What’s Wrong with the World

"They feel the pressure, like many conservatives do, to bypass the mind and go directly to the gut. This is why, for example, they no longer believe they have to argue that the late-term fetuses whose skulls Dr. Tiller crushed were not members of the human community worthy of dignity and respect."

This is self-contradictory. The phrase "whose skulls Dr. Tiller crushed [as] members of the human community worthy of dignity and respect" is precisely going directly to the gut, which Beckwith just got finished saying was not sufficient but needs to be, at the very least, amplified by an appeal to the mind.

Hesperado,

Francis Beckwith has written the most brilliant articulation of the pro-life view that has ever been written. If you read Francis Beckwith’s Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice, it should be clear that Beckwith supports his pro-life views with strong arguments.

This is self-contradictory. The phrase "whose skulls Dr. Tiller crushed [as] members of the human community worthy of dignity and respect" is precisely going directly to the gut, which Beckwith just got finished saying was not sufficient but needs to be, at the very least, amplified by an appeal to the mind.

I actually paused for a few second after I wrote that, and thought to myself that someone is going to claim that I am in fact appealing "to the gut." But after thinking about it, I kept it, and here's why. There's a difference between speaking the truth with care and employing euphemisms. In this instance, it is just incontrovertibly true that Dr. Tiller (and those who presently offer these late term abortions) crush the skulls of small human beings, who in fact have skulls, not to mention arms, legs, faces, and mouths. But in order to remove these beings from their mothers during abortions when the fetus' head size is prohibitive, physicians sometimes crush their skulls.

I could have said, "collapse its cranium by force," but I doubt that would have been any less troubling to those who would have preferred a euphemism.

Of course, if you don't believe that the being killed whose skull is crushed is in fact a member of the moral community, the absence or presence of a skull, crushed or otherwise, is not going to make a difference to you anyway.

Was the story of a Good Samaritan a better case for charity and love than Kant's categorical imperative or Rawls' two principles of justice? I don't think it's even a close call.

A story that unpacks deep wisdom is not an appeal to "the gut." It is an appeal intended to wake our moral knowledge from its dogmatic slumbers, to quote a phrase. Is that end of the story? For most people, like grandmother, it is. And she is no less rational for it, by the way. However, it is certainly appropriate for many of us in this line of work to dig deeper, to ask questions, to try and discover and unearth the common thread of argument that connects what seem to know about the good, the true, and the beautiful.

"Sean, you're a great American" is an appeal to the gut. "Love your neighbor as yourself" is deep wisdom. And it's from that wisdom that we also come to the realization that you should not call your neighbor a "ni**ger," steal his wallet, lust after (or have intimate relations with) his wife, or crush his skull, even if he's a neighbor who lives inside another neighbor.

Again, you may not think the unborn is your neighbor. But she does have a skull. And there are some people who have to be given good money to crush it.

Steve:

Thank you for your kind and generous words.

I have so much respect for your intellect that I am humbled by your thoughts about my comments.

Blessings,
Frank

This is superb, and glad Steve Burton pulled this out of the comboxes. In particular:

"I have no doubt that these political celebs sincerely believe their beliefs are true. But that's not the problem. The problem is that they do not seem to have any inclination to present arguments for these beliefs in a way that is carefully crafted, cheerfully presented, and persuasively offered. Unlike the giants from whom they received their intellectual inheritance, they think only of today and tomorrow, but not of a decade or even three decades from now. Their point seems always to embarrass their liberal guest or opponent or to come up with a clever, sit-com like, one-liner to keep their audiences amused. They don't seem to want to plant the seeds of intellectual curiosity to inspire others. They confuse moving people with a movement of people. They want a choir without a cathedral."

This bears repeating!

(My only quibble with Dr. Beckwith's list is the inclusion of Gilder. I loved his book Microcosm from 1990, but otherwise on science, he's all over the map...)

John:

I was thinking of Gilder's "Wealth and Poverty," which is a true classic, as well as his "Men and Marriage."

Frank

The Hannitys, the Counters,....

Perhaps "Coulters" was meant here?

Chris - oops. I missed that one!

Great post - thanks to Dr. Beckwith for making it, and Steve Burton to recognizing those observations.

I often wonder if an age of reason has peaked and we are descending into a new dark era. Given on-line responses, such pursuit of reason seems no longer desired by the population at large, undercut by a progressively dominated secondary educational system that spurts palatable sound bites that are easy to digest, no thought necessary.

I also noticed an analogy Dr. Beckwith makes between an avoidance of intellectual paternity and the avoidance of relational paternity within society in general and wonder if that was deliberate, or came about from the zeitgeist of Stand to Reason and the focus on the Defense of Life, or was it drawn from observations that society no longer focuses on the bigger more enduring picture?

Frank,
(if I may)
I had forgotten about Wealth and Poverty. I withdraw my quibble.

Frank -- perhaps, in light of the accusation that you are appealing to the gut when you describe the late-term abortion procedure, this would be a good opportunity to cite WWwtW's patron literary figure, the great GKC, whose discussion of "the Euphemist" rings across the decades:

"I mean merely that short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing. Say to them 'The persuasive and even coercive powers of the citizen should enable him to make sure that the burden of longevity in the previous generations does not become disproportionate and intolerable, especially to the females?'; say this to them and they sway slightly to and fro like babies sent to sleep in cradles. Say to them 'Murder your mother,' and they sit up quite suddenly. Yet the two sentences, in cold logic, are exactly the same."

I was worried that Frank had lost his fastball after his Lenten lay-off. Good to say him tossing no-hitters again!

Paul:

Touche'

Frank

Including Lincoln in that choice means one of two things. Either there is a conservative philosopher named Lincoln that I have never heard of, or you think that Abraham Lincoln was a conservative. The latter is demonstrably not true given the fact that his administration saw some of the most radical changes to government in the entire history of the United States. Not only was the relationship between the states and the federal government regarding the military irrevocably changed, but so was the issue of taxation, monetary policy and the power of the President to wield dictatorial power over the public.

If anything, conservatives should accept the fact that so much of what the Left is able to do today on the national level is possible because of the wartime changes to the federal government created by Lincoln. Before that, the federal government was no more militarily or economically powerful than any state government, when you adjusted for the fact that it was spread over the entire federation (another one of Lincoln's changes, as we are now one republic, not a federation).

***Not to be too anal about that or anything, but generally conservatives are very sloppy when it comes to identifying intellectual bedfellows compared to libertarians.

Frank,

I just wanted to add my own two cents to let you know I'm glad you included Chambers in your list. I'm just finishing, for the first time in my life, "Witness". Especially in the later sections, when the "Hiss Case" (as he puts it) starts up, the writing is striking and forceful. In particular, it is clear that Chambers sees his fight against Communism and more broadly against liberalism as a spiritual fight, in which only God and those who worship Him can defeat these forces. I can barely put the book down and understand why it had such a dramatic impact on the modern conservative movement.

It is also interesting, as a historical note, that Nixon was on the side of the angels in the Hiss Case.

another one of Lincoln's changes, as we are now one republic, not a federation.

Hmmm. I seem to recall in my reading of history some folks getting together in the city of Philadelphia in 1787 to amend the Articles of Confederation, and ultimately producing a Constitution that created a form of government that was described by one of the participants in that convention (in some essay or other) as a republic. But I could be totally off here.

Hmmm. I seem to recall in my reading of history some folks getting together in the city of Philadelphia in 1787 to amend the Articles of Confederation, and ultimately producing a Constitution that created a form of government that was described by one of the participants in that convention (in some essay or other) as a republic. But I could be totally off here.

Yes, you would be, because your pithy retort glossed over the "one republic" point, which implies a much more unitary form of republic. Furthermore, a federation can be a republic (pre-1861 United States) or it can be a monarchy (the German Empire).

Folks, let try to avoid a huge threadjack on Lincoln if we can help it (barring Frank's acquiescence in such a threadjack, of course). His status in Conservative literature has been a subject of extreme dispute, and for myself, I would refrain from dogmatizing upon it.

The soundest claim of his Conservatism, in my view, takes cognizance of remarkable expounding of Natural Law through both statesmanship and philosophy. Virtually no American established more forcefully the authority of a transcendent order of justice, to which men owe obedience as individuals and as communities, than Abraham Lincoln.

All the world is in revolt against Natural Law, and it is Lincoln's distinction to have anticipated certain strains of that revolt when they were in their infancy, and then laid out a really unparalleled edifice of thought and action to counteract them.

"Furthermore, a federation can be a republic (pre-1861 United States) or it can be a monarchy (the German Empire)."

Or it can be a grotesquely evil theocracy (the Republic of Iran).

Paul is right.

"Conservatism" is neither beholden to a union or a federation. Lincoln, in regard to this, was a conservative. He thought that the promises of the Declaration--promises tethered to eternal truths about humanity--can best be actualized in a union. Senator Douglas, on the other hand, was the prochoicer of his time, thinking that the question of what humans should be proper subjects of law is adequately handled by popular sovereignty, majorities that, of course, conveniently exclude their victims from the decision process.

Douglas offered a distinctly modern understanding of government, one that relied on appearance and power rather than natures and ends. Lincoln, though certainly not flawless, was more Aristotle than Hobbes.

Threadjack over.

I recently had a conversation with a Foxophile who said that Kirk couldn't possibly be the influence on American conservatism that I claimed he was because he'd never heard Laura Ingraham mention him, and he listens to her every day. And this person is quite intelligent and well-informed on the "issues."

To be blunt, I don't think these conservatives read very much, and when they do, it's simply more of the same. With all due respect to Mark Levin, when he's considered the primo intellectual of contemporary American conservatism we've got a problem.

Collective American pop-conservative memory doesn't seem to go back any further than Reagan. And there's not enough there to carry us forward.

Paul - could you put up a post on this topic? I've found myself deeply tempted, lately, by the anti-Lincoln heresy - but your three short paragraphs above are tempting me back into the orthodox fold.

Ask and you shall receive: http://whatswrongwrongwiththeworld.net/2009/06/lincoln_open_thread_but_be_car.html

Paul, my cup runneth over!

And I'm "illustrious," now, am I?

Heh.