When we say “It’s a little known fact that …”, we usually mean precisely that. But since I’m a philosopher rather than a polymath, I like to use the phrase to refer to something that if you think about it, you’ll immediately see that it’s true.

So, for example, it’s a little known fact that we’re all the product of rape. So if it’s so immediately seen to be true, why do I bother to bring it to anyone’s attention? Because it undermines the concession made by most pro-Lifers that exception should be made for cases of rape. If the claim is that the rights of the foetus trump those of the mother, then why is that trump forfeited in the case of rape? It’s not that that’s a rhetorical question. It’s just that it’s a question that has to be answered. And presumably it’s a question not answered by saying that being the product of rape reduces the value of a human life, because then it would reduce the value of your life!

But hang on. It’s also a little known fact, in the same sense of a little known fact, that everyone alive today will be dead in a hundred years. Surely that’s a far more alarming observation than that millions of people are going to die as a result of global warming, or that thousands of Palestinian children are going to starve to death as a result of the Israeli blockade, or that …

And yet it’s not. Alarming, that is. In fact it’s not alarming at all! Now why do you suppose that is? Is it because there’s something you can do about global warming? Perhaps. But even if there is, that’s not going to prevent those same millions of people being dead a hundred years from now anyhow. Likewise the victims of the Israeli genocide. So what’s going on here?

Well, clearly what’s going on is we care deeply about how people die and hardly at all about that they do. And that’s strange, is it not? It’s strange because the person who’s dying cares far more deeply about the that than about the how. Just as? Well, just as the having-been-conceived care much more deeply about living out that conception than about how that having-been-conceived came about.

So what can we conclude from all this? That we shouldn’t get our tail-feathers in a knot about rape or global warming or genocide? Clearly not. So maybe these kinds of little known facts – the ones that tempt us to care less about the things we should care about – are facts that should remain little known.

Categories: Critical Thinking, Everything You Wanted to Know About What's Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask, pure philosophy

Tags: abortion, genocide, global warming, rape