I don’t know who comes up with titles for op-ed pieces. I hear sometimes it isn’t the author. I won’t therefore begrudge the author of “the case for facing facts” for having picked such a silly title. Imagine someone writing the case for ignoring facts. I can imagine that, actually. And that’s a sad thing.
Anyway, he makes what one might call the “there are bad arguments on both sides” or the “David Broder” argument:
>The problem is one that I have seen cripple our political life again and again and that seems to grow steadily worse. Liberals and conservatives are equally guilty. Neither side wants to face facts that don’t fit its case.
>Consider abortion. Too many pro-lifers and pro-choicers seem determined to ignore the other fellows’ points as they cling to their own rigid positions. And abortion is just one example.
The silly thing about this silly piece (which, by the way, cites no facts that need to be “faced”, but that’s another matter), is that the abortion case isn’t about facts at all–it’s about the value of facts. No one disagrees, for instance, that women can get pregnant, and for one reason or another, don’t want to carry the baby to term. The question is what to do about it. It’s an “ought” question, not an “is” one.
“No one disagrees, for instance, that women can get pregnant, and for one reason or another, don’t want to carry the baby to term. The question is what to do about it. It’s an “ought” question, not an “is” one.”
Hmmmm. I find myself in disagreement here. No one (sane) disagrees that people have value, the question is, what is a person? That is an “is” question not an “ought.” Also, “baby” is a very loaded term. It already implies some kind of personhood. Think of a baby. What do you imagine, a googly kid in a crib or a zygote? In the vast majority of abortion cases, we’re talking something VERY much closer to the latter than the former.
That said, I see the op ed as more of an ad hominem. I have facts about evolutionary embryonic development. What are the other facts? Are there facts about ensoulment? I have this mountain of evidence to support the case that this blastocyst is not a person. What evidence is there that it is? The op ed assumed there is some comparable amount and quality of evidence. It also ignores the argument itself and says the people are the problem.
Nevyn wrote: “What are the other facts? Are there facts about ensoulment? I have this mountain of evidence to support the case that this blastocyst is not a person. What evidence is there that it is?”
I’m not sure that “blastocyst is not a person” is the sort of fact you think it is. Person seems to me to be a social construction, with much disagreement about the necessary and sufficient conditions involved. So its unclear to me what evidence you could have that would support the objective fact “blastocyst is not a person.”
There’s a “mountain of evidence” that 1 year old, or even 5 year old human children are not persons, either, if your criteria include reflective language, or rationality, or self-sufficiency, etc. Whose definition of person counts doesn’t seem to be a question of facts.
So maybe the real question is an ought: “Ought a blastocyst be treated as a person.”
I think you are correct, Jeremy. However, to answer THAT question would require an appeal to certain facts. And personhood is not the only issue involved in this debate. For example, I think it is uncontroversial to say that a pregnant woman is also a person, who would be deprived of certain rights governing the sovereignty of her own body should abortion be banned. Another argument against abortion appeals to utilitarian concerns over the impact that permissiveness on abortion has on our society and the family structures. Facts and values are often intertwined in all of these cases, but I think that the facts in these cases are only utilized to support value judgments, and not the other way around.
I suppose it would be important not to confuse “facts” with “true propositions.” By this I mean that everyone in this discussion will claim that their propositions are true, and thus opposite of say, false, but not all will agree which propositions are true or false, or more importantly, which ones are propositions.
Could “face the facts” possibly understood as an idiom? Then this might simply refer to an unwillingness to acknowledge the inherent complexity of the issues involved. (As opposed to verifable facts). This might seem to be way to point out intellectual dishonesty in political discourse.
Interesting point Steve. “Face the facts” is an idiom, but it suggests rather that one should face some objective, yet painful, truth. This best characterizes I think what he thinks he’s after in this piece: Liberals face inconvenient truths. But his general analysis of the problem (of liberals and conservatives) misunderstands their disagreement.