Breaking the Veil

On the mend from his sudden bout of illness, Jonah approaches today’s Ruminant with his ...

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On the mend from his sudden bout of illness, Jonah approaches today’s Ruminant with his standard level of nerdy panache. After offering a few thoughts on how The Tyranny of Clichés holds up today, he commences a lengthy rant on why canceling student debt would be a serious moral and political blunder, before turning to Francis Fukuyama’s work on liberalism. What does the relationship between virtue and responsibility look like? When is grad school worthwhile? And is John Rawls one of history’s greatest monsters?

Show Notes:

– The Remnant with David French 

– The Remnant with Francis Fukuyama

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  1. Randolph Mitchell

    Good for you for doing a podcast while you're still in recovery. Still, this one was kind of a random walk...

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  2. Ron Croxton

    I love Jonah and I love the podcast, but when he talks about abortion he turns off his rational mind and I do the same thing with the podcast.
    One out of every 300 Americans in 2020 attempted suicide, so when someone tries to argue that life is a universal good that everyone craves I have to assume they're working with an intellectual blind spot.
    But, still love the pod. Drink all you want, doesn't bother me.

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    BWG

    I don’t mind the slurping, sounds like you’re sitting across the kitchen table.
    Yes, there are a few other commenters that bring out the worst in me. I’ll work to lower the emotional level in those cases.

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    Lisa Lohnes

    Jonah, I so enjoyed your podcast. Your rant on school loans and the MFA in Puppeteering made me think of show Baskets. I think it was Clown School in Italy. There's a career path in there somewhere.

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    Mary

    It’s nice to hear you sounding a bit better if not fully recovered.

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    Jason Gibson

    There is no doubt that David French is that archetypal perfect coworker who always seems to be able to do his job and the job of anyone else who is under the weather or on vacation

    And he still has time To be well read well-informed and time enough to devour movies and television shows that he can then mislead us into believing are good

    And he still has time to pray and worship

    How does the man do it

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    CynthiaW

    Kind of mumbly, but not bad. I hope you perk up soon, Jonah.

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      CynthiaW

      Also, I never "get a full head of steam" on myself, but sometimes I'm rather drunk.

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    Ben Connelly

    The Fukuyama interview still turned out good despite you’re being under the weather. So don’t worry about that. Glad you’re feeling a little better.

    Thanks for providing more context and your thoughts on the Fukuyama interview. I wish you’d pushed back a little on the Milton Friedman neoliberal thing.

    Also, I’m excited to hear that Jane Galt will be coming back on the Remnant!

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  9. Zane

    I JUST subscribed to the Dispatch because... I'm a long-time listener of the Remnant. And because Goldberg is completely wrong about Rawls vis-a-vis abortion, the "Veil of Ignorance," and the "Original Position."

    "... Ninety-nine percent of those disembodied souls would first want the shot of being born. Of actually being brought into this world. Of not, like, um, uh, being taken out of the race at the starting line... that's just a huge flaw. That's just a massive flaw."

    No, it's not. As usual, this fails to distinguish between eggs and chickens, acorns and oak trees. Rights are based on interests. As the utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer has said, men and women do not have identical rights because they do not have identical interests. Men do not have a right to abortion because men cannot have an abortion (although now people are defining what it means to be a man and a woman, so we'd have to go with those who possess a uterus). Similarly, dogs do not have a right to vote because they cannot conceive of voting, etc.

    An embryo does not possess interests, and an aborted embryo will never, ever develop them. Take the standard thought experiment: A fertility clinic is on fire. You can save either 1,000 embryos (i.e., "snowflake babies") or a five year-old girl. The vast majority of people, including pro-lifers, would save the girl, usually because she's capable of suffering. Rawls' thought experiment makes the critical assumption that we will be born human. Your disembodied soul WILL be given a body. You do not have interests and goals without a body. As usual, the animal rights critics have more worthwhile criticisms than the pro-life crowd because Rawls would have us assume rational egoism.

    If Goldberg's criticism has any merit, forget abortion. Should we have condom factories? Would we, from the Original Position, allow any form of contraception?

    Goldberg also mischaracterizes Rawls as wanting to take the perspective of God. No. A lot of moral philosophy is about taking The View From Nowhere. Morality follows from rationality, and strives for neutrality and universality: There's a trolley that can kill five children or one hundred children. If you saved your child because he was among the five, most people would understand. -- human frailty and all of that. However, from the perspective of the state -- ideally a morally neutral arbiter -- we would expect emergency personnel to treat all children equally (and act to save the greater number). Rawls' thought experiment tries to elevate us to the View From Nowhere, though it falls short.

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    1. Pohl

      Somewhere in this tangle of assertions and non sequiturs is an actual argument trying to break free. Could you expound on how rights are based on “interests” and why embryos have neither?

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      1. Zane

        A drive-by non-argument. Instead of merely claiming non sequitur, please attempt to demonstrate with quotation and argument. If you can.

        As it stands, your question has been pre-empted. Anticipated. Answered.

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        1. Pohl

          Two of your assertions are in my question. Start with those if you like. Otherwise, you are correct—my two sentences were not an argument, nor intended as one. I am mainly curious about interest-based rights. At first glance, it would seem it could share something with rights conceived as deriving from natural law and human ends, but not if you’re excluding embryos a priori. . . and extending rights to animals.

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          1. Zane

            This was already illustrated with multiple examples: Even if we think of men and women as equals, we do not say biological males have a right to an abortion because (biological) men/"non-birthing people" cannot have abortions. Or, if you prefer, this is "ought-implies-can"-adjacent.

            Goldberg says that aborted embryos "would want a shot" at being born, but this is what he would otherwise refer to as "a stolen base." Embryos lack personality, desire, and anything resembling executive function. They are organisms that die long before the ghost takes over the machine. The objection also does not work in the confines of Rawls' thought experiment. Or, as mentioned later on, in a reduction to absurdity, many, many more potential people never "got a shot" due to contraception.

            The Rawlsian thought experiment can shed light on the common refrain, "My body, my right." Should birthing people be allowed to smoke crack and drink liquor during pregnancy? A circumspect pro-choicer might say, "Yes -- if they plan to terminate the pregnancy." If, however, they consume dangerous drugs and bring the pregnancy to term, then the newborn could suffer (in the short term and the long term), which would also impose costs on taxpayers and the social welfare system.

            In the earlier podcast Goldberg references (the movie review), he imagines how the first thing a fetus sees is some scary abortion instrument. Except even born babies are legally blind, never mind they can't see in the womb. Also never mind that the majority of abortions are medical abortions -- and the vast majority occur in the first trimester. He's assuming characteristics and abilities that do not exist.

            I do not understand why you would regard moral consideration for animals problematic. At some point you are going to have to generate something resembling an argument.

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    Mulecanter

    NO MORE DRINKING ON PODCASTS, IT'S GROSS SOUNDING. If you must drink, mute the mic for the slurp and gulp and then resume. That is all.

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