[This was originally a work for a class in Rhetoric in 2005, though it has received a couple of 'tweaks']
What is ‘Life?’ Some
would consider it a silly question; a question which is obvious in answer. But is it really? The concept of, and term life is used in many
ways and in many arenas; a couple of which are from the most important
discourses in human history, and especially to we Americans. One of Thomas Jefferson’s most important
writings, The Declaration of Independence
has written in it “… certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty
and the Pursuit of Happiness… [emphasis added]”
Patrick Henry’s famous “… give me liberty or give me death!” speech had
before that conclusion “Is life so
dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but
as for me, give me liberty or give me death! [emphasis added]”
Those two uses of the term life seem to be quite similar;
both were about individuals in the colonies forming an independent, fledgling
nation by breaking the bonds of a tyrannical parent [king] who denied them [the
colonists] the ability [political liberty] to act according to how they thought
best. But there are other uses of the
word life. President George W. Bush
fosters a ‘culture of life’ and seeks to expand the definition of life
(Fletcher, 2005). With that alone we can
see that what is life is not so simple to define if some, especially those in
charge of the government, are attempting to change the definition.
Some of the procedures and regulations advanced by President
Bush to support life and individual rights are the same ideas to which Richard
Parker [MD] states are counter to life and individual rights (2002). Is this a disagreement of definition? – or
something lesser, such as a miscommunication.
What about not allowing [Oklahoma City
bomber] Timothy McVeigh “… to take one more life… and “…deny him this final
killing.” As Bruce Friedrich of PETA said about not letting an animal be killed
(i.e. lose its life) to provide a meal for the convicted mass-murderer. Joanne Lauck in her book refers to Lewis
Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass and
compares the world where the gnat existed to Alice’s,
saying the gnat’s world “… celebrated all life forms …” including its kind,
i.e. other insects (2002). How far, or
to what degree, and in what area, should the term life be extended?
The above uses of the term life are, if not wholly
incompatible, quite differentiated. What
must be done is an evaluation of what life is – a denotative clarification. The concept must be separated from false
connotations, i.e. that which it is wholly incorrectly used, from that where it
is in some degree synonymous with another word (but not identical to) and that
which it is truly representative. What
are the differentiations among the synonyms?
Not only must those distinctions be made, but they must be applied to
the various areas where life was viewed as being: after what is life, what has
life? – if it does not have life, then what does it have? What are the implications, and what are the
consequences of those differences?
The term life has been invoked in multifarious manners. Philosophers and ideologues, good men and bad
men both speak of life. Life has been
used ambiguously by most and from the ambiguity and uncertainty in the public,
ideologues use it and prevaricate the term life to that which helps them
control the masses; they [the ideologues] flip the definition that was never
clearly made in the first place, to that which suits them best toward their
goal only to flip again when a challenge is made which will counter what they
have advanced to that point – to flip again later. The manipulators of the term have a clear meaning
to themselves of what they mean, but they speak enthymematically and we fill in
[syllogistically] what was left out; they give us the form but we provide the
filling. We fill in the form as we have
to make sense of what they allude.
As we have our own definitions, either fully consciously,
partially or unconsciously held, they feast on it while they talk all day but
say nothing definitive. In its different
meanings life can be something quite inconsequential and unremarkable, or it
can be something which if it be not the most important, it is one of the most
important concepts of man – the life that Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry
fought so vociferously for having. That life
is our focus.
Let us first look at what is said about what has life.
A commonly accepted idea of what life, or that which is
coming to life, is, is being or growing according to one’s nature. That seems to be a good, general description,
but is it enough? For what was stated by
Jefferson and Henry, surly it is not. The
‘one’ would have to be addressed firstly, and that will lead to the obvious
problems of the overly general description.
To take the above description would include that which is not
alive by any other definition; things which are said to have life when they act
(not in themselves) according to how the viewer thinks it would act had it the
choice, e.g. a volcano, a bull stock market, a storm or the engine of a
car. Each of these can be said to act,
but as though the word act might have connotative value, it is wrong
denotatively and our purpose here is clarification of the word life which will
not be possible if other words are left unclear in meaning; words here must be
specified as much as possible.
A volcano does not choose to store magma to a point and then
erupt; it is the result of physical forces outside itself forcing the magma
into the volcanic chambers through cracks in tectonic plates. The storm bringing rain, wind or whatever
else physical, is just like the engine of a car, which is in turn just like the
volcano – a result of physical forces; a bull stock market, too, does not
choose to exist, but is only a symbol, a representation of outside forces from
the buying and selling of shares. None
of the aforementioned materially caused forces are from within the thing, none
of them bring about the continuation of their own existence – they do not act -
they are just the continuation of various kinds of forces. As Kenneth Burke observed, they have motion
but no action.
The ability to try and preserve oneself, therefore, would be
a proper addition to the definition of life.
But let us look at that idea.
What would be included with that idea? – practically everything that is
not mineral. And some have agreed. Some have said, and say, that all life
is to be respected and that the killing of anything which has life is immoral -
examples given earlier. These people
would take the words “… unalienable rights…” and extend it to all things which
exhibit life. But is this not
absurd? One does not need to be a
follower of Heraclitus when he said (2001):
That
which always was,
and
is, will be everliving fire,
the
same for all, the cosmos,
made
neither by god nor man,
replenishes
in measure
as
it burns away.
One can see that Nature has balanced counterparts: life and
death; both are necessary. The only
living entities which could exist without killing of some prey, would be
plants, and not even all plants as some make insects their prey, e.g. Venus
fly-trap, bladderworts and pitcher plants.
With this as a definition, the bodies of living organisms, including our
own, are killing machines as whatever microbial organism gets into a creature’s
system, such as ours, the immune system attacks the invader and kills it; the
microbial organism behaved according to its nature and toward its
self-preservation, as did the body that was invaded by the microorganism – it
is unavoidable, it is inherent in Nature.
For all things which have a nutritive base would be
considered to have life. From the lowly
Sarcodina (amoebae) to plants, to lower animals to humans, each has nutritive
faculties and the ability to grow or maintain its existence. Now, as the concept of life which has been
promulgated in The Declaration of
Independence is clearly not what has been described thus far in our
evaluation, it would be wise to say that cells and plants do not have life; but
what shall we call that which they have?
We should keep in mind the form of the word life in this context, which
is purely biological – nothing more than merely ‘being alive.’ So, being alive may be life in a biologist’s
point-of-view, but it will not suffice for ours – the nutritive and growth
properties of an organism shall best be described as it being alive.
What about organisms other than microorganisms, insects and
plants: the reptiles, fish, birds and mammals (other than humans)? What could be said of the latter that could
not be said of the former? Is it the
capability to suffer, as Bruce Friedrich of PETA also stated? The capacity to suffer is dependent on a
number of things, such as neurological development. Not all animals can suffer while some can,
but the capacity to suffer is not the base for rights or for life which is
beyond being alive. We will touch more
on this later.
It cannot be said a higher cognitive ability, for if any
animals have such abilities, it is quite limited. Some species of animals are identical to
plants in that they have neither head nor brain, e.g. jelly fish and sea
stars. Should fish be excluded from the
rest of animals, as is done by some vegetarians (vegans will protest that
exclusion)? Even if that exclusion is
made, there is not much to be said of such generalization of ‘higher’ life to
the remaining classes of animals, i.e. something in their characteristics to separate
them from insects and plants. As proof
of a form of cognition, some say that animals have language – that they
communicate. Those who proclaim animal
language cite the songs of birds, the howls of wolves and differing bark of
dogs, the chirps and clicks of dolphins.
It is true that animals communicate, but they do not have a language,
grammar or anything else of the like.
All complex non-plant organisms communicate; life would stop
short with a single generation if communication was not present, save by
chance. The communication of any animal
is its means of conveying its attempt of protecting its territory, for pack
animals to coordinate a hunt or defend the herd, and most importantly, show
that it is ready for mating. It is done
both audibly and non-audibly, visually and non-visually, and through olfactory
processes; as Kenneth Burke stated non-symbolically. That is the reason for barks, howls, shakes,
postures, marking, pheromones and the songs which would be better described as
chirping.
That which is supposedly separated from these classes of
animals to the other classes, i.e. birds, reptiles, mammals from insects and
fish is something which actually blends them, and humans all together, but
humans have developed communication to a level which no other species has
developed; we have language, which will be addressed later. Some of the most advanced pure communication
systems in the animal kingdom belong to insects, e.g. the use of pheromones,
buzzing and shaking of honey bees to relay the location of a flower.
Clearly, communication ability is not sufficient for us to
include it among what constitutes life; it is not even sufficient for us to
modify our attempt to define what life is.
Further investigation is needed into our defining life, so let us continue.
As far as classes of organisms, only one remains for that
which could be relevant to the concept of life as we are seeking for its
definition: humans. What is it that
separates humans from the rest of all organisms on Earth? Is it that the human brain is larger than any
other animal brain? – no, for that is not true as the brain of blue whales is
many times larger. In most areas, the
human body is quite weaker than that of other animal counterparts, e.g. our
strength pales in comparison to that of a lion, our eyesight pales in
comparison to an eagle, our sense of smell pales in comparison to dogs, and in
practically every other way, we are physically weaker in some aspect to most
animals, so what differentiates us as greater is not physical.
That which does separate us from all other organisms is our
rational faculty: our reason. Through
our reasoning ability, our cognitive abilities, we can recognize the laws of Nature,
use actual language (symbols) and, for what our discussion is about here, know ethics;
we have a moral faculty, which comes from a broader field in that we can engage
in philosophy, where all other fields flow from.
We will return to the importance of humanism to life later,
but first, let us recount what has been said, and see what does not constitute
life. Life is not just being, behaving
or growing according to one’s nature, for that would include that which is not
alive. Life is not just possessing
growth or nutritive faculties, for that would belong to all organisms, both
simple and complex. Life would also not
be nutritive faculties with communicational abilities, as those belong to almost
all complex, non-plant organisms.
The aforementioned characteristics, save behaving according
to one’s nature alone, which have been used to describe life can really be
reassessed and correctly be described at best as those various things being
alive. We must remember to keep the
distinction between what is said to have life biologically [being alive] from
that which is said to have life politically, for life in the realm of our
living together is our aim to define and from that we will be able to see what
life should be as to fulfill what is in The
Declaration of Independence.
Let us return to humanism (a human being). A full, detailed discussion of humanism would
include more than what is needed here, so let us content ourselves with a
concise summary of what it is that separates the human animal from any other
animal or organism. Humans have
mind. It matters not if one thinks the
mind is separable from the body or that it is a part of the body.
Even if mind and body were separable, while one exists on
Earth, they are together.
What is it to have mind?
Mind is where action originates.
Action, that is not materially caused like motion, such as the volcano,
but originates in the mind, is based on the awareness of options, and that one
is better than the others, i.e. value – the mind values. These values may be either explicit or
implicit, conscious or unconscious, but they are. Not only does man value and act upon those
values, but he also thinks, and can think philosophically; humans can
deliberate on the practical and contemplate in the principle.
Philosophizing, and the various realms of philosophy, i.e.
metaphysics, politics, aesthetics and ethics, are the key issues. Animals have no grasp of anything
philosophical; they live in a materially caused world and are limited to that
world. It takes philosophy to be able to
pursue something beyond the immediate; animals only live in the immediate while
humans can abstract beyond the concrete of the immediate. Humans also have true language – a complex
symbolic system for communicating ideas/abstractions as well as those
concretes, e.g. warning another of a vicious dog around a corner and what is a
vicious dog.
As we can abstract, as we can see each other as
self-directed, self-motivated, selfish creatures (selfishness being concerned
with oneself first, and non-parasitically as wanting others to live according
to how we think is right is still based upon our view of what is right, whether
or not it actually is), and that other humans each seek the same – their own
interests. Ethics comes from our
relations with other humans. This
recognition of what separates humans from other beings that are alive, the
ability to use symbolic-language, abstract, deal with others as political
equals is what is the base of political life.
Since we have narrowed our definition for life to humanism,
humanism will be our reference from now on. Is it enough to have the above abilities of
symbol using and the rest? – this will be addressed last with respect to
humanism. Must humanism actually be present
or a probable potential? Does life
belong to a single human, or is it something which belongs to a group of humans,
whether it be family, State, ethnic group or the like? It is not clear yet so we must keep our
investigation going to further clarify life.
Is the actual or the potential, or both to be classified with
life? It is the actual alone which is to
be classified as having life for our discussion. The potential, as its definition suggests,
does not exist yet, and therefore, it cannot have life. There are two areas where this is most
obvious: a fetus and the functionally brain-dead. Both of these exist as potentials for life;
the fetus as a forming, attached organism to later become human and the
functionally brain-dead for a potential recovery to some extent to become human
once again. Both, in their states of
development lack those characteristics for which life can be: a separately
functioning entity and mind. A fetus
exists only as an extension of its mother’s flesh – it cannot live without
it. The fetus, too, does not have mind
as mind comes about from exposure to the world.
The functionally brain-dead exist as separate entities, but
have no mind; even their existence as separate entities is quite limited as
natural processes would be their death unless someone [an actual] intervened to
keep the brain dead from wasting away through starvation, dehydration and
exposure. Some disagree, such as, with
respect to fetal development, Fritz Baumgarter, MD states that one has life
from conception (2005), and with respect to the functionally brain-dead, John
Stemberger of the Family Research Council stated that Terri Schiavo (a
functionally-brain dead woman) was “…living and healthy…” and that she “…is
able to see, hear and she is often alert… (2005)”
What do these two [fetuses and those who are functionally
brain-dead] have? These two have what
has been described as being biologically alive; they both are incapable of
action and only respond in motion, from the materially caused.
It is the mind which is the key component here; without mind,
humans lose the title of rational animal and become simply animal. A mind cannot exist without a body, but a
body can exist without a mind. For
Aristotle observed “…for he does it for the sake of the intellectual element in
him, which is thought to be the man himself…”
Acting as humans should is what our nature prescribes. And it matters not whether one believes that
God designed man or that man evolved through natural selection, for with either
one, man is man now.
It is ridiculous to think that either God or Nature created
man, stating “Here you are, great creature of intellect. You have mind, now go live as a plant.” It is not only ridiculous, but
impossible. Even if humans tried to live
as plants do, we would surely die as plants can live passively through
photosynthesis while animals have to be active in their diet.
One that has been born is separate and now can continue
toward its potential, albeit with parentage, but the fetus has neither mind nor
is separate. However, if carried to term
a fetus’ potential is not necessarily going to be a healthy birth for there
could be a miscarriage, or it could be still-born, born brain-dead, die of
complications or it could be born with all physical health; after that it could
either grow up to be a good or bad person; wickedness will be discussed
later.
The functionally brain-dead is separate and can live
separately for a short amount of time on its own; what is to be said of its
potential? Medical science advances
continuously and through it, one could be kept biologically alive, practically
indefinitely. Various machines can
function for weak muscles or organs or they can be replaced through transplant;
technically, the body could live in such a state for decades, or with
cryogenics, possibly centuries – but would it be life? Just like the fetus, it would be biologically
alive, or cryogenically frozen, but it would be lacking the faculties to
act. We must keep in our mind the
difference between being human and that of having the flesh with the genetic
make-up of Homo sapiens: being biologically
alive.
With that in mind, life is not mere survivability, but
something more. Considerations of the
potential will be concluded later.
Does life belong to the individual, or to the group? - family,
city, state or country? Life belongs to
the individual, and to the individual only.
The simile of a man is to society as a cell, or organ, is to the body,
is good, but as simile it is not identical.
A cell or organ is motion, materially caused, and there is no such thing
as a materially caused mind. There are
ways to materially affect the mind: drugs, alcohol, injury to the brain, and
such, but it does not make the sole determining factor of mind.
Mind is action, it values, and is the expression of all the
traits we have mentioned earlier. Not only
do humans have action, but they also can exist without society; they have the
physical ability to survive isolated from other humans, although such existence
would be dreadful, while cells or organs cannot survive outside the body. Any group is a collection of individuals,
each of whom act upon their own desires; the group is said to move when the
majority is in accord, but any majority is not all and complete unison is when
all individuals choose the same thing.
The individuals make the choice and their choice can keep them with the group
or they can leave. But as Ayn Rand
observed “…the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities
from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on Earth is the
individual)” (1964).
We have further narrowed our definition of life from simply being
biological Homo sapiens to an actual human
individual with mind, so does that mean that all humans have life, and the
right to pursue it equally? No, not all
have life equally or can pursue it equally.
Human life is specific and, as Aristotle noted “The virtue of a thing is
relative to its proper work.” There are
two areas where human life not being where it should be, can be seen. The first is that where one does not use that
which makes man, man, i.e. does not use his mind.
As noted before about the ridiculousness of having God or Nature
creating man to live as a plant, it is not only ridiculous, but shameful to
have mind but refuse to use it. We do
not say that the man who does not, and refuses to examine his life, while
working the menial job that he hates only to come home to relax and lose himself
in whatever amusements he can escape into, has the same level of life as the
one who has examined and knows himself and goes out to improve himself while
doing that which he enjoys and continues to engage his mind.
The same is true of children as we do not say they have the
same level of life as their parents as the children do not have the experience
or wisdom to think on such things. They
do not have the same level of life as
the mentally and physically active man, but they can pursue their life as they
see fit, even if it is a short-coming, that is not living to their potential as
human, and to be blamed; however, children need guidance for their faculties
are not developed enough to function properly.
Fools may pursue their life imprudently, but children
cannot. Dependent on their developmental
stage, we do not let infants or children have the same choices (if any) as an
adult. Young children are not blamed to
the same extent (if at all before correction) as an adult for misbehavior. Children, lacking experience and wisdom, need
guidance and extra rules to develop their lives, such as we do not let a
four-year-old drive a car, and if it did, we blame the parents, but as the
child grows, more blame is placed on it until it has to take full
responsibility for its actions; they are developing and cannot pursue life as
an adult.
The other area where life is not being something for all
equally, or having the right to pursue, is with wicked men; wicked men here
referring to any man whose actions are to violate the rights of another man,
and it is in these actions where he cannot pursue equally valid paths toward
life. The wicked deceive the other and
attempt to take from the life of that other – through fraud or force try to
take that which is life, or is the means for the other to keep, or enjoy, his
life. There is no right to violate the
rights of others. The good man
recognizes that he is himself a separate entity with desires, but he also
recognizes that he is a member, not of a simple group like a state, but of a
category – the category of human.
Through that recognition of being in that category of being
human, and recognizing the right of each man to pursue “… Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness…” the good man, being an actual, separate, symbolic and
valuing organism, a rational animal, recognizing and respecting the rights to
everyone and himself, we can say that is what life is. [The pursuit of] Life belongs to the good,
not the wicked - to those who act in ways to honor rights, not violate rights.
There are times when one can proceed with forfeiture of life:
the legal implications and consequences of life as defined. Life is forfeited by the wicked man by acts
of wickedness; when one does not respect the right of others to live, there is
to be no respect shown him as to his existence.
An act of justice is both rewarding the good man for his actions (which
is not our focus for forfeiture) and it is the process of righting an unjust
act of a bad man relative to the virtue of an act or severity of the crime,
e.g. assault is more of an unjust crime than petty theft, and murder is more
unjust than assault.
The punishments range according to circumstance as in when
one killed another, if it was accidental and manslaughter, or if it was
premeditated with malice and murder, or if it was in self-defense of self and
family and to be praised. In any case,
the one who is violating the rights of another, by that violation of the
other’s rights, is saying that he does not recognize rights, or considers them
unimportant, and his own are to be included; he may not say it explicitly, but
his actions speak for him.
The only other time when life can be forfeited is when it is
one’s own. One’s own life can be
forfeited, properly, when life is no longer seen as being valuable living and
there is no way of correcting it.
Existence itself is a value based in context. There are potential times in life which
prevent life as described, but allow for the continuation of biological life
from minutes more to years more, but as has been said, mere survivability [being
biologically alive] is not life.
Terminal illness, trapped by an inescapable slow death or by
enslavement, life can be prevented.
Granted some are more contestable than others, but it is up to the
individual to choose on how to fight, if he wants to fight. It is up to the individual as he is the one
shouldering the burden of his life and the consequences of its existence. If one was stuck with horrific pain which
would not end until death as with some cancer, or one was trapped atop a
skyscraper which was ablaze and the only choice was either burn slowly to death
in flames or to jump and quickly die from striking the ground as was the case
for some from the World Trade Center attack, or if one was a slave or prisoner
and was subject to constant torture and abuse with no end in sight, then the
people in each of these cases has lost the potential for life, in varying
degrees, and has the choice whether to end it if the burden is seen as too
great. For as General Stark proclaimed when
commemorating his battles for the Continental Congress “Live free or die. Death is not the worst evil.”
What about those potentials?
As we have already mentioned, potentials do not have life, so
they have no legal right to life - there is no right to mere biological life
for then we get into the aforementioned issues.
Potentials are simply that, potentials, they are not guarantees; there
is only one guarantee for any organism and that is death, but we do not go
about treating each other as potential corpses.
Or as Leonard Peikoff said to the claims of ‘unborn child:’ …we could,
with equal logic, call any adult an “undead corpse” and bury him alive or
vivisect him for the instruction of medical students (2003).
It is the actual who has rights, is responsible for his own
life, and it is up to him whether or not to take an extra burden. The mother has rights, the fetus does not; it
is up to the mother whether or not to carry the burden as she is the one who
has to - not the fetus, not the father, nor anybody else has to carry the
burden. For those who are functionally
brain-dead, they do not have life as that which makes them human or even animal,
their intellect is gone, so as they cannot choose and fend for themselves; it
is up to the man who takes the burden of the brain-dead's care, if he wants it.
Even if there was a guarantee, it would be up to the person
taking the burden to choose to take it.
Some consider it cruel to let an injured or sick animal suffer
needlessly when it can no longer function as it could – we euthanize it to
remove its pain. But one could, if they
so choose, gather their resources, both financial and other, to raise the
animal back to health; it is not demanded.
Why is it considered by those who do not want the lower animals to
suffer mercy to euthanize them, but consider it contextually good to let a
human continue to suffer?
What would be the point of insisting on survivability of a
biological organism versus the life, as we have described it, of a human? One point would be the pragmatism of
governmental bureaucracy, of counting heads to justify their proposals, or by
looking as stewards or parents to their constituent children, and make
themselves look worthy of re-electing.
Another reason is based on theology and that it, removing that
biological life of potential human in the case of a fetus or brain-dead, is
‘playing God’ with the belief that humans are not to alter what has been set
for ‘God has a plan.’
But that is fatalism, and if to alter whatever has happened
is playing God, then all medicine and technology in general is playing God, for
none of the things that come from technology come from the simple motion, the
material causation of Nature, but of man’s manipulation of Nature, using Her
laws. With the idea that all that
happens in life is part of God’s plan, then it could be, also, that God willed
the actions of the others to bring about the abortion or euthanasia, for God
‘works in mysterious ways’ and has called on sacrifice many times to bring
about His plan. Something else to
consider: if we are acting against God’s plan now with our actions, then we
have the ability to act against them and if we do have such an ability, how are
we to be sure that by using our technology as we are is violating it, too, e.g.
keeping a feeding tube inserted in one who would die without it as keeping one
from going to God as intended to God’s plan.
The consequences of stating that which is potential human
life is to have rights will now be examined.
What is really being said when those in charge are asking for all life
to be viewed as valuable? Is it really
just their saying that life is good and to be preserved, or are they saying
that the government should make sure that life is preserved? And one must keep in mind of the
enthymematical nature of their talk, which is fine in normal talk, but they
speak of policy - legal use of force - and just as we have a definition of
life, so do they and they might not agree.
Rights are that which protect individuals’ ability to pursue
their goals. To pursue goals is to be
active, and to be active is to be fully functional as an autonomous, valuing (human)
unit, according to one’s will. When one
is not able to provide for himself, but it is deemed his or its ‘right’ to have
that which he cannot acquire, then others must provide for that one. Making functional others provide for the needing
one infringes upon their [the functional] own ability to pursue their own goals
as they now would have the other’s [the needing] goals to work toward; what
would be expected of one when the other’s becomes the others’?
It would entail more losing of rights of the one to provide
for himself as he is now expected to provide for more, and more as it would be
a precedent, a setting of a principle – it would not just be this specific
situation but for those in these situations.
Eventually, that would be extended to similar situations. He would become a slave to the other, as he
would no longer be able to act according to his own will, but now, not to the
will of the other who is seen as the one to be directly benefited, but the
other who is in charge of the use of force, who has the firearm in hand,
issuing a command.
From the ambiguous usage of a word, a law could be adapted
and whether or not we wanted it, we would be subject to it at the barrel of a
gun. That is the only way to enforce
that which one does not wish to do, to use force to make them do it; for
anything voluntary is not enslavement such as Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch had in
his contract making himself a slave to his lover provisions to which she had to
obey (2000).
The proper course of action in law with respect to life is to
protect the liberty of those who can act independently. It is the sphere of government to protect the
general while it is up to the individual to work the particular – Aristotle realized
this:
The
reason is that all law is universal but about some things it is not possible to
make a universal statement which shall be correct. In those cases, then, in which it is
necessary to speak universally, but not possible to do so correctly, the law
takes the usual case, though it is not ignorant of the possibility of
error. And it is none the less correct;
for the error is in the law nor in the legislator but in the nature of the
thing, since the matter of practical affairs is of this kind from the start.
As life and its value is something perceptible in nature with
respect to its context, it should be left to the individual to choose. Just as the individual is responsible for the
choices and burdens of his own life, so is life’s choices to be left to the
actual who is to shoulder the burden of the other when the potential cannot
make it; it is the actual who must alter his life to take the burden if so
chosen, for if not, then one is a double-slave, one to the government and the
other chance. That is the result:
governmental enforced enslavement to chance, e.g. faulty contraception or a car
accident, or worse, to wickedness, e.g. rape or assault.
What is to be done by us as a polity? The answer is deceptively simple: do not let
ourselves, and do not let others, including those in charge, prevaricate (or
get away with prevaricating) the word life.
It is so simple, and the word so ubiquitous with each person having a
somewhat similar and somewhat different definition, that it happens without
notice, the prevarication. When anyone,
especially the President of the United States
says that they are ‘pro-life’ and want a ‘culture of life’ we agree for life is
good according to how we see it. But we
must make sure what is meant.
For if their ascription of life to that which is merely
biological, which we have shown is not life but being alive, then it
contradicts itself – it is untenable as some things must die for other things
to survive. To be truly Pro-Life, one would embrace the life of that which belongs to
a human, while recognizing exactly what is meant by being human instead of
being alive or surviving. The costs,
though, are great indeed for our oversight; they include loss of finances, time
and liberty.
This is not, however, a call for more abortions, or more
euthanasia; it is a call for awareness for individuals to make sure they can be
left alone to choose for themselves the best they can; if need be, they can
choose help, but they are not forced by authorities. One must keep in mind that when those in
charge of the government want to use government for their goals, it is not a
question of morality, i.e. it is not whether a thing is good or bad; it is a
question of the government enforcing a policy by threat of pain of fine,
imprisonment or death. Those in the government
are not in the situation, and it is not their place to be in the situation
although they look down upon it from their ideological perspective. Politicians live in a self-elevated ivory
tower so they can look down upon us, as that is how they see the relationship -
a power imbalance that they get to rule over. We must be able to choose how to live our
lives as humans, of good will.
References
Aristotle. (2000).
“Nicomachean Ethics.” The
Internet Classics Archive.
Aristotle. (1958). “Nicomachean Ethics.” The Pocket Aristotle. Trans. W. B. Ross. New York:
Pocket Books.
Baumgartner,
Fritz. (2005). Life Begins at the Beginning (A Doctor
Gives the Scientific Facts on When Life Begins). Pro-Life America. Retrieved 12 Apr. 2005
Burke,
Kenneth. (unknown). (Nonsymbolic)
Motion/(Symbolic) Action. Critical
Inquiry.
Fletcher,
Michael. (2005). Bush Hails Progress Toward ‘Culture of Life.’ The Washington
Post. 25 Jan. 2005
Friedrich,
Bruce. (unknown). PETA to Oklahoma
City Bomber. PETA Living
Heraclitus. (2001).
Fragments. New
York: Penguin
Books.
Lauck, Joanne
Elizabeth. (2002). The Voice of the Infinite in the Small:
Re-Visioning the Insect-Human Connection.
Boston: Shambhala
Publications.
Parker,
Richard. (2002). A Physician Comments on Abortion and the
Morning after Pill” Capitalism
Magazine Retrieved 2 Dec. 2002
Peikoff,
Leonard. (2003). Abortion Rights are Pro-Life. Capitalism Magazine Retrieved 23 Jan. 2003
Rand, Ayn. (1964).
The Virtue of Selfishness.
New York: Penguin Books.
Sacher-Masoch,
Leopold von. (2000). Venus In Furs. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
Stark, John. (1999).
John Stark (1728-1822). Retrieved
28 Mar. 1999.
Stemberger,
John. (2005). The Terri Schiavo Controversy – Facts,
Myths and Christian Perspectives. Family
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