criticism of slippery slope argumentation as used by Krauthammer seems correct, it misses the deeper consequences of denying a continuum in the first place.

Phew! Thanks to all who exchanged emails on this.
BACK TO MINUTE PARTICULARS




posted by Minute Particulars at 4:45 PM

SLIP SLIDIN’ AWAY
Brink Lindsey has a thoughtful post (link via Eve Tushnet) on slippery slope argumentation. Here’s how he says they arise

Slippery-slope arguments arise when: (a) there is a continuum of cases; (b) one pole of the continuum is unobjectionable, but the other pole is objectionable; and (c) there is apprehension that acquiescence in an unobjectionable case will somehow degrade the ability to distinguish between unobjectionable and objectionable cases. The argument is deployed to oppose an unobjectionable case on the ground that it will lead to objectionable cases.

Agreed that a “continuum of cases” is required. Disagreed that “one pole of the continuum is unobjectionable, but the other pole is objectionable” and that “there is apprehension that acquiescence in an unobjectionable case will somehow degrade the ability to distinguish between unobjectionable and objectionable cases.”

What I disagree with is the notion that an “unobjectionable” case can lead to an “objectionable” one on a continuum. You can’t have a “continuum” of contraries. Something either is or it is not, there’s no “kinda is” or “kinda is not” when you speak of the existence of something in the truest sense. Lindsey’s examples here indicate he’s not discussing contraries like “a person exists” or “a person does not exist”:

The mere fact that exact dividing lines are sometimes hard to draw is no argument for retreating to an extreme position. We are perfectly capable of drawing distinctions even in those circumstances. It's impossible to say that any particular moment is the dividing line between day and night, but we can still tell the two apart. Likewise, in the legal setting we draw sensible if arbitrary lines all the time. When does a child turn into an adult? Who knows, but we've hit upon 18. And, sure, there are good arguments for moving the threshold up a year or down a year, but there's no basis for saying that newborns should be able to vote and sign contracts, or that people shouldn't reach their legal maturity until both their parents die. Likewise, we can battle back and forth about whether the speed limit should be 55 m.p.h. or 65 m.p.h., but we don't hear too many calls for 10 or 200.

Rather, he’s discussing those things that are a matter of degree. There is not a substantial difference between driving 10 m.p.h. and 200 m.p.h., only a matter of degree. What would be a substantial difference is someone hit by a car a 10 m.p.h. versus 200 m.p.h.: one would like result in minor injury, the other death. Hence the sensible law against driving at 200 m.p.h. His examples miss the point that the blastocyst-baby debate is one of contraries, of substantial and complete differences: either “a person exists” or “a person does not exist” in a blastocyst.

If it’s unobjectionable to destroy a blastocyst but objectionable to destroy “a baby a day before he’s born” then there must have been a substantial and complete transformation of the blastocyst at some point. That of course is Brink’s argument. The problem then is that there’s no continuum and so no slippery slope. That too is his point. But here’s the problem then: how does a blastocyst that “is not” a person become a baby who “is”? That’s the crux of any prenatal ethics issues.

Slippery slope argumentation is interesting but rarely persuasive. And there’s a good reason for this. Slippery slope arguments can’t address contraries. An act like destroying a blastocyst is either objectionable or it is not. If it is not objectionable at some point in time but then is at another, then something has changed. Either the act has changed or the object of the act has changed. Let’s look at the act. In the case of destroying a blastocyst or a baby, the act seems to be the same: rendering what was alive dead. So maybe it’s the object. How do a blastocyst and baby differ? Or more specifically, is there a continuum or not? If you say that a blastocyst is not a person but a baby is, then you vitiate the continuum and slippery slope rhetoric falls flat. If you say that a blastocyst is a person, then the continuum is intact and slippery slope arguments have some rhetorical force.

Lindsey, of course, denies the continuum and thus the effectiveness of slippery slope concerns. That’s fine. But what if you can’t quite be sure the continuum doesn’t exist? Or more precisely, what if the argument for or against a continuum is in fact where the slippery slope danger looms? Because denying a continuum between blastocyst and baby requires that a substantial and complete transformation occurs at some point, when does that change occur? That’s the slippery slope, though it’s a slippery slope of knowledge rather than argumentation. For anyone to suggest a point, maybe after twinning can’t occur or maybe when there’s a certain complexity in the nervous system or maybe . . . for anyone to suggest a point when there is a person present is to claim that he or she has discovered the key to what a person is.

The slippery slope is that as we claim mastery of “what a person is,” as we claim to “know precisely (and it’d better be precise when the act is complete destruction) when a person is present,” we start slipping into thinking we have mastered the mystery of the human person. What’s the continuum to this slippery slope? Well, if I can say “I know what a person is (implied by saying a blastocyst is not one, right?),” if I can say “I know when a person exists (implied by the willingness to destroy a blastocyst, right?),” then I’ll inevitably slip into thinking I know when a certain inability of function reduces a person to sub-person or when an action by a person causes them to no longer be a person or why one person has certain rights and another doesn’t and so on. In this sense slippery slope concerns are indeed rooted in “analytical or empirical” reasons or, as Eve Tushnet puts it, “philosophical or historical” reasons that indicate the sliding danger.
BACK TO MINUTE PARTICULARS



posted by Minute Particulars at 1:31 PM