Of Trolleys and Trains

Ok...

Consider the following thought experiment:

A trolley (a tram or a streetcar) is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?

Of course, while one can argue either way, consider this one:

As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you - your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?

Now go to MercatorNet and read A Streetcar Named Moral Confusion by Zac Alstin.

And while you're there, also check out Tactical Intimidation by Matthew J. Franck.

Harsanyi Reconsiders Abortion

Over at Reason.com, David Harsanyi has contributed a piece encouraging a re-examination of the question of abortion. It is entitled Abortion, Religion, and Science. His basic thesis is that one should honestly look at the science as well as the religious issues involved. I have often made the pro-life argument solely on the basis of biology, genetics, and logic. The debate Mr Harsanyi proposes should be taken up on all sides as the impact on the Abortuary Business could be significant.

Here is a snippet to encourage you to read it:

Does life really begin on the say-so of a single person—even the mother? Does her position or mental state change what a fetus is or is not? That kind of elastic calculation grinds against reason. Even our intuitive reaction to motherhood agrees. As Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who is an ob-gyn, once explained, "people ask an expectant mother how her baby is doing. They do not ask how her fetus is doing, or her blob of tissue, or her parasite."

Read the article here.

Hauerwasian Insights for College Freshmen

Ages ago, I had the pleasure of taking an ethics course under Professor Stanley Hauerwas at the Divinity School. I also had the opportunity to chat with him a few times during my soujourn at Duke during that long lost forgotten time. The current issue of First Things (November 2010) includes an inciteful essay from Professor Hauerwas entited: Go With God: An open letter to young Christians on their way to college. I urge everyone to read it (whether a college/university student or not; whether young or old). Below is a brief snippet.

Don’t underestimate how much the Church needs your mind. Remember your Bible-study class? Christians read Isaiah’s prophecy of a suffering servant as pointing to Christ. That seems obvious, but it’s not; or at least it wasn’t obvious to the Ethiopian eunuch to whom the Lord sent Philip to explain things. Christ is written everywhere, not only in the prophecies of the Old Testament but also in the pages of history and in the book of nature. The Church has been explaining, interpreting, and illuminating ever since it began. It takes an educated mind to do the Church’s work of thinking about and interpreting the world in light of Christ. Physics, sociology, French literary theory: All these and more—in fact, everything you study in college—is bathed in the light of Christ. It takes the eyes of faith to see that light, and it takes an educated mind to understand and articulate it.

There’s another dimension to the call of intellectual work. In the First Letter of Peter we read, “Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” (3:15). Not everybody believes. In fact, the contemporary American secular university is largely a place of unbelief. Thus, the Church has a job to do: to explain why belief in the risen Lord actually makes sense. There’s no one formula, no one argument, so don’t imagine you will find the magic defense against all objections. You can, however, offer the reasonable defense Peter asks for. You may at least make someone think twice before he rejects the risen Lord.

Read the entire piece here.

A Day at School

Yesterday, I had the privilege of spending the day at a local parochial high school speaking with students taking religion/theology classes. The original idea was that as an Eastern priest I would supplement the professor's lectures/discussions on the topic at hand with the Byzantine perspective. This was interesting in itself as I found them be intelligent, thoughtful and interested in hearing different opinions and views. They were very polite and commendable youngsters (yes, I'm old enough to join the ranks of Ed Sullivan in calling them "youngsters"). Thus, by the end of the second class, the professor and I decided that it might be interesting if I simply presented the option to either speak on their recent subject of study or offer a period of free-wheeling questions and answers.

It should surprise no one that given the option, the overwhelming choice was the Q&A format.

Now to set the scene so that you don't misinterpret the atmosphere of the classroom, I wasn't there in "civvies" (although, an argument could be made that in reality I was in civvies), I was in my customary Anteri, sporting a pectoral Russian-style crucifix, and a skouphos. In a generation of young people conditioned to see 'celebrities' in all manner of dress - exotic dress, partial dress, and even eye-averting undress - my simple garb still managed to draw attention and provoke a few questions.

"What's that on you head?"
 "A hat. Next question...." - Actually, I gave a more serious reply after the joking one.

St John of Kronstadt on discrimination (the good kind)

Never confuse the person, formed in the image of God, with the evil that is in him, because evil is but a chance misfortune, illness, a devilish reverie. But the very essence of the person is the image of God, and this remains in him despite every disfigurement.

– St. John of Kronstadt

From the web blog into the light: Finding Christ in Eastern Orthodoxy

Wisdom for our day from St Ephraim the Syrian

53*
Lament over the scarcity of saints
My heart is pained, my soul agonizes and my inner parts are torn! Where am I to find the tears, where am I to find the contrition and the sighs to rightly mourn our orphaned state and the paucity of sanctity among us?

I see, O Master, that Thou takest Thy saints, like choice gold, from the vain world to the resting-place of life.

Like a farmer who sees his fruits well ripened and prudently hastens to gather them that they might not be the least bit spoiled, so doest Thou also, O Savior, gather Thy chosen ones who have labored righteously.

Yet we, who are slothful and weak-willed, remain hardened, and our fruits never ripen; for we have not the resolve to labor without sparing ourselves, in order to ripen the good works and rightly be gathered into the storehouse of life.

Say: woe is me, alas, O soul, and weep; for thou hast been left an orphan so young by the blameless fathers and righteous ascetics. Where are our fathers? Where are the saints? Where are the vigilant? Where are the sober? Where are the humble? Where are the meek? Where are those who vow silence? Where are the abstinent? Where are those who with a contrite heart stood before the Lord in perfect prayer, like angels of God? They have left here to join our holy God with their lamps brightly burning.

Woe is us! What times are these in which we live? Into what sea of evil have we sailed? Our fathers have entered the harbor of life, that they might not see the sorrows and seductions that overcome us because of our sins. They are crowned, yet we slumber; we sleep and indulge in selfish pleasures.

O Lord, have pity on us! Make sober our thoughts which whirl about in vain. Grant us contrition and tears, that they might shed some light on the blindness of our hearts, and we might see that way in which our fathers walked when they followed Thee. Grant us the desire and the strength to follow in this same way, so that we too with them might receive the lot of those who are saved, to the glory of Thy Name.

*From A Spiritual Psalter: or Reflections on God excerpted by Bishop Theophan the Recluse from the works of our Holy Father Ephraim the Syrian.

While I would prefer to post joyous things during this Holy Season, perhaps we still need to consider our lives in the light of the urgent necessity of repentance.

Book Review by Cardinal Ruini

Camillo Cardinal Ruini addressed the Roman Clergy recently and, amongst other things, presented a powerful review and analysis of Pope Benedict's book Jesus of Nazareth. Sandro Magister reports on the talk and includes the text of the section dealing with the Holy Father's Christological masterpiece. Below are a few excerpts.

One question that Ruini examines is the political question. What sort of social and political structure might be derived from such a seemingly apolitical lesson of Jesus as the Sermon on the Mount?

Ruini's answer – in the light of the book by Benedict XVI – is that Jesus has freed political and social structures from any pretense of sacredness and of "divine right," entrusting them instead to human freedom.
...
In reality, it is only by beginning with God that one can understand man, and it is only when man lives in relationship with God that his life becomes authentic: this is the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount, which delineates, in its overturning of false values, a complete picture of authentic humanity.
...
With the parable of the good Samaritan, however, Jesus shows us that there is no question of establishing who is or is not my neighbor: the question concerns me, I must become neighbor, so that the other - anyone else, universally - matters as much to me as I do. The relevance of the parable is obvious. If we apply it to the dimensions of globalized society, the robbed and plundered populations of Africa – and not only of Africa – concern us intimately, and demand our attention from a twofold point of view: because through the events of our history, through our lifestyle, we have contributed and still contribute to despoiling them, and because, instead of giving them God, the God who is close to us in Jesus Christ, we have brought the cynicism of a world without God.

Click over to Chiesa and read the Cardinal's whole analysis. Then, click over to Ignatius Press or Amazon and order the book. A better Christmas present for the soul and mind will be hard to find.

Incidentally, I recently bought the book on disc and have been listening during the twice daily frustration of driving -- it is truly making the "rush" hour parking experience more fruitful!

Several Interesting Articles

Joseph Bottum in today's On the Square characterizes Robert P. George's Law and Moral Purpose in the current First Things as a tour de force. This is an understatement. Take my advise, read, learn and inwardly digest (as the Anglican's used to say).

Over at MercatorNet, Thomas Lickona writes on Character-based Sex Education in a very thought provoking article. And while you're visiting MercatorNet, you might also want to read Carolyn Moynihan's Focus on sex education: eyes on Manila from back in November.

And finally, Sandro Magister, over at Chisea, writes on the School of Bologna's attempt to co opt Pope Benedict's indictment of the hermeneutics of discontinuity as actually supporting their views on the Second Vatican Council. Fascinating...

Human Dignity and Health Care Ethics

Of the several themes one could note in reviewing your host's Byzantine rambles is a concern for human dignity. The very fact of God as our creator and redeemer reveals a concrete dignity to each human being. The assault on Catholicism specifically, Christianity in general, and religion in principle, entails a denigration of humanity in weakening appreciation (and even comprehension) of human dignity. A world without God is a world adrift.

This concern is not unique to yours truly, of course; it is central to the teachings of Pope Benedict, John Paul the Great, and a host of other Christian theologians (including Orthodox, as well as Catholic) and other important thinkers. Thus, I would direct your attention to MercatorNet , which reviews Professor Margaret Somerville's book The Ethical Imagination. Michael Cook, editor of MercatorNet and reviewer of the book, notes:

Unhappily, too few people acknowledge the deep moral seriousness of bioethical debates. Compared to global warming, the obesity epidemic, and Hollywood strikes, embryos and euthanasia are also-rans. Consequently, most of us go with the flow and end up supporting the whacky views of the professionals. But Somerville somehow manages to rouse people from their bioethical slumber and stirs their consciences. So her book deserves the close attention of anyone who treasures human dignity.

What makes Professor Somerville so hard for relativists and materialists to refute is that she does not ground her views in Faith. Her reasoned and unbiased arguments in recognizing the need for objective truth are grounded in observation and analysis, not in appeals to authority.

Her first concern is to establish that our pluralistic societies need to establish common ethical principles. But her "shared ethics" is not a least common denominator, or moral relativism in mufti. It means discovering what everyone agrees is inherently wrong, not just on the basis of reason, but also of imagination, spirituality, creativity and reverence for the "secular sacred". So "shared ethics", it turns out, is basically a right-brain approach to the traditional concept of "human nature".

While there will be much that the reader can ponder or disagree with in Professor Somerville's work, it deserves a place on the bookshelf.

Pro "Pro-Life Article"? In the LA Times?!

Yes it's true, sort of...

An article in the LA Time actually treats of the pro-life movement in a surprisingly even-handed manner. Below are some excerpts (in italics) and a few comments from your rambling host (in bold).

Abortion foes' strategy advances
An attempt to undermine Roe vs. Wade by amending constitutions to grant human status to embryos gains ground in several states.
By Nicholas Riccardi
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

The campaigns to grant "personhood" to fertilized eggs, giving them the same legal protections as human beings, come as the nation in January marks the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. During those three decades, abortion foes have succeeded in imposing a variety of restrictions, such as waiting periods and parental notification for minors. But there are still about 1.3 million abortions a year in the U.S.

In fact, "personhood" will not be granted, it will be recognized. To be a human being is to be a person. Personhood is an essential component of humanity. It is not equivalent to nor dependent upon I.Q., personality, race, ethnicity, gender, physical ability, size, height, weight or age.

...

Still, national abortion-rights groups consider the current wave of amendment campaigns a legitimate threat.

They worry that the language of the initiatives might mislead voters. In Colorado, for instance, voters will be asked whether the constitution should "include any human being from the moment of fertilization as 'person' . . . in those provisions of the Colorado Constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law." The amendment is being promoted by a group called Colorado for Equal Rights.

"This type of language may be scarier than an outright ban," said Belinda Bulger, deputy legal director for NARAL Pro-Choice America. "First, because it can be hard for people to understand what it's doing, and second, because it would be far further reaching."

This is an interesting concern. It might 'mislead' the the voters by defining a living human being as a living human being? Similar arguments were made during the slavery debates in the nineteenth century and during the civil rights debates of the last century.

...

Amendment supporters freely admit that giving a fertilized egg the legal status of a human being would affect a wide range of medical decisions. That's precisely the point, they say: "We're trying to establish some bioethical standards to move us into the 21st century," said Dan Becker, president of Georgia Right to Life.

...

"What is the potential impact on our court system of every fertilized egg having access to Colorado's court?" asked Toni Panetta, deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado.

Frightening, eh? That would mean equal protection under the law!

Read the entire article here.

Not All in the Mind...

MercatorNet posted an interesting article this weekend on the reality of spirituality versus the 'impulses of the brain' hypothesis. The article is an interview with Canadian researcher Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary, entitled, Challenging the prejudice of materialism.

Below are a few snippets; for the entire interview, click here.

...if you think ideas are circuitry, which ideas would you be prepared to die for? Materialism cannot ground a doctrine of human freedom that supports human dignity. At best it can say that people should be free to follow their inner drives, rather than restrained by social forces. Very well, but what follows? People who are willing to risk their lives to help Jews escape the Nazis are unlikely to risk their lives to defend the local Triple X Adult Video store. In a materialist setting, freedom starts to slip away because it is not worth serious risks. People are, by definition, not free to do or be anything significant. That was the message of Aldous Huxley’s prescient Brave New World.

Regarding the liberal/conservative brains, I gather from Sharon Begley’s blog that the test was done in Greenwich Village, a very liberal place. A conservative who lived there and wished to remain conservative would need to ignore many, many signals from the environment. I would be interested to know what would happen if they did the same test among people who had started and run successful small businesses in very conservative Utah. Success in small business requires one to pick up signals and adapt rapidly. The biggest challenge of social psychology research in general is the need to be quite clear about what you are measuring. And, as Begley notes, the brain is very plastic anyway.

Father Tadeusz on Moral Blindness

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk has yet another of his excellent reflections over at the Boston Pilot. Below are the opening paragraphs to whet your appetite.

Ethical blind spots

When I traveled to Auschwitz a few years ago, one question played over and over in my mind: Did they know? Did the German people know what was happening in this camp near their own border, in their own occupied territories? With the trains coming and going year after year, with the long lines of prisoners and the billowing smokestacks, did they just turn a blind eye to the atrocities? Had they become desensitized to the point that they could no longer see the carefully choreographed death operations nearby?

Some concentration camps, like the one in Dachau, were set in comfortable suburbs right inside Germany itself, and the townsfolk could stroll past them during their daily routine. The grass in those suburbs continued to grow as green as anywhere else, young people got married, babies were born, men went to work, and life went on.

Walking through a place like Dachau or Auschwitz, one wonders: could it ever happen again? Could a similar scenario play out today in middle-class America? Most would instinctively say “no” -- after all, we live in a more enlightened time and culture. A more perceptive eye, however, can discern troubling parallels. Nowhere are these parallels more evident than in the bioethical issues of our day. Our society, in fact, faces virtually the same temptation that Germany did: the temptation to normalize certain well-scripted death operations in the midst of polite society.

For the entire article, click here.

After all the Spin and Swaggering...

The Associated Press and the Washington Times are reporting that after all the political grandstanding and secularist spin, Missourians are not so keen on embryonic stem cell research as originally reported...

Missouri retreats from stem cell work

July 24, 2007

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Eight months ago, Missouri seemed well on its way to becoming a national leader in stem cell research.

Voters amended the state's constitution to protect stem cell research — even the controversial form using cells from human embryos. Actor Michael J. Fox appeared in TV ads, visibly shaking from Parkinson's disease as he sought votes for stem cell supporter Claire McCaskill in her bid for the U.S. Senate.

Now the spotlight is all but gone after a research institute and lawmakers withdrew financial support.

...

The setbacks began when conservative Missouri lawmakers stripped funding for some prominent life-sciences projects, including a $150 million research center at the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Then in June, a medical institute in Kansas City announced that it would halt its $300 million expansion project because of controversy over the research. The founders of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research had financed most of the $30 million campaign to pass the amendment.

Critics of embryonic stem cell research are opposed to the process because it requires embryos to be destroyed to harvest their cells.

...

Opponents were also encouraged when three teams of scientists announced last month that they had produced the equivalent of embryonic stem cells in mice without destroying embryos.

Two weeks later, President Bush vetoed a bill that would have permitted human embryonic research — a clear signal to like-minded Missourians who saw November's vote, 51 percent to 49 percent, as anything but a clear mandate.

....

Even so, the reality of the callous destruction of human life for "science" (AKA the utilitarian 'greater good') continues to cloaked in misleading terminology and specious arguments.

Again and again, let us pray to the Lord!

Bioethics and Society

In fact, the article referenced in this post is not about bioethics and society per se, however, it does speak to the ethical framework at the heart of the relativistic culture. It is by Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a Catholic priest, PhD and Director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia.

Father Tadeusz writes a monthly column called Making Sense out of Bioethics, and this article was his April 2007 submission. His style is crisp and to the point, and he helps us see the moral imperative at the center of many ethical issues, including, abortion, contraception, in vitro fertilization, euthanasia, and a host of others. Below is the opening paragraph to his column entry, Recapturing the Soul of Bioethics.

Modern bioethics seems to be going through a kind of identity crisis. With ethicists available for hire, drug companies and biotech firms have easy access to "experts" who can provide them with the veneer of respectability if they decide to head in the direction of unethical science. Erwin Chargaff, a pioneer in the field of biochemistry, once quipped that, "Bioethics didn't become an issue until ethics started being breached. Bioethics is an excuse to allow everything that is unethical." One common approach to allowing the unethical is to claim that, "We have already made certain choices, and now we really must move on to the next step - we must yield to the inexorable progress of science." Rather than examining and rejecting certain poor choices that may have been made in prior years, and trying to regain lost ground, bioethicists today unwittingly continue to grease the slippery slopes by their lack of courage in disavowing some of the unethical practices they have aided and abetted in the past.

Look for Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk's work in your diocesan newspaper, or bookmark his page at the NCBC website.