Reason.com
New at Reason
Do clones have souls? If that's too deep, Ron Bailey ponders whether Seoul will have clones next year—or at least clone cells.
Most Popular Stories
- 5 Classic Teen Sex-and-Drug Freakouts: Rainbow Parties, Butt-Chugging, And So Much More (By Which We Mean Less) (5.27)
- Government Beneficiaries and Other Fairy Tales (5.26)
- Do Organic Consumers Shop Exclusively at the Jerk Store? (5.26)
- Sharon Presley on Libertarian Feminism (5.26)
- Here Are the 15 Senators Who Voted to Stop Armed FDA Agents From Conducting Warrantless Raids on America's Farmers (Not One of Them is a Democrat) (5.24)
Reason RUPE: Public Opinion Survey
- Reason-Rupe: Wisconsinites Favor Increasing Public Union Retirement Contributions to Address Budget Deficit (5.25)
- Reason-Rupe Poll Finds Support for Public Union Reforms (5.25)
- New Poll: Obama Leads Romney In Wisconsin, But Gary Johnson Could Impact the Race (5.24)
- Wisconsin Recall: Walker Leads Barrett 50-42 Among Likely Voters (5.24)
- Reason-Rupe Poll: Walker Leads Barrett 50-42, Obama Leads Romney 46-36 (5.24)
advertisements
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSSGet Reason E-mail Updates!
Manage your Reason e-mail list subscriptionsSite comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment or disable your ability to comment for any reason at any time.
Jeff P.|9.15.05 @ 4:43PM|#
Not to threadjack here, but when is the next print issue of Reason due?
Ron Hardin|9.15.05 @ 5:37PM|#
The soul question is actually pretty easy.
If it has a social connection to others, it has a soul. If not, not.
``Soul'' has been made theoretical and displaced from its natural language use, eg. in abortion and theological debates.
Here's Stanley Cavell _The Claim of Reason_ p.411 on the (inclination to say) soul:
``It may be that the sense of falsification comes from the way I understand the phrase ``have a body.'' It is really a mythological way of saying that I am flesh. But I am not satisfied with this myth, for it implies that I also have something other than a body, call it a soul. Now I have three things to put together: a body, a soul, and me. (So there are four things to be placed: I plus those three.) But I no more have a soul than I have a body. That is what I say here and now. People who say they have a soul sometimes militantly take its possession as a point of pride, for instance William Ernest Henley and G.B.Shaw. Take the phrase ``have a soul'' as a mythological way of saying that I am spirit. If the body individuates flesh and spirit, singles me out, what does the soul do? It binds me to others.''
So you're looking in the wrong place if you're closely examining a fetus for a soul ; look to its parents, whether they've furnished a nursery and purchased a baseball mitt, ball and bat, whether in short there's a place in their lives prepared, for the soul of a fetus.
Unless you want to work your way into a fly bottle by seeking what cannot be found, a soul as the property of the thing that possesses it.
It's language gone on holiday, in other words.
|9.15.05 @ 6:14PM|#
"If it has a social connection to others, it has a soul."
Ants have social connections: ants have souls. No one likes my Aunt Stella: she has no soul. I'm having sole for dinner. I have sole.
|9.15.05 @ 6:28PM|#
Ronald,
I picked up a book at the library about genetic engineering and didn't bother to give it the once over, just took it home. Well, to my chagrin it turned out to be "Human Genetic Engineering," by Pete Shanks. Just an unfocused, semiliterate screed against all forms of bio-engineering, and a smear against all who support it.
So I thought I'd at least get something out of it and flipped to the back to check the index, see if you were in it, and guess what? You weren't mentioned. No Ronald Bailey anywhere in the book.
I was surprised. You are the most vocal proponent of advancement of this field that I know of.
Why do you suppose he left you out?
|9.15.05 @ 6:37PM|#
Kim Jong Il wants Seoul, but he doesn't have it.
I appolize.
|9.15.05 @ 6:42PM|#
Which is short for not really being sorry while being unable to spell.
|9.15.05 @ 6:49PM|#
Not to threadjack here, but when is the next print issue of Reason due?
I got mine just befor labor day, if that helps.
|9.15.05 @ 7:00PM|#
No, clones do not have souls.
|9.15.05 @ 7:01PM|#
Yes, clones do have souls.
|9.15.05 @ 7:02PM|#
Shut it up! Shut it up, you!
|9.15.05 @ 8:00PM|#
Settle down there smacky. Clones can have soles, but only when they wear shoes. And clowns always have huge soles whenever they do wear shoes. Those clowns who do wear shoes are the rulers the clonedome.
|9.15.05 @ 9:16PM|#
I just wanted to say that over many threads throughout the last week, smacky, you've been cracking me up. You're on a roll.
|9.16.05 @ 12:34AM|#
It's effing 11:30 p.m., and I'm at the office, and no one else is in the whole damn building, and I should be working on the draft that's due tomorrow, and smacky just made me literally LOL. Thank you.
|9.16.05 @ 7:53AM|#
Threadjack on gay parents:
There is no scientific basis for concluding that lesbian mothers or gay fathers are unfit parents on the basis of their sexual orientation. . . . On the contrary, results of research suggest that lesbian and gay parents are as likely as heterosexual parents to provide supportive and healthy environments for their children. . . . Overall, results of research suggest that the development, adjustment, and well-being of children with lesbian and gay parents do not differ markedly from that of children with heterosexual parents.
http://www.futureofchildren.org/information2827/information_show.htm?doc_id=290849
|9.16.05 @ 9:45AM|#
Kerryclone would have been worse!
|9.16.05 @ 2:34PM|#
I would think a James Brown clone without soul would be an imperfect copy.