FUSsa-talk Mailing List: Fwd: Robert P. George

[Robert Tapp (tappx001]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Robert Tapp <tappx001 [at] UMN.EDU>
> Date: December 20, 2009 11:19:18 AM CST
> To: Humanist Institute Discussion List <hidisc [at] humanistinstitute.org>
> 
> 
> David Kirkpatrick's long essay on this major conservative thinker deserves 
> close attention. George is the key figure in the Manhattan Declaration and a 
> key narrower of the Catholic focus on sexuality.
> 
>       
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/magazine/20george-t.html?ref=todayspaper
> 
> On the surface, his appeals to <reason> rather than faith and dogma will have 
> wide appeal. Humanists need to emphasize that he refers to a classical form 
> of reason that was the basis of philosophical idealism. (Using reason that 
> way, Anselm proved that God existed!). The <reasoning> that dominates 
> pragmatic thinking lost that absolutism and was more closely linked to 
> experience and feeling.
> 
> The classical assurances about nature and human nature gave way to modern 
> science. As we learned more about actual human beings, simplistic 
> generalizations about man/woman became more nuanced. George's philosophy 
> still sees anything other than heterosexuality as some kind of willed 
> deviance. Similarly, he holds contraception to be an actual unreasonable 
> denial of what he claims as the purpose of sexuality - procreation and 
> bonding. Those 2 issues may be the greatest popular shortcomings in this new 
> puritanism of the Christian Right.
> 
> On the philosophical level, the claim to be entering the public arena with 
> some kind of <universal reason> may be a tougher claim to unseat.
> 
> Bob
>