Short Story [Scott]

Joe found the young girl unconscious in her upstairs closet. By the time he got there, the structure was a raging inferno. No one else dared go inside. Scooping up the girl, he took his only exit, straight out the second story window and into the bushes below. The girl lived. For his part, Joe sustained three cuts and two sprained ankles—and an avalanche of questions. The media wanted to know how he planned to pay for the girl’s food, clothing, and health care now that he’d rescued her. The evangelical pastor asked if the time spent saving the girl from temporal flames might be better spent saving people from eternal ones. The social justice coordinator of the Catholic parish insisted that if Joe truly cared about saving lives, he’d care about all life and spend equal time rescuing poor workers from corrupt corporations. The local Congressman asked if he supported tax hikes aimed at reducing fire risk. Joe just kept looking at the girl.

Advanced Pro-Life Apologetics Course--Watch for Free! [Scott]

The complete lecture notes for my sessions are here and the links to the videos are below. (Dr. Scott Rae taught the other half of the course. His sessions, dealing with reproductive technologies and end of life issues, are found here.)

Content Overview: Successful pro-life apologists pursue four essential tasks. First, they clarify the debate by focusing public attention on one key question: What is the unborn? Second, they establish a foundation for the debate, demonstrating to critics that metaphysical neutrality is impossible. Third, they answer objections persuasively. Fourth, they teach and equip.

Videos:

Session #1: What is the Issue--The Nature of Moral Reasoning (52 Min.)

Session #2: What is the Unborn? (1:08)

Session #3: What Makes Humans Valuable? Part 1: The Substance View of Human Persons (52 min.)

Session #4: What Makes Humans Valuable? Part 2: The Religion Objection (15 Min.)

Session #5: Who Makes the Rules? Abortion: Law, Metaphysics, and Alleged Moral Neutrality (38 Min.)

Session #6: What is my Duty? The Bodily Autonomy Arguments of Thomson, Boonin, and McDonaugh (54 Min.)

Session #7: Catholic Social Justice Teaching and Other Objections (46 Min.)

Session #8: Equipping Yourself to Engage at Your Church (46 Min.)

Texts:

1. Gilbert Meilaender, Bioethics: A Primmer for Christians (Eerdmans, 2005)

2. Agnetta Sutton, Christian Bioethics: A Guide for the Perplexed (T&T Clark, 2008)

3. Scott Rae, Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics (Zondervan, 2009)

4. Scott Klusendorf, The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture (Crossway, 2009)

Suggested Reading:

1. Francis J. Beckwith, Dignity Never Been Photographed: Scientific Materialism, Enlightenment Liberalism, and Steven Pinker (Ethics in Medicine, Vol. 26:2, Summer 2010)

2. Francis J. Beckwith,The Human Being, a Person of Substance: A Response to Dean Stretton

3. Christopher Kaczor, The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice (Routledge, 2010)

A Quick Thought on Arguing the Supremacy of Science [Jay Watts]

I started working on a post that felt oddly familiar.  Then I realized I wrote something similar back in October 2011 on my personal blog.  Two things struck me: (1) That old post is better than the one I was currently writing and (2) no one ever reads that blog.  So rather than reinvent the wheel I brushed off the old post, changed a word or two, and reposted it here.  

I am currently reading a philosopher who will remain nameless because I haven't finished her book yet so any criticism is premature. She at once impresses with her intellect and frustrates with the gaps in her reasoning as it pertains to the supremacy of scientific knowledge over what she terms “more meaningful” but less verifiable intellectual pursuits. 

So here is question often asked in rebuttal: What type of arguments will we be forced to make in order to defend the proposition that testable scientific knowledge is superior to philosophical knowledge?

It is one thing to state an obvious fact; testable experimentally verifiable knowledge enjoys the luxury of being demonstrated again and again so as to earn our confidence. Reasonable people must accept the fact that water freezes at 32 degrees F/0 degrees C (at 1 atmosphere of pressure). If presented with a case where water failed to freeze at 32 degrees F, it makes sense to question the facts in order to determine what mistake was made. We are left with a few probabilities: it is not water(H2O), the thermometer is incorrect, the water was supercooled so that it dipped below the freezing point before actually freezing. It must be one of these things because all reasonable people acknowledge that water normally freezes at 32 degrees F. This is the strength of this type of knowledge. Inquiry leads to trustable answers. 

Mathematics are also an extension of this. 2 + 2 = 4 is demonstrably true and reasonable people acknowledge it. (Except , of course, defenders of Fictionalism or a type of Nominalism that denies the reality of numbers and so denies that the equation is literally true, but you don't run into too many of these people at the soccer fields and in the normal work place) Combine the rational power of math and experimental sciences and we have the basis for some of the greatest accomplishments in human history.

But when you argue that experimentally verifiable scientific truth is superior to philosophical truth you aren't arguing the more limited claim just discussed. Arguing that it is superior is arguing that the information in question has qualities that make it better by nature than other types of information. Uh oh. Qualities? Nature? This sounds suspiciously like philosophy to me. 

Objectors tell me that they are merely stating that scientific exploration works in a way that philosophical consideration cannot. Science discovered everything that makes our life better than our more primitive ancestors. “But what do you mean by better?” I ask. 

And why did we advance science? What drove the men and women to pursue vaccines, clean drinking water, stronger protective dwellings, and advanced medical treatment? Was it the idea that we ought to take care of our fellow man and limit suffering? Do our perceived obligations and duties to others often inspire the endeavors we are talking about? Certainly those motivations for exploration are not scientific by nature.

Another consideration, we can all agree that science produces useful information, but how do we assess the application of that knowledge? Zyklon B was a cyanide based pesticide. It was used to keep citrus groves, food stores, and shipping vehicles free of insects and rodents to protect food supplies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was also used by the Nazis to kill millions of innocent Jews in death camps. How do we evaluate the different applications of the same scientific principle? One – the killing of insects and rodents - is a possible good and the other – the killing of innocent human beings – is a monstrous evil. Are these judgments scientific? Nope. And IF the scientific fact that Zykon B kills living things is the preeminent truth THEN how we use it is of secondary importance. The moral judgements of the different uses of Zyklon B are less clear  in comparison to the certainty of how it works. After all, we have scientific certainty that Zyklon B kills animals while the moral judgements upon those actions belong to the realm of knowledge that we are told cannot be trusted. 

But how is that possible? How can the moral applications of scientific advancement be of secondary importance to the mere fact of discovery itself? 

That is the crux of the problem. In order to be superior someone must explain why the truth discovered through experimentation - though more verifiable by its nature - is of greater importance to the beings those discoveries serve than philosophical truths concerning morality, duties, justice, the existence of God, or the presence of greater purpose to life. This requires contemplation on what kind of beings we are, what is best for us in life, what's our destiny, and what information will best serve us. These questions cannot be melted, burned, vaporized, frozen, or weighed. They cannot be the subject of scientific inquiry in any traditional way that empirical study is understood. In fact, they are exactly the kind of questions that the champion of the supremacy of science is trying to undermine. The arguments justifying the supremacy of science are undercut by the attackers own criticisms of philosophy.

Or in the words of Friedrich Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols:

“The true world — we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps? But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one.”