He seems genuinety nettted. shoutdn't it be Ms. Johnson and Professor singer, if I want to be format? Tocounter, I invoke the ceremonial tow-country usage, Attorney Johnson arid irofessor Singer, but pointout that Mr'/Ms. is the custom in American poliiical debat'es and might seem more normal in NewJersey- Atl right, he says. Ms./Mr. it wilt be
I think Singer distinguishing himself as a professor while referring to Harriet as "Ms. Johnson", is immature and does nothing but flex ego in a debate.
He responds to each point with ctear and lucid counterarguments. He proceeds with the assumptionthat I am one of the peopte who might rightty have been kitted at birth. He sticks to his guns,conceding just enough.to s.!ow himsetf open-minded and ftexibte. We go back and forth for 10-toniminutes. Even as I am horrified by what he says, and by the fact that I have been sucked into a civildiscussion of whether I ought to exist, I can't hetp being dazzted by his verbal faiitity. He is sorespectfut, so free of condescension, so focused on the argument, tnaf by the time tfre snow is over,l'm ryt exactty angry with him. Yes, I am shaking, furious, enraged -- but it's for the big room, 200 ofmy fettow Charlestonians who have tistened with potite interest, when in decency they sfloutd have runhirn out of town on a rait
This paragraph shows that "polite discourse" may not always be the peaceful calm scenario that many describe it as. The "respectful" nature of this argument may cause Johnson to be unable to express valid frustrations without scorn. This opens up the question of whether it is good to leave some discussions unsaid.
But Herb, with singer at his slde, is fast approaching. They are tooking at me, and Herb is tatkin
Johnson does a good job in this line of explaining how debates and discussions may be unfair to her due to her disability. She physically does not have the capability to walk away from this discussion
I admire yor for being out; most peopte woutd give up
The writing style in this text is extremely comical especially considering the grim nature of this text. Johnson uses this writing style perhaps to dismiss normal readers impression that she requires pity.
Shoutd I Have Been Kitted at Birth
Harriet McBryde Johnson does a good job of immediately making the primary focus of this text known. This question makes the examples and scenarios Singer describes be realized in the case of a living person.
When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed.
It is interesting how simply "happiness" is measured as if it were on a scale. While this passage does promote interesting points, it at times seems to undermine the complexity of our emotions, and their fluid natures.
The difference between killing disabled and normal infants lies not in any supposed right to life that the latter has and the former lacks, but in other considerations about killing. Most obviously there is the difference that often exists in the attitudes of the parents. The birth of a child is usually a happy event for the parents. They have, nowadays, often planned for the child. The mother has carried it for nine months. From birth, a natural affection begins to bind the parents to it. So one important reason why it is normally a terrible thing to kill an infant is the effect the killing will have on its parents.
This is an unfounded belief. While infanticide will surely have psychological repercussions on most parents, it has, as Marvin Harris describes in his book Cannibals and Kings, been used in many cultures throughout history. Infanticide may actually have positive effects in a given society. For example, the use of infanticide in order to keep population sizes low, so to not over-intensify and deplete natural resources, therefore allows a healthy society, and also perhaps physically healthier parents. While the subject is certainly challenging. It cannot simply be said that infanticide is a matter of only horrors.
not, that is, unless we are also prepared to count the value of rational self-conscious life as a reason against contraception and celi-bacy. No infant - disabled or not - has as strong a claim to life as beings capable of seeing themselves as distinct entities, ex-isting over time
There is a claim made in this statement that provokes me to elaborate on the Western notion that time is a rational, stagnant concept. What does anyone's concept of time and their "capability to see themselves as distinct entities" have to do with their claim to life. The idea that intellectual disabilities and the minds of children are not self conscious is a projection of an academic mindset that approaches childhood as a period of naiveness, when it actually far from it.
In other cases, people wanting to die may be unable to kill themselves. In 1973 George Zygmaniak was injured in a mo-torcycle accident near his home in New Jersey. He was taken to hospital, where he was found to be totally paralysed from the neck down. He was also in considerable pain. He told his doctor and his brother, Lester, that he did not want to live in this condition. He begged them both to kill him. Lester ques-tioned the doctor and hospital staff about George's prospects of recovery: he was told that they were nil. He then smuggled a gun into the hospital, and said to his brother: 'I am here to end your pain, George. Is it all right with you?' George, who was now unable to speak because of an operation to assist his breath-ing' nodded affirmatively. Lester shot him through the temple
This section of the chapter draws parallels to another book I have read entitled Johnny Got His Gun, in which a soldier is wounded in combat and left completely paralyzed, deaf and blind. He is kept alive in a hospital, and the book goes on to describe how our obsession with saving lives may ultimately do more harm in specific instances than good.
We accept that producing, say, high-quality pottery requires quite a few skills, such as spinning a pottery wheel and preparing and working a kiln. No matter the raw talent, one must have training if one is to achieve success. While philosophizing is not reducible to a set of activities, neither does it exist apart from them. We don’t simply sit thoughtfully in a chair and have papers and books spontaneously froth forth.
This is an example of how diminishing one subject may make another seem more important or enticing. While the author notes that pottery does require skill, they reduce the act of making pottery to spinning the clay on a wheel and using a kiln. They then go on to say that philosophy books are not simply spawned from sitting thoughtfully at a chair. I propose that pottery is not made simply from working a kiln either. Just like in the case of a philosopher, a potter proceeds through a set of demanding, indescribable mental processes before they are able to actually produce a physical object representative of their craft. Regardless of this, the phrasing and assertion of philosophy as an extremely abstract subject allows the authors claims to appear more substantiated.
nstead of taking food into their bodies to digest it there, flies emit acidic juices to dissolve the food externally and then suck up the liquefied refreshments. Similarly, my reading and understanding take place on the page, in the annotations I make. Were I forced to teach or work from a clean copy instead of one of my marked-up texts, I would be as intellectually handicapped as if I had been hit in the head with a baseball bat
This demonstrates that writing and knowledge are only valuable so long as we are able to digest them personally. Without the annotations and notes, a piece of text can be extremely intimidating and incomprehensible or overwhelming.