Schedule for Panels -- February 2009

Thursday 2/5 --
12:00 -- Madeline Smith Gibbs -- Mike Hanas, Susan Kincaid
3:15 -- Philip Mayer -- Bryce Little, Robert Bittle

Friday 2/6 --
7:30 -- Samantha Strom -- Mike Hanas, Matthew Whelan
12:00 -- Hannah Strom -- Sherri Moore-Mott, Matthew Whelan
3:15 -- Susannah Butters -- Mike Hanas, Eric Downing

Monday 2/9 --
12:00 -- Georgia Valentine -- Jon Lepofsky, Nancy Daukas
3:15 -- Siobhan McGowan -- Jon Lepofsky, Nancy Daukas

Tuesday 2/10 --
9:00 -- Will Warasila -- Rob Lavelle, Lynn York

Wednesday 2/11 --
7:30 -- Dru Marion -- Mike Hanas, Annie Dwyer
10:30 -- Tristan Green -- Matt Drake, John McGowan
12:00 -- Erin Matchinske-Brehmer -- Bob Druhan, Megan Matchinske

Thursday 2/12 --
12:00 -- Ben Harris -- Mike Hanas, Bill Nicholson
3:15 -- Kirsten Bahnson -- Renee Prillaman, Jon Lepofsky

Homework for Friday 1/23

So, for Friday, please read the following article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/us/19prop8.html?_r=1&ref=us

For background on Prop 8 go to:
http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/title-sum/prop8-title-sum.htm

If you really don't know anything about Prop 8, please use the web and look it up in a bit of detail as well.

Try to think of ALL of the public/private questions this article (and Prop 8 itself) raise. Should we be allowed to donate private money to a public cause? (This one has campaign finance implications too). Should we expect the public to conform to our beliefs? And so on.... this article raises so many more. This will be the focus of our conversation, but the rest of this is important too.

Now, read this:
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/opinion/08brooks.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=david%20brooks%20private%20public&st=cse

This article was written in the winter of 2007-- what was happening in the country? (the troop surge in Iraq was being debated in the House and Senate during the weeks preceding this article).

I'd like to talk about the assertions that Brooks makes about politics and to connect these to our current government and structures of power. Less than two years later, some of this seems outdated, does Brooks' argument change given what you know to be the outcome of the Election of 2008 (Brooks for those of you who don't know is a known conservative author)? Please think about the situation of public/private both in the context that this was written and in the implications it might have for today.

And lastly, please just read this one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/opinion/30brooks.html?scp=4&sq=david%20brooks%20private%20public&st=cse

(This one is from 10/30/07) What do you think about this "happiness gap"? Given the events of the past year, is any of this still relevant? Does our definition of the boundary between the public and the private shift as the political situation changes? Should it?

I plan on keeping my private, thank you very much.

I agree more with Sartre’s philosophy of the formation of the individual than I do with Foucault’s conceptions on this subject. Foucault’s philosophy is based on the idea that an individual’s subjectivity is defined not by the individual himself, but by the relationships that the individual is a part of. Within this philosophy, each individual is not merely subject to discourse within a public network, but each individual as a subject is produced based on the relationships that the individual participates in within that public realm. It is through these relationships that an individual forms a unique identity – an idea not unlike Hegel’s concept of sublation. Foucault believes that throughout an individual’s life, their formation of their own identity is brought about by the relationships that are the most meaningful, make the most sense, or are most important. John Wilkes Booth is not defined as an individual based on his relationship to his local grocer, but instead is recognized for killing one of the most influential presidents in American History simply because of the natures of both relationships.
Sartre’s philosophy, however, is deeply rooted in the ability of the individual to create an identity for him or herself. Whether or not an individual is conscious of the significance of his of her actions, each thing a person does is a choice that will ultimately help define that person as an individual. Some choices that we make impact our identity more than others, and although an identity would be useless without the existence of another to contrast it with, an individual’s identity can never exist in a state where it cannot be altered by the will of the individual alone.
Sartre’s philosophy empowers the private abilities of an individual, enabling a person to form their own identity, their own subjectivity, their own self. However, the identity means nothing without the recognition of another. In this way, Sartre’s philosophy leaves not just room for a public realm, but a necessary role to be played by other individuals within a society. Foucault, however, seems to have generated a philosophy that utilizes the relationships of the public, while minimizing the role of the private into nonexistence. Individuals in Foucault’s philosophy of subjectivity have no use for a private sphere, and in philosophy, what use is something that has no purpose? The private realm is a very real thing that has, does, and needs to exist, and for this reason, I like Sartre.

Foucault, fo' sho

“Humanity will reach maturity when it is no longer required to obey,” (Foucault, 132P) Foucault paraphrases Kant. While Kant seemed to mean this literally (i.e. when humanity no longer blindly follows authority), Foucault may have seen this as the even less achievable goal of breaking out of the social institutions that, to a large extent, define us. Foucault saw himself as a historian of ideas and social structure; like Marx, he saw the individual as product of his time and place, emphasizing the role of the public in private lives.

Jean-Paul Sartre, in contrast, believed that humans are “condemned to be free”. As long as we are alive, he would argue, we are choosing. The anti-Semite makes the choice to “live on the plane of passion” (Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, 18) instead of using his reason. Is hate really such a conscious choice? I believe that hate’s object and intensity is dependent on its environment. My views on subjectivity more closely align with Foucault’s.

In Care of the Self, Foucault gives the example of how attitudes towards sexuality have changed with the rise of Christianity. He cites a “movement of ideas … that opposed current laxity” (Foucault, Care of Self, 40). Whether this movement was caused by individuals or by external forces (as he goes on to discuss) is almost irrelevant. As the public views on sexuality changed, so did individuals’. A new norm was created and everyone was affected by it.

Even Foucault would agree that we have choices within our social structure. However, we do not have the limitless array of choices suggested by Sartre. Do you really think that someone growing up in Nazi Germany, surrounded anti-Semites, could have the same chance of liking Jewish people as anyone else?

Sartre and Foucault

Foucault thought that anything you believed, any opinion that you had, was taking a stand. To him there was no idle opinion, everything that you said created your subjectivity. Sartre believed that there are two kinds of men, the ones that sought for truth, and those such as the Anti-Semite, who took the easy way out and stuck to the herd. He believed that it was a choice to see the world as an Anti-Semite, a choice to not be free and not to learn. Sartre’s description of Anti-Semites painted them as objective beings, they hid in the masses and clung to safe opinions. To him to be subjective was to be a man of truth, to have the ability to be open and uncertain about one’s opinions, to be constantly changing.
I agree with Sartre, one truly becomes their own person when one chooses to think for himself. When a child is young he repeats whatever he has been told, trusting blindly, and then he slowly begins to observe phenomenons for himself, and that it is when he develops into his own person. It is possible for a person to have an opinion that he does not own and does not truly mean, unlike Foucault’s theory. If a person’s mind is too primitive to wake up and understand what they are saying and how to think then what they say is not part of their subjectivity. If a person doesn’t have their own opinions then they are not even subjective.
Foucault believed that privacy emerged at a place and time. He discussed how in The Care of the Self in the first and second centuries an emphasis was placed on using modesty to separate oneself from the herd. The focus on the self created a realm of privacy and a separation from oneself from society. Foucault followed Marx’s theory that everyone should be seen through a historical lens, and by going all the way back to the first centuries, Foucault put a date on privacy that will be at least a starting point for future philosophers.
Sartre described the Anti-Semites as choosing to place themselves in a herd, giving away their private reason, and not contributing to a public sphere of knowledge. Without the true existences of their subjectivities they’re private realms were insignificant, there is not much about these men that is below the surface. Sartre puts public and private in a historical sense by showing the inner workings of the Anti-Semites, showing how they think and why they choose to hide themselves amongst a crowd. Sartre’s work does not just denounce or support these men, but instead enlightens the reader on the reasons behind their choice to give up their private sphere and subjectivity.

Blog Post for Tuesday 1/20

Considering the ideas of Foucault and Sartre, with whom do you agree regarding conceptions of subjectivity and why? How does the difference between these two thinkers impact the relationship between the private and the public?

-- We realize that several of you will be gone for inauguration. Each group is still responsible for one post to this assignment. Every student needs to read all three posts as we will shake up the content of the groups on Tuesday given who is in attendance. Be prepared to discuss all three responses to this assignment.

Email addresses for panels (if you want them)

I have been asked for these enough that I thought I would make them more available. Feel free to ignore this email if your panelists have been set.

Eric Downing (@UNC -- Nietzsche class) -- edowning "at" email.unc.edu
John McGowan (@ UNC -- Arendt class) -- jpm "at" email.unc.edu
Nancy Daukas (@ Guilford -- Mill and Marx class) -- ndaukas "at" guilford.edu

Assigned Philosophers for Group Notes

Below are the philosopher assignments. Please have them at school by Friday, January 23.
Your research should include:
-Detailed notes pertaining to the questions that we have to answer in our papers. Maybe organize everything under the the 4 questions as headings?
-Important quotes that you consider to be useful (with proper citation information so others can find the quotes in context).
-Summaries of your philosopher's readings, in case people want to do more research. Make sure you use your philosopher's handouts as well.
-13 photocopies! Everyone needs this information, so make sure you do your part to provide them with it. Size 11 font, double-sided copies and small margins save paper.

Last time we turned these papers in, Elise and Jamie said that our papers pretty much fall into two categories: papers about enlightenment, and papers about identity. Please cover both in your notes for everyone.

Dru: Marx
Georgia: Plato
Kirsten: Hegel
Susannah: Nietzsche
Will: Kant

Ben: Locke
Erin: Freud
Hannah: Foucoult
Madeline: Mill
Philip: Rawls/Sarte
Samantha: Habermas, Machiavelli, More
Siobhan: Arendt, Rousseau
Tristan: Kierkegaard
*Nobody has been assigned to Rorty so far.

Personal Genome Project

Controversy is at the heart of the Personal Genome Project. Initiated in 2005, the PGP was created by scientists responsible for the construction of the Human Genome Project. The broad purpose of the PGP is to expand the general knowledge base of medical engineers and doctors by providing a common database ideally encompassing the genome sequence of all individuals. By exploring the results different factors may have on individuals with psychological or physical conditions, medical treatment has the potential to become much more efficient and effective and; in a heartbeat a doctor treating a patient with sickle cell anemia, for example, could see what doctors all over the world were using with their own patients suffering from sickle cell anemia, including which methods worked best or what specific symptoms tended to represent. This wealth of information could also lead to a surge in medical research discoveries. The benefits of having such an open system are both obvious and numerous. Despite the help it might provide, we have constructed a regrettable and seemingly insurmountable paradox in society. A growing understanding of health and promising medical advancements beg for information that can only be derived from what an individual deems his private knowledge. Because of the assumed risk of falling victim to social stigmas, and a sense of artificially instated entitlement towards privacy, people are not willing to publicize very valuable information. In a situation like the PGP, where the outcome could provide such advancement in knowledge so critical, people must let go of their notions of private en mass. One individual cannot step too far away from his sense of privacy in the social system at hand without making himself subject to detrimental judgment from the rest of society. Everyone must participate or that one’s actions elicit stark and unfair consequences. If all people are part of the system and share the risk, the sacrifice becomes diluted until it didn’t exist, as we would develop a collective investment in keeping information safe, usable, and valued. For something like the Personal Genome Project, legislature must mandate everyone to contribute in order to protect the individuals who are a part of it, and to ensure that the information is best used.

1st Paragraph

In 1981 a new disease was discovered, little did they know at that time how big of an issue this disease would become. At first little was known about this disease, many names were thrown around, but eventually they came up with AIDS, (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). Throughout the 80’s AIDS started to become a larger health issue. Many famous people in America were infected and Global awareness of the disease started to rise, but it had not been caught soon enough. The disease was soon recognized as a global health issue, and is still considered just as prominent an issue today. As a result of this, in 2003, George W. Bush instated PEPFAR (Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). Bush said that “PEPFAR is the largest international commitment in history by any nation to combat a single disease.” Many people have benefited from PEPFAR, as nearly 9.7 million people affected by HIV/AIDS have received “compassionate care” as a result of PEPFAR. However, critics of PEPFAR say that parts of the plan are controversial and make the plan ineffective. The critics do not criticize the overall goal of the program, just the means and motivation of parts of the program.

Politicians

Every other November and all throughout the election season, millions of Americans struggle with questions of public and private. Many struggle with what factors they should take into account when voting for public officials or judging the performance of politicians. Should the physical health of a politician be a factor? Should a personal affair ruin an effective politician’s legacy or career? Should the personal views or values of a public official get more publicity than his platform? These are all important and complicated questions that have no real right answer. For the purposes of this essay, we will deal with only the politician himself and his individual decisions, not his family or associations as the scope must stay concise. The private will be defined as the politician’s very closest private matters, not family or co-workers. The public will be defined as the voters and general public, including the media. Not surprisingly, Americans have many different views on the issue of privacy regarding politicians. Time and time again, the private matters of elected officials manage to find their way into the public and change everything. Many Americans seem to worry that the private troubles of politicians may influence public policy—something that is often a very real possibility. The troubles of elected officials often serve as distractions and obstacles that detract from both the message and effectiveness of a politician. By running for office does a politician forfeit his privacy? To this question there seems only one answer: all is fair in love, war and politics. No matter how compartmentalized a politician may be, there will always be a part of the private that slips into either the public or the public policy of the politician; in both cases the effectiveness and message of the public official are greatly affected. If the private is always taken into the public, then there will be no influence on the effectiveness or message. The personal and private matters—things such as health, personal views, and choices—of a public official have every right to be broadcast in the public sphere because they may have consequences for the public at large.

HIV Status

In the case of the disclosure of a person’s HIV status, the choice between the public good and the person’s private life is one of life and death. Once a person has contracted the virus, because the virus is primarily transmitted sexually, his previously private sex life plays an important role in the well-being of the public. “In relation to an individual, the public sphere … [is] a place completely out side of everything in the individual’s private sphere. A person’s private sphere is where they keep and maintain their possessions.” (1) Where the two spheres interact is in a society. Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) has lead to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), which has been the cause of death of 565,927 United States citizens through 2006. (2) While doctors and scientists continue to search for a cure or vaccine for the virus, the only thing that anyone can do to keep his fellow citizens alive is prevent the virus from spreading. For some HIV-positive people, disclosure of their status can have severe consequences within their family and friends, because there is a negative stigma that goes with having the virus. Plato, Rousseau, and Locke all believed in the importance of the public good, and each saw the different levels on which the public good required support. If a person is HIV-positive, his responsibility to the public must be greater than his desire to preserve his private life, and at the same time, the public, to avoid the extinction of society, needs to be accepting of him so that he will not feel afraid to disclose his status.

(1): Valentine, Georgia. “Foundation for the Synthesis of 21st Century Public and Private.” p. 1
(2): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm#ddaids. November 14, 2008.

Cloning

Cloning is a relatively new science being developed as a way to explore human creation and as a way to further medical science. In the introduction of Understanding Cloning, William E. Haseltine says "to clone: to reproduce, by human hand, identical copies of a living organism" (Haseltine, vii). So far, rabbits, rats, mice, sheep, and dogs have been successfully cloned but there is yet to be a human clone. Scientists argue that if cloning could be used for organs or used to direct stem cells in the body to fight off cancers and disease, it could be a monumental change in modern science for the better (Levine, 118-9). In science, one discovery leads to another. Cloning part of the human body for organ donation could eventually lead to cloning a complete human being. Once a human is cloned who would be able to put a stop to further experimentation and research? For now, at least, there is a general consensus that cloning a human being is far too dangerous and that the science is not developed enough to experiment with humans (Levine, 118). Those who argue in favor of human cloning justify their reasoning by explaining that cloning is a way for parents who cannot have children to have a new option, or for devastated parents who lose a child to obtain a new one based off their former child. These people in favor of cloning classify it as a private situation and a private decision. They argue that individuals can make a private decision to clone. Truthfully, however, cloning cannot be confined to only the private; clones would affect the public sphere raising questions of nature versus nurture, identity, and human rights.

-Siobhan.. not Ben.

Genetic Engineering

In the near future, scientists will have the power to create a new species of human beings. Doctors will be able to genetically engineer babies through a mix of cloning and gene infusion. Many people are afraid of both the ethical and scientific problems that this new technology poses. Currently, the science is faulty and confused; doctors do not know enough about human genes. Scientists have been successful genetically engineering mice, but so far there is only fifty percent survival rate (Bohlin). The scientific problems can all be fixed with time and practice, it is the ethical problems around the public and private realms that need to be solved. The private realm is defined as a scale that is the most intimate when one person is involved, and gets more public with each additional person. So far human genes and DNA have been kept private, part of one’s own body that only the owner has the right to tamper with. Genetic engineering would take everyone’s genes and make them public; available to all who want to make perfect children. This may seem like a drastic step for humanity, but ultimately it will be better for all of society. As long as genetic engineering is available to everyone and not just a few private individuals, the whole public will benefit. The sharing of genes that create intelligence and health will help our society to become more enlightened, as Mill and Kant theorized. People need to put their community before themselves and give up their private DNA in order to create genetic engineering, a science that can leads towards public enlightenment.

The Draft

Military service is riddled with promises of honor, duty and self-sacrifice. This, however, is not always the reason an individual signs up for the military. Today, with joining the military as a private choice, military recruitment efforts target low-income and minority individuals who have few alternative options. The appropriation of duty is disproportionately distributed to less advantaged citizens. The draft should be reinstated as to equally distribute civic duty. The citizens of the United States are collectively responsible for the security of the country and military service is a public duty that should be shared by all. If the draft were re-established, the citizens of the United States would be together joined to the actions of their county, moving beyond the now private choice to join the military. With the entire public directly affected by the war, the government will ideally reevaluate its war efforts and their consequences. The US should reinstate the draft to reconnect its citizens the actions of the country and form a stronger public body.

Megan's Law

Megan’s Law is a subsection of the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children And Sexually Violent Registration Act of 1994. Megan’s Law mandates that anyone convicted of a crime that violates the Jacob Wetterling Act must have information such as name, address, nature of crime, and incarceration date presented to the public within the vicinity of the convict’s residence, as well as in a public online database. (U.S. Code Collection, Cornell University Law Online). Paralleling this revocation of private rights, other criminals may face legal consequences such as temporary imprisonment and/or frequent contact with an assigned parole officer after a jail sentence has been served. However, persons convicted of a crime that violates the Jacob Wetterling Act face legal and social consequences far more severe than those of another criminal that served a prison sentence of the same length. Because so many legal and social structures exist to prohibit a person from becoming a sex offender, the conditions of Megan’s Law are justified as an ethical consequence to any and all violations of the Jacob Wetterling Act.

Female Genital Mutilation

(I really shouldn't have to say this, but this is not what I actually believe.)

FGM: How can we apply private moral code to the public?

Female genital mutilation (FGM) affects an estimated 100 million girls and women worldwide and is thought to be a flagrant human rights violation and form of discrimination by most of the Western world. In the cultures where it is practiced, however, it is seen as a necessary cultural or religious rite.¹ How, if at all, can these two viewpoints be reconciled? Is rule by majority justified in the international arena? All legitimate power, as Rousseau would say, is based on prior convention. Since there is no viable international social contract that everyone can be held accountable to, the international community does not have the right to try to stop FGM.

¹ Boyle, Tara. Growing Number of African Communities Focus on Women’s Rights. http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SNC0854-0-584&artno=0000189709&key=&type=ART&shfilter=U&sound=no

One Child Policy

For many Americans, one of the most controversial foreign policies is China’s “one child policy”. This law restricts the amount of children a Chinese citizen can have. For most Chinese, only child is allowed, but the law makes exceptions for ethnic minorities and habitants of rural regions. It may appear that China is stretching its legal rights too far into the privacy of the home, but China has set up a system where children are public. Children being private may seem biological, but using Marx’s theory that every moment being a product of history, the privacy of children can be traced back to America’s government. The idea of Children as public property is philosophically sound as long as it is universal throughout China, such as in Kant’s Categorical Imperative or Rousseau’s Social Contract. Equality is the most important moral in this situation, every citizen needs to have the same freedoms. China can morally execute a one-child policy as long as it is for the whole country.

HIPAA

“Paula Thomas believes HIPAA laws are preventing investigators from confirming her missing sister, Hueytown native Pam Biggers, is a patient at a Mansfield, Ohio mental clinic. ‘You can’t get any information no matter what the explanation you give them. It is against the law for them to give you information’” (HIPAA Problems, Ohnemus). Cases like this are not unique among the outcomes of the new medical law. Even in situations involving law enforcement and family need, HIPAA cannot give information. While Paula Thomas has a legitimate reason for seeking data on her missing sister, the law is entirely well intentioned. Despite HIPAA’s many inconveniences, in a society where legislative power has more authority than private conduct, it is more significant for government to create a law that protects an individual’s right to privacy.

Intellectual Property

In 5^th century Greece, Plato and Aristotle frowned upon the ways of the sophists, masters of rhetoric and persuasion who, according to their critics, employed questionable reasoning and arrived at merely relativistic truths through their discussions.  Also, much to Plato’s disgust, the sophists charged a fee for their “insights”, essentially turning knowledge into a form of property, something that can be bought and sold (Brooks, Intellectual Property Rights).  Assuming this to be true, Plato and Aristotle would likely be absolutely appalled by the common perception of intellect in today’s world; for while we may look back on the actions of these masters of persuasion with disdain, the sophists were simply employing a more direct route in the exchange of knowledge that has been again established in current civilization.  Plato envisioned a society organized around the public good, where citizens would be in constant dialogue with each other, working to find some higher, universal truth, refusing to buy into the idea of personal property. Yet today, our societal systems and structures have generated a way of looking at knowledge as property, or specifically “creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce,” and created laws under which this “property” is in direct control of its creator for a certain period of time (WIPO).  Yet these concrete boundaries that have been placed around ‘creations of the mind’ raise many questions – why are these laws necessary in the first place? Who benefits from them? Also, how can we say that something is purely an individual invention, when we have no way of measuring the countless external influences that went into that person’s creation?  By examining these questions primarily through the lens of Marxist philosophy, it becomes clear that the idea and implementation of “intellectual property” is a misinterpreted and sadly unchallenged product of our economic system.  For society to be maximally progressive and directed towards the well-being of its citizens, it cannot operate upon the idea of intellectual property and should instead function out of an “intellectual commons.”

Suicide.

Every seventeen minutes and twelve seconds, someone in the United States commits suicide (Matters, p.1). This is a critical problem in our society, and it is getting worse all of the time. In the past 40 years, suicides worldwide have increased by sixty percent (Healthier You, p.1). Suicide may be classified as a public mental health issue or an extreme personal choice. Even if suicide is regarded as a privet act it still emerges and produces consequences in the public realm. Society creates the conditions and pressures that lead to suicide, and therefore, it is society's job to anticipate and prevent suicides.

First Blog Post of the New Year

For Tuesday, January 13th, you will need to re-write the first paragraph of your "situation" paper, reframing your argument in response to the comments made by Jamie and Elise. Make sure that your first paragraph includes a very clearly stated thesis statement. Make sure that it allows you space to use the philosophy in support of your research.

These first paragraphs must be posted to the blog on Monday night (1/12/09) by 9pm. Before class you need to read the paragraphs not just for your group but for the entire class. In class on Tuesday you will meet in your (new) small groups to discuss the paragraphs and this assignment (with specific directions to follow).

ps -- Your final papers will be due on Friday, January 30th with Oral Defense panels starting on Thursday, February 5th. A formal, written assignment including information about selecting panelists will be available soon.