Abstract
Any argumentation analysis of a given text faces interpretation problems and has to respect a version of the principle of charity. At the same time, the analyst has to be furnished with a vivid commitment to the issues that are being discussed. In the present approach, this has led to a principle of reflected participation. This chapter presents an extensive analysis and argumentative assessment of a discussion about the status of the human embryo between two prominent intellectuals in Germany (Hubert Hüppe, Reinhard Merkel).
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Cf. Lumer (1990) (Trans. T.P.)
- 3.
Cf. Lumer (2003), 715–719 (Trans. T.P.)
- 4.
Cf. Lumer (1990), 10 (Trans. T.P.)
- 5.
- 6.
Cf. the three sample analyses that illustrate the Toulmin scheme in Kopperschmidt (1989), 123–142.
- 7.
- 8.
Cf. Chrismon (2001).
- 9.
Translator’s note: The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland) is the Constitution of Germany.
- 10.
In his habilitation thesis (cf. Merkel (2001)), Reinhard Merkel illustrates the problem of killing critically ill newborns with reference to numerous examples and argues for changing the criminal law accordingly. However, such changes are not, at least in part, legally binding yet. This could at least partially explain the fluctuations in Merkel’s argument (from a right or an obligation to a moral imperative to kill such children).
- 11.
This sophism feeds off the unsolved problem of the brain death criterion. A person whose brain functions have ceased to work is actually a dying person. Dying is a process and the person is “dead” only once the dying process has ended. That the brain death criterion is presently established in many countries is due to a certain acceptance of transplantation medicine, which has been advertised in campaigns and is still not very far-reaching; cf. Hoff and in der Schmitten (1995). Part of the confusion associated with “brain death” could be resolved if it is stated unmistakably that the term “brain death” does not constitute a new or a redefinition of human death, but that it is the designation for a criterion that is supposed to indicate when it is legal to remove organs and actively terminate the dying process. (It would be clearer and more honest, in my opinion, to refrain from talking about “brain death” entirely. After all, the death of these people is not a consequence of the “death” of their brains, but a consequence of the removal of organs.)
- 12.
“Our moral intuitions” are often enlisted to form the basis not only for denying that the EaE has the BRL, but even for denying that any fully grown-up human beings are invested with it if their sacrifice is found to be instrumental in saving many other fully grown-up human beings. Here are just a few superficially collected examples: Meggle (2000), 150, asks his readers if they would not sacrifice a human being in order to rescue 20, 50, 200, 1,000, etc., hostages. He goes on to say that he thinks such “reflective exercises” are terrible, but believes that they show “the purpose of ethics.” (Trans. T.P.) Schmücker (2000), 334, introduces a thought experiment that involves the inhabitants of a whole area who are under threat of devastation from terrorists in possession of a nuclear bomb. He confronts these inhabitants with a passersby who stands in the line of fire while the culprits are being shot and who must therefore, as a way of offsetting the lives of the many against the life of the one, be sacrificed in accordance with “our moral intuitions.” Merkel defends such abstruse “thought experiments,” cf. Merkel (2002), 97, because they make complex normative problems seem to be manageable. Yet this is not a compelling defense against the concern that such unreal scenarios do not simply reveal useful and stable moral intuitions, but that they can also rouse and shape any normative views almost at will. For a critique of such use of moral intuitions, cf. my essay: Wohlrapp (2004), in particular part IIB, “The “moral intuition” as an unfit aide.” Steinvorth, who was familiar with this critique, still does not shy away from presenting his readers with the idea that pushing a person in front of a train in order to rescue a group of children is in line with our “moral intuitions.” Cf. Steinvorth (2002), 153 ff. Frankly, to what degree these colleagues have understood the idea of an enlightened individual ethics has remained a mystery to me.
- 13.
In his book, Merkel (2002), 152–154, Merkel addresses Hüppe’s criticism of the example involving the burning laboratory once again, tries to refute it one more time, but argues in a circular fashion. I will discuss this attempt in detail in Chap. 10.2.
- 14.
This is reminiscent of Hwang Woo-suk, the world-acclaimed South Korean genetic engineer, who had allegedly cloned 11 stem cell lines and seemed to be just a few steps away from therapeutic cloning. In January 2006, his records turned out to be fraudulent. This is particularly relevant for estimating the chances of these techniques because Hwang was not a lonely bookworm who made wild claims to a world that had such an urgent desire for positive results that it believed him. Instead, he had published his findings along with 24 coauthors in internationally renowned professional journals, where they went through a process of peer review which is supposed to ensure the quality of the submitted articles. In that respect, the discovery of these forgeries says a lot about the scientific and publishing operations of this industry.
- 15.
A year after this conversation took place, Reinhard Merkel published a study in which he brilliantly and meticulously analyzes the contradictory character of the abortion ruling of 1993. Cf. Merkel (2002), 34–116.
- 16.
It is possible that Merkel hopes to lend his bold theses more credibility by employing them on the grounds of political correctness.
- 17.
This position is represented, for example, by Norbert Hoerster in Hoerster (1991).
- 18.
Cf., again, the continuation of this dispute, which I will discuss in Chap. 10.2.
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Wohlrapp, H.R. (2014). Argument Analysis. In: The Concept of Argument. Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8762-8_8
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