Nature and Mortality by Mary Warnock

A self conscious reflection on her own life as it has intersected with public policy in the areas of education, genetics and rights this is an interesting book. Two things stick out in my mind having just finished with it.
The first is that process of discovery that any sort of committee must go through to understand what it is they are pondering and to wrestle not only with the material but with each other, the considerations of those who support their process and their own prejudices - be they cultural, religious, scientific or political.
The second is that many of the issues she writes about as as a live and controversial today as they were when she worked for the public good. One senses and intense sense of keeping morality as a thoroughly secular preoccupation when it comes to civil society and here I sense (perhaps most apparent in her discussion on their struggles with Human Fertilisation and Embryology) that this is something of a surrender to the laissez faire of trying to legislate for activities that respect no sovereign border which argues that if other people are going to be comfortable with it then we should wake up and wise up as well.

Whilst it certainly isn't the province of religious sentiment to highlight that hers isn't much of an argument against what can seem a procession of hurricane force it nonetheless is a necessary part of her position to undermine all those other positions that continue to hold that they do not wish to agree for their own reasons. Acknowledging that religious, political or cultural reasons have their own force in these contexts is tantamount to saying that one should fight a battle that feels futile before one steps up to the front line. I can see how that is difficult to stomach psychologically. However, it doesn't make it right.

I'm not saying that one should jettison Secular notions of morality but I think one must remember that they are simply part of the cultural landscape and should be privileged no more than any other approach to deriving a morality. The hoary thing is, the privilege occurs when other forms of morality (take religious for example) are denigrated and denied validity within the public realm. I admit that this is a tense position to hold reasonably but I think if you are to respect others' positions (even if you don't respect their conclusions or their lack of respect for your own stance) it is an essential tension to hold. Personally I think we must respect others in this context otherwise they become objects or projections of ideologies we wish to reject without engaging with.

An interesting collections of essays but in other ways not enlightening nor expansive on committee processes nor replete with how members interact beyond Warnock's own, extremely brief, allusions.