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Socializing the public: invoking Hannah Arendt’s critique of modernity to evaluate reproductive technologies

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Abstract

The article examines the writings of one of the most influential political philosophers, Hannah Arendt, and specifically focuses on her views regarding the distinction between the private and the public and the transformation of the public to the social by modernity. Arendt’s theory of human activity and critique of modernity are explored to critically evaluate the social contributions and implications of reproductive technologies especially where the use of such technologies is most dominant within Western societies. Focusing on empirical studies on new reproductive technologies in Israel, it is argued, powerfully demonstrates Arendt’s theory, and broadens the perspectives through which society should evaluate these new technologies towards a more reflective understanding of its current laws and policies and their affect on women more generally.

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Notes

  1. Interestingly, Arent regards the story of the creation of humans (“Male and female created He them) as opposed to the creation of man (Adam) alone as the most elementary form of action. (Arendt 1958, p. 8).

  2. A crucial theme in Arendt’s theory is the bondlessness of action, its inherent unpredictability having no outcome or end of its own (Arendt 1958, p. 233). For, as Jerome Kohn explains, if people knew what they were doing when acting they would not be free but unfolding a plan (Kohn 2000, p. 123).

  3. Compare Arendt's understanding of the social with Richard Sennet's conception of the social life as the forum that allows the psyche to be most stimulated and which provides individuals with the capacity to feel or express feeling. In his view, "we see society itself as 'meaningful' only by converting it into a grand psychic system". (Sennet 1974, p. 4).

  4. Despite this self centered motivation to act socially and the treating of other humans as means to one's ends, Arendt interestingly uses a social contract theory to explain what keeps members of the public together. Pitkin 1981, p. 337.

  5. Arendt draws here from Hegel’s conception of the system of needs, namely that sphere in which economic exchange activities for the sole satisfaction of exchangers’ needs becomes the norm of human interaction. Benhabib 1996, p. 24.

  6. For a detailed account of Arendt’s concept of the social see Pitkin 1995.

  7. Benhabib observes that Arendt refers to three distinct social processes: commodity exchange relations in a capitalist economy; models of behavior action and mentality characteristic of individuals (mass society); and association, interaction and sociability emerging in modernization processes. Benhabib 1996, pp. 23–27.

  8. Compare Sennet who argues that the erosion of strong public life has deformed intimate relations and redefined the core meanings of physical love, mainly through change of language and constituting terminologies, e.g. from "eroticism" to "sexuality", or from "seduction" to "affair" and the re-meaning of "narcissism". (Sennet 1974, pp. 6–9).

  9. This concept serves to express those incentives that are mostly affected by personal relations associated with an exchange of information and gifts, characterizing modern family formation and relations (Offer 2006, Chap. 5, pp. 75–99).

  10. Arendt’s critique of modernity also consists of the argument that modernity brought about to the fragmentation of the past and the loss of its relevance for the present, making it necessary to re-establish and redeem the meaning of the past. D’entrèves 1994, pp. 29–32. This argument will not be further pursued in this article.

  11. Psychologists such as Susan Fiske, Alan Fiske and Shelley Taylor have helped reflect on the complex ways through which such cognitive experiences of values and activities take and should take place in social life. Alan Fiske, for example proposed four elementary models the combination of which explains how to organize various domains and aspects of social relations: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching and market pricing (Fiske 1992).

  12. I have used the idea of the social self to develop the notion of symbolic existence elsewhere. See Sperling 2008, especially Chap. 1.

  13. Arendt 1958, p. 208.

  14. Identifying between the Earth, motherhood and reproduction Arendt’s view on ART would have regarded them not only as a means to escape from the individual and her body but also from the Earth and the world itself.

  15. Data may reveal that although life expectancy in Israel is among the highest within Western countries, mortality rates (deaths per 1000 population) in males aged 20–24 are higher than in other countries. For the year 2008, mortality rate of males in Israel was 0.7 (Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel 2010) whereas in the UK it was 0.65 (Office for National Statistics 2010). Mortality rate in the US in 2007 was 0.79 but it is estimated that suicide rates and domestic violence are higher in the US than in Israel so that the overall mortality rate under this age group is little higher than in Israel (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2010).

  16. In contrast, studies find that women who decide not to be genetically tested during pregnancy are more often of lower socioeconomic status, more religious, of non-European origin (Remennick 2006) whereas older single mothers assisted by sperm donation are mostly educated, secular, live in large urban cities and have professional careers or are self-employed (Weissenberg et al. 2007).

  17. The study also reveals unlimited trust women have in their attending physicians prescribing the tests. 85% of women tested referred to doctor's advice to get tested as motive.

  18. Remennick defines reproductive consumerism as "the sense of entitlement to a genetically pure offspring destined for a great life." Remennick 2006, p. 36.

  19. Interesting to compare abortion rates for fetal defect in Israel and other Western countries. Recent data show that among all abortions performed in Israel in 2008, 17% of them were for fetal defect (Ministry of Health 2009) while in the UK it was only 1% (Department of Health 2009).

  20. Weissenberg et al. found that about 8% of the children born to older single parents suffer from congenital malformations and about 12% have developmental problems (Weissenberg et al. 2007, p. 2788).

  21. See Heyd 2009.

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Acknowledgments

Special thanks are deserved to Shlomi Segall, Ori Lev as well as the reviewers of Medicine, Healthcare and Philosophy who commented on early drafts.

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  1. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Daniel Sperling

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Correspondence to Daniel Sperling.

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Sperling, D. Socializing the public: invoking Hannah Arendt’s critique of modernity to evaluate reproductive technologies. Med Health Care and Philos 15, 53–60 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-011-9308-1

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