Fingal is a third-year cognitive science student.
By Dan Fingal
For someone who claims to be bringing reason to the masses, Ben
Shapiro’s recent column (“Bush’s cloning ban is
morally correct,” Viewpoint, April 15) comes up short.
Shapiro makes numerous appeals to God, saying that his position
requires firm faith. Unsupported assertions (religious or
otherwise) have little to no place in matters of public policy,
where persuasion through sound argumentation rules the day.
Appeals to unprovable entities such as God or souls are thus
useless when trying to convince one’s rational peers. I
suspect the appeals are purely inflammatory. This does not
invalidate the position; rather, it shows that the support is too
weak for prima facie acceptance. Shapiro must offer other arguments
if he is indeed trying to use persuasion rather
than force to spread his ideas.
In the absence of these arguments, Shapiro is granting Bush
explicit approval to use his coercive power to spread his religious
opinions. This is, in my humble opinion, one of the worst
ideas in the history of humankind.
The lives of persons are certainly of value, as Shapiro
claims. The history of rational philosophy attests to this. It was
seen as a self-evident truth by Kant, and a maximally
desirable state of affairs by Mill and others. What is a person,
then? Boethius, writing in the early sixth century, penned the
seminal notion that “A person is an individual substance of a
rational nature.” The only substance that fits this
criteria is the mind.
Cadavers lack minds. Single cells lack minds. Developing fetuses
up until the activation of the central nervous system between 18
and 22 weeks also lack minds. None of these can be considered
persons; they have derived, not intrinsic value. Therefore,
contrary to Shapiro’s assertion, it is morally
justifiable to destroy a human embryo to correct someone
else’s disability.
Unable to provide a compelling case against research cloning
(beyond how it “devalues human life,” an interesting
position considering the type of research being done), Shapiro
turns to scare tactics, summoning the ghosts of the Third Reich.
This, too, is a fallacious form of argumentation, namely
prejudicial language. Shapiro makes reference to the
“arrogance a person would have” to use designer
cloning. Surely we should not stand for such a thing!
However, the last I checked, the government was in place via
assent of the governed in order to provide defense of personal
rights (from those who would violate them, foreign or domestic) and
to provide necessary social services (the extent determined by the
governed).
The government does not exist so Shapiro can stop people from
doing things that he doesn’t like. The price of living in a
free society is that your neighbor may do things that you may not
agree with. We must use persuasion, rather than force, to
settle such disagreements of conscience if we want to
maintain a free society.
As a final point, I offer the following misdirected opinion from
Shapiro’s column: “The U.S. is a nation founded on
religious principles, no matter what the political left would have
us believe. As such, we must find the most morally correct
alternative in any given situation.”
First, the Constitution was drafted based on the
Lockean principles of limited government and individual rights, not
on religious principles. Second, morality is only spuriously
connected to religion. Finally, it’s a complete non sequitur
““ the premise in no way implies the conclusion, even though
it is generally agreed that the government should act as ethically
as possible. It is clear to me that regurgitating the party line
tends to destroy Shapiro’s coherency.