http://www.juliansanchez.com/2006/06/09/never-mind-abortion-how-about-some-cannibalism/ Just another geek in the geek kingdom Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:38:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2 http://www.juliansanchez.com/2006/06/09/never-mind-abortion-how-about-some-cannibalism/comment-page-1/#comment-1059 Evan McElravy Fri, 09 Jun 2006 22:41:35 +0000 http://juliansanchez.com/?p=1237#comment-1059 It seems to me that the Kass parallel you mention above is not quite right. Derbyshire is using Gut Reaction in service of preserving freedom of action, Kass of denying it. Assuming we all agree that freedom of action should enjoy an initial presumption of being allowable in any given case, it seems that calls for taking it away should indeed be predicated on a standard stronger than "Ick!", but preservation thereof may not, necessarily, require stronger defense. Unless you want to argue that Gut Reaction never has any value at all, which may be philosophically interesting but not very humane. It seems to me that the Kass parallel you mention above is not quite right. Derbyshire is using Gut Reaction in service of preserving freedom of action, Kass of denying it. Assuming we all agree that freedom of action should enjoy an initial presumption of being allowable in any given case, it seems that calls for taking it away should indeed be predicated on a standard stronger than “Ick!”, but preservation thereof may not, necessarily, require stronger defense. Unless you want to argue that Gut Reaction never has any value at all, which may be philosophically interesting but not very humane.

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