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Love of All Wisdom

~ Philosophy through multiple traditions

Love of All Wisdom

Tag Archives: abortion

Rights are instrumental

28 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by Amod Lele in Analytic Tradition, Early and Theravāda, Foundations of Ethics, Metaphilosophy, Modernized Buddhism, Politics

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

abortion, Amnesty International, Aristotle, David Hume, Jacques Maritain, Leif Wenar, rights, Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha), Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The key reason I have turned to MacIntyrean tradition-based inquiry is to make progress on the ethical inquiries that have proved very difficult to resolve. So far, too many of those inquiries have turned out to be cliffhangers. But by taking the approach I have, of identifying the collection of Aristotle, Buddha, Hume and perhaps historicism as at some level the best story so far, it is now possible for me to move closer to concrete conclusions of at least an early and preliminary kind.

I see this point as I reexamine a particular cliffhanger from last year. I posted a four–post series on human rights, and yet by the final post I had still not advanced a substantive theory about them. I said we need reasons for rights, but was not willing to say anything about what those reasons are. Continue reading →

Is “Buddhist ethics” Buddhist?

11 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by Amod Lele in Early and Theravāda, Foundations of Ethics, M.T.S.R., Metaphilosophy, Modernized Buddhism, Morality, Politics

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

abortion, David Chapman, Disengaged Buddhism, gender, modernity, Peter Harvey, Seth Zuihō Segall, United States

David Chapman has on his blog a provocative new series of posts about Buddhist ethics. You can get a strong sense of the tenor of these posts from their titles: “Buddhist ethics” is a fraud, “Buddhist ethics” is not Buddhist ethics, Traditional Buddhism has no ethical system, Buddhist morality is Medieval, and How Asian Buddhism imported Western ethics. Continue reading →

Pro-choice humility

09 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by Amod Lele in Certainty and Doubt, Humility, Morality, Politics, Roman Catholicism

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

abortion, Joe Biden, Katherine Ragsdale, law, Nicholas Shackel, relativism

A little while ago on Skholiast’s blog, Elisa Freschi pointed to an argument from Nicholas Shackel attacking the “pro-choice” position on abortion. Shackel objects deeply to the following claim from the US’s newly elected Catholic vice-president, Joe Biden:

I accept my church’s position on abortion…. Life begins at conception. That’s the church’s judgment. I accept it in my personal life. But I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews…I just refuse to impose that on others.

As Shackel notes, such a position is hardly unique to Biden. Forms of this position are very common; in many Western countries, they may even be the most common. It is the position one could reasonably call “anti-abortion but pro-choice”. And as far as Shackel is concerned, such a position is ignorant or worse. Continue reading →

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