A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h thought, was enviable: Scottish commonsense philosophy on one side and American pragmatism on the other. That was a perfect combination. There had, of course, been those years at Cambridge, and that meant Wittgensteinism and a dose of linguistic philosophy, but that never did anybody any harm, as long as one remembered to reject it as one matured. And, I may as well admit it, I am mature, she thought, as she looked out the window of her study, into the garden, with its luxuriant shrubs and the first blossoms of white coming out on the magnolia.
She selected one of the more promising articles to read that morning. If it was worthwhile, she could then send it out for peer review that afternoon, and that would give her the sense of accom-plishment that she needed. The title had caught her attention, largely because of the topicality of genetics—which formed the background to the problem—and because of the problem itself, which was, once again, truth telling. She was surrounded, she felt, by issues of truth telling. There had been that article on truth telling in sexual relationships, which had so entertained her and which had already been commented upon favourably by one of the journal’s referees. Then there had been the Toby problem, which had brought the dilemma into the very centre of her own moral life. The world, it seemed, was based on lies and half-truths of one sort or another, and one of the tasks of morality was to help us negotiate our way round these. Yes, there were so many lies: and yet the sheer power of truth was in no sense dimmed. Had Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn not said, in his Nobel address, “One word of truth will conquer the whole world.” Was this wishful thinking on the part of one who had lived in an entanglement of Orwellian state-sponsored lies, or was it a justifiable faith in the ability of truth to shine through the darkness? It had to be the latter; if it was the former, then life would be too bleak to continue. In that T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B
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respect, Camus was right: the ultimate philosophical question was suicide. If there was no truth, then there would be no meaning, and our life was Sisyphean. And if life were Sisyphean, then what point in continuing with it? She reflected for a moment on the list of bleak adjectives. Orwellian, Sisyphean, Kafkaesque.
Were there others? It was a great honour to a philosopher, or a writer, to become an adjective. She had seen “Hemingwayesque,”
which might be applied to a life of fishing and bullfighting, but there was no adjective, so far, for the world of failure and run-down loci chosen by Graham Greene as the setting for his moral dramas. “Greene-like”? she wondered. Far too ugly. “Greeneish,”
perhaps. Of course, “Greeneland” existed.
And here was truth telling again, this time in a paper from a philosopher in the National University of Singapore, a Dr. Chao.
“Doubts About Father” was the title, and the subtitle was “Paternalism and Truthfulness in Genetics.” Isabel moved from her desk to the chair near the window—the chair in which she liked to read her papers. As she did so, the telephone in the hall rang.
After three rings it was answered. She waited; no call came from Grace. So she turned her attention to “Doubts About Father.”
The paper, which was clearly written, began with a story.
Clinical geneticists, Dr. Chao said, were often confronted with misattributed paternity, and these cases posed difficult issues of how, if at all, these mistakes should be revealed. Here is a case, he wrote, which involved just such an issue.
Mr. and Mrs. B. had given birth to a child with a genetic illness. Although the child could be expected to live, the condition was sufficiently serious to raise the issue of whether Mrs. B.
should be tested during future pregnancies. Some fetuses would be affected, while others would not be. The only way to tell was prenatal screening.
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h So far, so good, thought Isabel. Of course, there were broader issues about screening, including major ones of eugenics, but Dr.
Chao did not seem concerned with those, which was quite right: this was about truth telling and paternalism. Dr. Chao continued: Mr. and Mrs. B. had to have a genetic test to confirm their carrier status. In order for this particular condition to manifest itself, both parents of the affected child would have to be carriers of the relevant gene. When the doctor received the test results, however, these showed that while Mrs. B. was a carrier, Mr. B. was not. The child who had been born with the condition, then, must have been by another man. Mrs. B. (Mrs. Bovary perhaps, thought Isabel), who was not described, had a lover.
One solution was to tell Mrs. B. in private and then to leave it up to her to decide whether she would confess to her husband.
At first blush this solution seemed attractive, as it would mean that one could avoid being responsible for possibly breaking up the marriage. The objection to this, though, was that if Mr. B.
were not told, then he would go through life thinking that he was carrier of a gene which he did not, in fact, possess. Was he entitled to have this knowledge conveyed to him by the doctor, with whom he had a professional relationship? The doctor clearly owed him a duty, but what were the limits of this?
Isabel turned the last page of the article. There were the references, all set out in the correct form, but there was no conclusion. Dr. Chao did not know how to resolve the issue that he had raised. That was reasonable enough: it was quite legitimate to ask questions which one could not answer, or which one did not want to answer. But, on the whole, Isabel preferred papers which took a position.
It occurred to Isabel to ask Grace for her view on this. It was time for morning coffee, anyway, and she had an excuse to go T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B
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through to the kitchen. There she found Grace, unloading the dishwasher.
“I am going to tell you a rather tricky story,” said Isabel. “Then I’m going to ask you to give me your reaction. Don’t bother about reasons, just tell me what you would do.”
She related the story of Mr. and Mrs. B. Grace continued to unload plates as she listened, but abandoned her work when the story came to an end.
“I would write Mr. B. a letter,” she said firmly. “I would tell him not to trust his wife.”
“I see,” said Isabel.
“But I wouldn’t sign my own name,” Grace added. “I would write anonymously.”
Isabel could not conceal her surprise. “Anonymously? Why?”
“I don’t know,” said Grace. “You said that I should not bother with reasons. I should just tell you what I would do. And that’s it.”
Isabel was silent. She was used to hearing Grace express unusual views, but this curious preference for an anonymous letter astounded her. She was about to press Grace further, but her housekeeper changed the subject.
“Cat phoned,” she said. “She did not want to disturb you, but she would like to pop in for tea this afternoon. I said that we would let her know.”
“That’s fine,” said Isabel. “I would like to see her.”
Truth telling. Paternalism. She was no further forward, she felt, but suddenly she decided. She would ask Grace her views.
“Here’s another one, Grace,” she said. “Imagine that you found out that Toby was seeing another girl and not telling Cat about it.
What would you do?”
Grace frowned. “Difficult,” she said. “I don’t think I’d tell Cat.”
Isabel relaxed. At least they thought the same way on that issue.
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