Cohen's oversight on the cohesiveness of American Morality.

As a pre-note: It's really weird how relevant my last post was to this week's reading. I didn't read ahead.

I'd first like to state that I found Cohen's piece effectively argued. It was quite refreshing to hear the conservative argument through something other than a mega-phone. The goal of Macklin's piece was, however to both point out the logical inconsistencies in the collective argument of the Republican camp and to complain about their form. While Macklin is correct in her assessment of the logical flaws in the Republican argument- namely, that they start with a set of gross over-generalizations and presumptions about collective morality (more on that later)- Her piece lacks some of the pose and accessibility of Cohen. Not that that is her intellectual "job"- there used to be functioning neutral journalism to translate scholarly work into lay-man's terms. But since we are now lacking that part of the system, Cohen has achieved an arguably more functional style of writing- voters and politicians could read the jargon-less work and understand it.

Devil's advocacy aside, I have my own critiques of Cohen's arguments:

First of all, it's strange to think learned people would discount all the inequalities (the 77 cents a woman makes to a man's dollar, the likelihood that out of two similar applications the one with a Caucasian sounding name will be considered over one with a African-American sounding name, etc, etc, etc.) of the day and assume that equality is, as Brown suggests, a commandment rather than goal. If it were a commandment, there'd be a greater imperative to pursuit equality- We wouldn't need civil rights movements or hate crime laws. People would just have an imprinted desire to achieve it.

Cohen's argument is highly informed by this idea. He claims that people can just feel what is right. This, again, is ignoring a long history of racial discrimination. He also argues that vulnerable stages of human life, just after ovum fertilization and after old age has deteriorated a person's mind and body, are equal in moral importance and therefore should be equal in rights, meaning one should not sacrifice one for the other. This skips right over the glaring fact that not everyone believes an embryo is as important as an aging parent or grandparent.This also assumes we have limitless resources for every would-be child and don't ever have to prioritize. That has never been the case.


I think the core of this particular issue rests in the question “Why are humans special?” My answer to that would be “Because humans can experience a love more self-less than wild animals, knowledge unprecedented on the planet, and the analytical brain capable of appreciating the beauty and complexity of the cosmos." Conservatives would say "Because the potential for human life was created" which, if you remove any religious underpinnings, says“Because a human sperm and egg met.” Well, so do the gametes of all mammals. Where are their protective laws? Is a miscarriage a person? Should we persecute a woman’s uterus for expelling it?

In any case, the answer will vary greatly from person-to-person and you should not build an argument, or policy, on such an unstable foundation.