Biology, "Legitimate" Rape, and the Morality of Abortion

As you've probably heard, the GOP has officially taken a strong stance against the moral permissibility of abortion.  The party's position is that a woman should not be able to abort a fetus, even if the fetus is the product of rape or incest. 

Representative Akin's comments have received quite a bit of attention recently.  In discussing pregnancy resulting from rape, he remarked: “It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”  

The majority of the controversy over Akin's comments revolve around: (a) biology and whether a raped woman is more or less likely to get pregnant than a woman that engages in "normal" intercourse; and (b) his use of the phrase 'legitimate'.  I don't think either of these is where oppenents should really direct their ire.

Regarding (a), it appears that Akin is incorrect about his biological claim.  A number of professional medical associations have disputed his remarks.  But, even if he's right, I don't see why this is relevant to the discussion.  Suppose that it is extremely unlikely that a woman becomes pregnant after rape.  Imagine that merely 1% of cases of rape result in pregnancy and the chances of getting pregnant from "normal" intercourse is significantly greater than this.  What's the argument that gets one from this (dubious) biological point to the conclusion that it is wrong for a woman to abort a fetus after being raped?  I don't see why the probabilities matter here.  

Regarding (b), I can certainly see why people think that Akin is implying that some (many?) cases of purported rape are not legitimate (where this is read:  actual cases of rape).  If this is Akin's position, there may be cause to be upset.  And we can have a very interesting discussion about what counts as rape and what exactly it is to give consent.  But, again, I don't see anything in what Akin says that has anything to do with whether women that have been raped and become pregnant ought to be allowed to have abortions.  And that's the issue at hand.  That's a major part of the official platform of the GOP.   A quick look at the GOP website and interviews with the major players in the Republican Party yields little by way of actual arguments for this controversial position. 

We need to engage in a debate about the issue and this requires wrestling with premises that are actually relevant.  Unfortunately, it seems the bulk of politicians (on both sides of the aisle) and members of the media (liberal and conservative alike) are guilty of failing to do this. This, I think, is deserving of our ire.  

Grad Conference Announcement

We invite graduate students to submit papers to the Sixth Annual Graduate
Conference in Philosophy co-hosted by Arché, Philosophical Research Centre
for Logic, Language, Metaphysics and Epistemology, and CSMN, Centre for the
Study of Mind in Nature. Papers should be no longer than 4,200 words, and
should include an abstract of no more than 200 words. Papers that make a
contribution to contemporary debates in philosophy and that focus on the
research interests of Arché and CSMN are particularly welcome.

Keynote speakers: John Hawthorne, Delia Graff Fara

Deadline for submissions: September 1st, 2012.

Notification of acceptance by 1st October.

The conference will be held November 17th/18th 2012 at the, University of Oslo, Norway.

ACCOMMODATION AND TRAVEL EXPENSES FOR ALL SPEAKERS WILL BE COVERED, and all
talks will have a respondent from an Arche or CSMN faculty member.

Please visit the conference websight: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/acgc/

Conference for Grad Students

Virginia Tech is now accepting submissions for the 9th annual Virginia Tech Graduate Philosophy Conference. This year’s conference will be on Topics in Philosophy of Science and will be held on November 2-3, 2012. The keynote address will be given by Anjan Chakravartty (Notre Dame) and the faculty address will be given by Benjamin Jantzen (Virginia Tech). 

Submissions must be a maximum of 3500 words and suitable for a 25-minute presentation. Papers must be prepared for blind review and sent as PDF or DOC attachments with no identification of authors or affiliations. Please include a separate cover sheet with title, author name(s), 150-200 word abstract, institutional affiliation, e-mail address, and phone number. All submissions must be sent to vt.gradphilclub@gmail.com by September 6, 2012. 

Getting Settled

I'm now beginning to get settled into Madison and am having fun exploring the area.  My son, Samuel, is two-months-old and has been keeping me quite busy (and entertained).  So it will be another few weeks before I'm able to devote some attention to this blog.  Thanks for your patience!

Rationality and Thinking Fast vs. Slow

I just listened to an interview with Daniel Kahneman, the author of Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow.  He made a remark about an interesting case.  Suppose that a person is informed that a loved one needs immediate surgery in order to save her life, and that this surgery has a 99% success rate (i.e., only 1% of patients do not survive the surgery).  Kahneman suggests that this is one of many cases in which people behave irrationally.  Most people, he suggests, would be very nervous and fearful that the person they love would die.  He points out that this is irrational because there is but a very small percentage of people that do not survive the surgery.  This verdict doesn't seem right to me.  To call such people irrational or to say that such emotions aren't apt for the situation strikes me as a mistake.  It seems to me that because the stakes or so high (a person's life is on the line) the 1% chance is rather significant.  If the situation involved something with lower stakes, then I'd be prepared to say of such a person that she were irrational or not appreciating the statistical facts in forming her beliefs, emotions, etc.  Consider a different case:  Suppose that I have a cold and my physician says that such-and-such a treatment has a 99% chance of substantially reducing my symptoms and a 1% chance of exacerbating them. In this sort of case, it seems right to say that I would be irrational in believing that my condition would get worse upon taking the medication.  It would be strange for me to feel afraid of taking it.  It seems to me that the statistics matter and must inform our beliefs, guide our emotions, etc.  But it also seems understandable that the stakes/severity of the possible consequences matter and can help explain why a person might think or feel certain things; indeed, such considerations might even justify what would otherwise be a bad inference/ill-formed reaction. 

What do you think of all this? 

(I should confess that I haven't read his book yet.  Maybe he offers some replies to my worry.  It's on my list for summer reading and hope to get to it soon.)

Resources?

I'm slowly adding links with resources for students (both undergraduate and graduate) to the side-bars of this blog.  If you know of any particularly good pages, please let me know.

Does eating a healthy diet cost more?

A number of studies about the cost of food and nutrition have been conducted recently.  A recent article in the Huffington Post discussed some interesting results:

"The government says it all depends on how you measure the price. If you compare the price per calorie – as some previous researchers have done – then higher-calorie pastries and processed snacks might seem like a bargain compared with fruits and vegetables. 

But comparing the cost of foods by weight or portion size shows that grains, vegetables, fruit and dairy foods are less expensive than most meats or foods high in saturated fat, added sugars or salt."

Frequency of posts

As you might imagine, the frequency at which I'll be posting will likely taper a bit over the summer.  I'm in the midst of preparing for a move to Wisconsin and my wife will be having our first child any week now.  I will post as often as I'm able and will likely start posting more regularly in August when I get settled in Madison. 

Training in Causal Reasoning

I'm working on a paper with my father and one of his colleagues.  Here's an abstract of the paper:

Recent calls for competency-based training and credentialing of mental health professionals focus heavily on instilling knowledge and skills needed for conducting evidence-based assessment and treatment. We propose the content of a companion training curriculum in clinical decision-making that reflects the pervasive and indispensable role of causal reasoning in clinical practice. Module contents of the proposed curriculum include review and discussion of: (1) domains in which practitioners are routinely required to make and evaluate causal inferences; (2) definitions of key concepts related to causality; (3) common errors in causal reasoning; (4) guidelines for evaluating the generalizability and applicability of causal findings in empirical studies to specific clients; (5) guidelines for formulating and evaluating working theories of the origin and/or maintenance of client presenting problems, especially as these pertain to the need for further assessment and treatment planning; and (6) methods for planning, targeting, and evaluating interventions. These modules are designed to help mental health practitioners employ causal modeling to enhance case conceptualization, develop intervention objectives, and prioritize and target foci of interventions that utilize evidence-based treatments or practice elements. Practitioners who use causal modeling diagrams to guide clinical practice are in effect deliberately generating causal hypotheses, implementing causal experiments, and evaluating outcomes as they monitor client responses to intervention. Causal reasoning competencies may be enhanced through the use of causal modeling diagrams, application of causal modeling diagrams to clinical case examples, problem-based learning strategies, and the Socratic method of systematic questioning.

I'm not aware of much work by philosophers having to do with training folks in causal reasoning (other than in the form of logic textbooks).  If anyone is aware of work by philosophers having to do with the above, I'd be keen on reading it.  Please send me references via email or post a comment on this post.

Thanks!