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1081 Margins of Being "Human" (was Re: Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs) -- rank: 1000

OK here it is and really, this will be my last post. Singer does assign value to the disabled/nondisabled status of the infant. This is a quote from Singer at a Princeton event where he debated Adrienne Asch, a bioethicist who is blind: "If there is one point with which I and the anti-abortion forces can agree, it is that birth does not really mark a sudden change in the nature or status of the neonate (of the fetus or newborn). On the contrary, there is basically a continuation through tha ...

Document Size:	8784
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Tue Mar 7 14:55:28 PST 2000

1082 Margins of Being "Human" (was Re: Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs) -- rank: 1000

Ken Hanly wrote: > > THe standard of humanity you are criticising has to do only with > personhood. But this has nothing to do with placing any particular moral worth > on reason, autonomy etc. either. Singer's criteria are conceptual, not moral > requirements, for having a right to life. He is not saying that the normal > infant is more valuable than the > disabled infant. He is saying that neither has a right to life. Why? Because > neither is capable of envisioning ...

Document Size:	6767
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Tue Mar 7 13:56:41 PST 2000

1083 Dudley Moore -- rank: 1000

Did anyone see the Dudley Moore TV biography last night? I did not know that Dudley was born with a club foot -- but the biography made it clear that his mother thought of him as "deformed" and that she was ashamed of him for being different from the "normal" kids. When he had to have surgery she would leave him isolated in the hospital for weeks on end until hospital staff called her and told her that she had to come visit him because he was in very poor spirits. She unaba ...

Document Size:	7130
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Tue Mar 7 09:37:37 PST 2000

1084 Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs (was Re: The Heiress and theAnarchists) -- rank: 1000

Ken Well one could spend an entire lifetime discussing this one but this is going to be my last post on this thread. Obviously, I don't think Singer's philosophical construction is as air tight and you and Justin seem to think it is. I totally disregard his concept of "personhood." Is it scientifically possible at this point to determine that the intelligence of an under 28 year old infant is below a cat's intelligence? Based upon what? Because Singer says so? And even if it were ...

Document Size:	33608
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Mon Mar 6 16:48:35 PST 2000

1085 Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs (was Re: The Heiress and theAnarchists) -- rank: 1000

Michael Pollak wrote: > On Sun, 5 Mar 2000, Marta Russell wrote: > > I think disabled people are just a stalking horse for him to get to animal > rights. He wants to say If your moral intuitions don't allow the killing > of disabled infants (which for most of us they don't), then they shouldn't > allow the killing of animals. > His agenda is much broader than that. Read Should the Baby Live? That is entirely about the human question. Singer believes in preventing suffering ...

Document Size:	5735
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Mon Mar 6 09:25:13 PST 2000

1086 Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs (was Re: The Heiress and theAnarchists) -- rank: 1000

Justin, I just wrote a long response to this which Netscape dumped. AAAAAGH. So I will briefly rewrite. I do not go for Singer's utilitarianism because I don't think people *know* what makes them happy. Parenting has its ups and downs, no one is guaranteed happiness from any child. a "healthy" child does not automatically equate with happiness. Anyway, why should children bear the burden of making parents happy. It seems like a silly premise to me. You wrote: Singer's talk about ...

Document Size:	33608
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Sun Mar 5 12:28:27 PST 2000

1087 Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs (was Re: The Heiress and theAnarchists) -- rank: 1000

I am not against abortion, those who have been on this list know that I have clarified that one. Diane Coleman who spearheads NOT DEAD YET is a lawyer who has Spina Bifida. If infanticide was legal, she might not be with us today. I do not believe that the medical profession or most parents have the ability to judge what a disabled life is worth after it is born because of biases, lack of nonbiased advice/information from professionals and lack of knowing disabled adults who value their live ...

Document Size:	19580
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Sat Mar 4 19:07:21 PST 2000

1088 Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs (was Re: The Heiress and theAnarchists) -- rank: 1000

Ken Hanly wrote: > > > > >Perhaps, I helped confuse matters here by my response, but you totally > > >misconstrue > > >Singer's argument. He is trying to prove that you cannot base the > > >difference in > > >treatment upon differences in intelligence but only upon the fact that the > > >dull > > >person is human. Read what he says even in your own quote. The only possible > > >answer to why the dull person is given di ...

Document Size:	15235
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Sat Mar 4 14:02:48 PST 2000

1089 Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs (was Re: The Heiress and theAnarchists) -- rank: 1000

Ken Hanly wrote: > In answer to Marta's question. Singer uses the example of the mentally > deficient person because he is wanting to make the point that mental deficiency > has no bearing at all on your status as human. His point is that if reason were > privileged then one would have to conclude that the ape actually should not be > experimented upon (and perhaps the mentally deficient person should) > My comment relates to a later part of Singer's argument concerning ...

Document Size:	8954
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Sat Mar 4 10:44:04 PST 2000

1090 Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs (was Re: The Heiress and theAnarchists) -- rank: 1000

Yoshie, You said this brilliantly. I am in awe. Marta Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: > > In a society in which mentally retarded individuals are not oppressed on > the basis of their mental disability, it wouldn't occur to people to ask > for a justification for including them into humanity while excluding > "bright" chimpanzees. Singer's question makes it clear that while his own > humanity is not in question, mentally retarded individuals' is. Singer > assumes that h ...

Document Size:	7119
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Fri Mar 3 16:34:07 PST 2000

1091 Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs (was Re: The Heiress and theAnarchists) -- rank: 1000

Ken Hanly wrote: > > But Singer is just asking for some justification for the fact that the mentally > defiicient person's being human somehow justifies the differential treatment. > That does not seem to be unreasonable. Why should just belonging to one species > rather than another lead to such differential ethical evaluation? That's all > Singer is asking. I ask why Singer chooses a mentally "deficient" person to make his case rather than a couch potato or some ot ...

Document Size:	5841
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Fri Mar 3 15:59:32 PST 2000

1092 Monetary policy -- rank: 1000

Doug Henwood wrote: > > >And even if the economy is cooling, the Fed will have to decide just > >how cool is cool enough. Indeed, the central bank will have to > >resolve an internal debate over whether it is sufficient to slow > >growth to a pace that would keep unemployment at its current level > >of around 4 percent, or whether it will need to push harder on the > >brakes and drive unemployment up, perhaps to 5 percent or higher, to > >ensure that ...

Document Size:	6144
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Tue Jun 27 14:17:31 PDT 2000

1093 Monetary policy -- rank: 1000

This has probably been discussed before - but were the signs of inflation that prompted Greenspan to slow the growth of the economy at levels comparable to times in the past when he raised interest rates? Are there books out there LBOers could recommend that deal with the so-called natural unemployment rate and Federal Reserve monetarist policy? http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/fed/062700fed-interest.html Marta

Document Size:	4802
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Tue Jun 27 08:14:41 PDT 2000

1094 WHO HEALTH REPORT Japan health systems ranked best (???) -- rank: 1000

Jim Westrich wrote: > Dr. Ubel not only misses the possibility that the subjective experience > of being disabled is "normal" (and hence utility of 1), he forces some > problematic objective measure on them and finds that they are necessarily > less than normal. Jim -- and others You may be interested in Ron Amundson's paper on normality from a disability perspective. He knows Gould (Gould has an autistic son) and corresponded with Lewontin before writing it so it uses Le ...

Document Size:	5806
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Fri Jun 23 10:51:03 PDT 2000

1095 WHO HEALTH REPORT Japan health systems ranked best (???) -- rank: 1000

Carrol Cox wrote: > The precise truth, that slaves (predominantly but not wholly black) were the > subject of political political negotiations in which their interests simply did > not appear, is more damning (and I think more illuminative of the "role" > of disable people in contemporary politics) than the rhetorical embellishment. > The ways in which different segments of the population become non-persons > are on the whole more subtle than the vulgarities of a Jerr ...

Document Size:	7404
Author:	Marta Russell
Date:	Thu Jun 22 15:19:16 PDT 2000