04.12
I was reading a blog post just now and got linked over to an article on a site called grist.org where this lady is talking about her decision not to have children. Evidently, grist.org is primarily an environmentalism website just judging from the headlines I skimmed through. So, her angle in the article was that not having kids is the environmentally friendly thing to do. In fact, she goes further, and calls being childless the most “humane” thing to do:
I come here before you today to make the same proclamation—with a twist. I am thoroughly delighted by the fact that the most humane thing for me to do is to have no children at all.
The most interesting thing to me in this quote is not the analysis of her environmentalism, but how her argument doesn’t mesh with her rhetoric. They are in conflict. She says, “…the most humane thing for me to do is to have no children at all.” I see this type of language all of the time. If you think about what she’s saying, it’s completely dishonest. There is an implied “given this condition” that is missing from her statement. It should read like this:
- The most humane thing for me to do, given the current toll that overpopulation is taking on our environment, is to have no children at all.
That’s what she’s actually saying. Now, the problem is that if there really is world-wide destructive overpopulation going on in the world, how can it be only morally binding on one person? Put another way: if the conditions she describes are real enough to be morally binding on her, then they are, by definition, morally binding on the rest of us also. But, of course, she goes to great lengths at the very beginning of the article to make it known that if you do indeed choose to participate in more world destruction by having children then she is just fine with that. Huh?!
She puts it this way:
Let me get this out of the way up front: I like kids—many of them, anyway. Some of my best friends, as they say, are parents. I bear no ill will to procreators, past, present, and prospective. I claim no moral or ethical high ground.
Then I have to ask, why the crap did she write a 2000 word article on the humane obligation of being childless if she actually doesn’t care about being childless. That’s relativism language. But, not in the formal sense. Instead, it’s relativism being employed as it most commonly is: as a simple linguistic tactic, to enable the writer to smuggle morality in the back door in a non-offensive way. She’s not a relativist any more than anyone else is. Real, formal relativism is self-refuting and, as such, has been mostly discarded from the public discussion. Instead, it’s been replaced by this type of rhetorical relativism, that let’s the game continue to be played by hiding some of the premises. But it’s still just as self-refuting.
It’s her use of the word “humane” that makes the whole phrase turn. The word “humane” defines what is morally acceptable treatment of our fellow man. Therefore, when she says that childlessness is the only “humane” thing for her to do, it’s the same thing as saying that having kids would be inhumane. Thus, immoral. And, an action that is inhumane is always inhumane, no matter who does it. It’s a concrete condition. If it’s true that it’s inhumane for her to have children because it contributes to overpopulation, then the same conditions apply to me. My children are an inhumane treatment to my fellow man. There is no difference, since the conditions she gives are true for all people.
The relativism becomes obvious when you reformulate her thesis into an easier to follow syllogism. Like this:
- Overpopulation is destroying the environment.
- Having children is the cause of overpopulation.
- Therefore, it’s only immoral when I have children.
Of course, this is an absurd argument. If premise A and premise B are valid, then in order for the argument to be sound, the conclusion(C) should be something like: “Therefore, it’s immoral for people to have more children than is required for a stable, low population rate.” But, of course, a statement like that has all sorts of problems. It implies an Orwellian procreation management authority that I’m sure she would rather avoid getting in to. Not to mention the fact that it’s simply impossible to achieve something like that without horrible human rights abuses, such as forced abortions and such. Thus, she employs a little relativism to soften the blow of what she’s saying, yet still get across an air of moral imperative.
I am seeing this all the time lately. I’ll give you another example of it next time.
