davidgillon | Linkspam: Unspeakable Conversations (Reply)

"He insists he doesn't want to kill me. He simply thinks it would have been better, all things considered, to have given my parents the option of killing the baby I once was, and to let other parents kill similar babies as they come along and thereby avoid the suffering that comes with lives like mine "

It's 12 years old, but I'd somehow never seen this article before as Disability Rights activist Harriet McBryde Johnson from the US branch of Not Dead Yet takes on arch-eugenicist Professor Peter Singer in his own den at Princeton. It's interesting to note that even Singer, supposedly one of the most brilliant philosophers of his generation, succumbs to the intellectual laziness of categorising opposition to his views as being solely on a religious basis, and imagery of disability Johnson categorises as 'right out of the telethon', never mind the petty argument in which he tries to insist that she be addressed as Ms, while he be addressed as Professor. I think it's brilliantly well done, but I do think she lets Singer off too easily at the end when deciding he's ignorant, rather than evil. Singer's position starts in ignorance, but in refusing to rise above his ignorance, and in seeking to actively promote his views he crosses the line into being actively evil. (It's also bad science, because the entire structure is built on the false premise a disabled life is a worthless one, and we keep telling him that's not so, but he won't listen).