A Rhetorical Evaluation of the Concept of Life

[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 Research Council. 

Chris Kyle: A War Hero Who Did Not Fight For Our Freedom - A Brief Review

Much has been said about Chris Kyle and American Sniper.  Criticism and praise have run the gamut between calling him a mass murderer and a coward, to an American Hero who died fighting for our freedom.  Those who decry Kyle use his own words, and those who laud him do so with the jingoism of patriotism.  However, the truth is rarely at an extreme and this is an example.

Examples given of Kyle's words used to show he was a murderer who liked to kill Iraqis, include: calling them 'savages', that he'd 'like to shoot people with a Koran, though he doesn't', that he 'wished he had killed more' and that 'he didn't fight for and didn't care about the Iraqis.'  Let us put him in context, with the base of understanding that he was a soldier who was a member of an elite force [SEALs] and from that wanted to be active, as well as having a problem with bureaucracy in the government and military, as well as the press; Chris Kyle was also a staunch Christian.  Regarding the savages comment, he was not talking about all Iraqis but those militants who fought Americans and also other Iraqis (for example Iraqi 'Johnny Walker' was a teammate and esteemed highly by Kyle); about shooting people with a Koran, he was under investigation for an improper kill (of which he was cleared), but being kept out of a fight and protecting other American soldiers, he mocked the investigators, upper command and press for lambasting actions he took to defend fellow soldiers; as an American soldier, his first priority was to protect other soldiers.  Chris was a killer - that is what he was trained to do; however, he was not a murderer as murder brings with it a context that is incorrect for what Chris had done.  He was a soldier, a highly-trained warrior who enjoyed a good fight and killing 'bad guys' was part of that. 

At an even broader context, Iraq has a geographic boundary delineated by the British early 20th century; however, that boundary was put upon the people there who are not unified.  Iraq has an ethnic division of Arabs and Kurds (largest two), with religious divisions of Sunni and Shia Muslims (largest two).  With the ethnic and religious divisions, many of the people there consider the foreign delineated borders as a secondary concern to religious (and by extension, political) ties.  This division has claimed the lives and caused suffering of thousands yearly as those opposing factions battle each other.  In addition, as religion and ethnic ties are prepotent over country borderlines, members of religious sects cross those geographic borders to assist their religious brothers: they come from Iran, Syria, etc.  From the warring of people against others there, based upon animosity held over centuries, various groups were already inflicting great harm against one another.   Additionally, and especially with the more fundamentalist groups who push religiously-based laws upon the rest, many end up acting in ways that would be labeled 'savage', including stoning adulterers, beheading apostates, hanging gays and lashing rape victims, among other punishments.

This was the world into which the 'American Sniper' was sent - him, along with thousands of American soldiers who fought, killed and died in foreign lands.  It is a land of civil war on different levels.  With that, Chris Kyle did not fight for the freedom of Americans.  He served four tours as he earned his 160+ confirmed kills.  These kills were against people who were not engaged in a war against the United States; they were people who were engaged in a religious and civil war in their own lands.  The people fighting in those streets wanted to lay claim to the lands they lived on, but were not any imminent threat to cross the oceans to lay claim upon American soil.  The ones who are threats to American freedom were ones Chris Kyle had contempt for, but not the ones he actually fought.

As a soldier, shielded with his own religion, he was doubly-blind to the cause, though he had some semblance of an issue which if he removed those two blinds would have revealed to him the true threat to American freedom: politics and religion.  In his own words “The rules are drawn up by lawyers who are trying to protect the admirals and generals from the politicians; they’re not written by people who are worried about the guys on the ground getting shot."  Chris repeatedly chastised one commander he had that Chris considered a coward, refusing to send Chris and his team out on missions, and praised another commander who was a 'badass' (an estimable trait to Chris) and sent out the team on numerous missions; the cowardly commander was promoted, while the other was not.  Chris saw [others'] religious devotion causing harm upon the people, but didn't review his religious fervor.  He saw the attacks upon American citizens and soldiers, prompting him to want to 'fight the enemy' but didn't review that the same actions he was doing as well as the overall 'War on Terror' - directed by politicians - would be creating people like him, but on the other side.  Sure there were those who would be fulfilling his definition of 'savages', but how many were regular citizens who saw too many of their friends get killed, and decided to pick up a gun?-there isn't a way to verify that number.  'They hate us for our freedom' is a diversionary statement by politicians trying to sell us something, in the same vein that we were ferreting out weapons of mass destruction.

A final point regarding criticism toward him, and that is regarding 'just following orders' mentality, with comparisons to Nazi's killing of Jews and the like: there is a difference that makes the base not equal.  People should be free to follow the paths and systems they want; however, if the system by its nature does not allow freedom of people to choose, any free man may oppose it.  Nazi extermination of Jews for being Jews is not equivalent to American soldiers killing combatants for the goals of their organizations are different.  It is the difference between Charles Whitman's killing of 14 people and people killing Charles Whitman.  Free men have the right, though don't have the obligation, to find those who are violating another's rights and stop the aggression appropriately.  Regarding whether or not Chris and his fellow soldiers should have been in Iraq and elsewhere in the first place, that is a problem politicians created, and religionists entrenched.   

To conclude (as this is to be a brief review), Chris Kyle was a 'badass' and served his country proudly, but his uncritical review of his place in the war and what he was doing did not help protect our freedoms.  He was a war hero protecting his fellow soldiers and was conflicted when he wasn't with them  in action as he felt they were in harm's way without his overwatch.  But killing members of different factions in a civil war in another country is not an example of protecting American Freedom. 

 

In Defense of Offensive Speech: Maybe Your Mother is a Bitch, or your God is Evil

Much has been said as of late regarding offensive speech, with various calls to shut down speakers or fine places that engage in ‘hate speech’, and blame those who are victims of people who act upon their anger at being offended. Recent examples range from Bill Maher, All Coulter, Ayaan Hirsi Ali who each have had calls by protesters to prevent speeches that were arranged at various schools, to the murders of Theo Van Gogh and the staff at Charlie Hebdo. In each case, the aggrieved party’s status of being offended by the authors’ words was sufficient base in the [self-created] victim’s eyes as well as others who want to seen as doing something positive in the community.

What is advanced by them is that there are some things of which one should not discuss, not talk about in any critical evaluation. This is especially the case with anything that is based upon religion; however, the essence of not being able to criticize religion is based upon the belief that there is something so sacred, so beloved, that to criticize it is to assail the highest in life, and one so lowly as a person, in particular a person who is not a member of and ‘doesn’t properly understand’ the true beauty of one’s religion.

 

Though speaking authoritatively from a point of ignorance is not good, for by definition it is making a positive assertion about what one doesn’t know, there is also the point where one knows enough to be able to review what they do know, make inquiries about it and from what they learn, make judgments about it. With this, there is nothing so sacred that it cannot be reviewed and properly criticized. Denying criticism negates our rational faculties to make our own judgments, robbing us of the freedom to learn the truth about a thing of contention. If we don’t properly understand, how are we to come to understand? In such a case what is to replace understanding is obedience.

 

Denying this review is intellectual robbery on multiple levels: 1) it robs the one seeking inquiry (or offering an opposing viewpoint) for they are denied the ability to pursue that which they are curious; 2) it denies the audience who may be curious about the issue to be reviewed; 3) it denies the authoritarian a reasoned base of defense of his own beliefs. In denying each party a review to truth, what is taken for truth is nothing but a dogmatic stamp to be imprinted upon everyone’s forehead. It matters not whether this is at a personal-relationship level, or at a philosophical-religious level.

 

At a personal level, if I were to use the pejorative ‘bitch’ about your mother, you may feel insulted and come to your mother’s defense (or not depending on your relationship with her, for you could also say ‘you are so correct’, though your sibling may disagree). You may be angry, berate me and defend your mother. But through this defense, you are using words: giving examples as to why my statement is incorrect and if not try to convince me to change my mind, to convince others that my statement is incorrect. If, however, you simply responded by proceeding to physically attack me then words are not used and the attack is an attempt to stamp a dogmatic belief into my head, and be a threat for those who watch. Lost in the physical attack is the possibility of explanation that justified (rightly or wrongly) my judgment as to why your mother is a bitch. When we were children, she may have been an angel to you, but to me she broke my toys, had her dog chase me and routinely berated me. All of the past happening to me would be lost – denied to me my own experience, denied to others as to what her real past included so they do not form a proper image as to who she was… possibly still is. Or, I could be entirely incorrect and who I thought was your mother was actually your aunt, who we both agree was a bitch, while who I thought was your aunt but was actually your mother, was good. Not reviewing that, we’d never learn that it was a faulty understanding.

 

At a philosophical-religious level, if I was to say your God (Yahweh, Allah, etc.) was an evil entity, and I was attacked for blasphemy to get me to stop talking, then the same issues remain. My understanding of the text and base for the religion is being denied, as is the ability of others to come to a greater understanding, and yourself for you are not coming to a better understanding of the belief – to verify you actually believe what you purport to believe. Lost will be the review of why I said your God was evil. Instead of a review to look at contextual understanding or just to verify that I was not misinterpreting the text, so that each person could come to a better understanding, we are denied and are just to obey the dogmatic teachings. (there is no contextual way of literally understanding Moses’ treatment of the Midianites as ‘good’; metaphoric understanding is by its nature up to review). In a similar vein, if I say one’s religious texts are foolish in their interpretation of the nature of the universe, denying my criticism doesn’t take away the reasoning for the criticism: moon splitting, stars falling from skies, sun stopping in the sky at noon. It all could be that I misunderstood; it could be that you do. Maybe you are the one who focusing on certain verses, forgetting some others… or do not consider the context that the words were used. For example, the original law given to the ‘chosen people’ was not ‘thou shalt not kill’, but thou shalt not murder’… was it referring to all, or just to other members of the chosen people?

 

Without reviewing anything that is held sacred or beloved, we hold that cherished item as a truth that overrides reality. However, reality is not outdone by our wishes. If your mother was a bitch – if not to you, at least to me – then denying that will not change her treatment to me, or others. Similarly, just saying God is good, and not taking the time to review the reasons why I say God is evil, doesn’t take away the reasoning why I made my assertion: e.g. Moses’ treatment of the Midianites (Moses being a prominent figure in the three main monotheistic faiths), or foolish, e.g. sun stopping in the middle of the sky.

 

 

As John Stuart Mill advised, let the competing ideas clash, for the truer of the two will win out and the beneficiaries will be all those who learn the truth. This can only be done when we can critically review any and all beliefs. After all, your mother may be a bitch and your God may be evil, or they may not… but they just might.

 

Let us review.   

 

How Do We Know What We Know

[Hu]mankind is not the rational animal; he is the potentially rational animal.  He can be every bit as reactionary and mindless as any other animal; however, man has the capability to reason which takes more effort, or can just react which is easier.  Whether through reason or some non-reasoning method, we can claim knowledge, rightly or wrongly. 

The way by which we gain knowledge comes in one of three different ways: by revelation; by experience; by authority.  These each have their respective place in the accumulation of knowledge, but that does not mean they have equal value.  They differ in where the origination of knowledge comes and from where it is understood.

Revelation is the formulation of an idea without empirical input; it is generally sudden and taken as divinely inspired. or a 'gut feeling'.  Most often, this is embraced through the emotional experience that one 'felt' the presence of God, and therefore how correct is the knowledge.  There is a second kind of revelation that is not actually revelation, though it gets attributed the same - that type will be addressed later.

Experience is based in empiricism, and expanded to concept formation through processing and contemplation (i.e. reasoning), that can again be affected by empirical findings.  Things are expected to be and act in accordance to how our experience of them says they should be, with the expectation that things of a similar nature will act in a similar way unless there are other factors to understand before a different expectation can be expected: e.g. we know that water will freeze at a certain temperature and know that all liquids will also freeze, unless there is something else to change the results, such as a sufficient amount of alcohol to prevent freezing of the liquid.

Authority is the taking of knowledge as granted by another, because they said so.  A minimum degree of ethos is granted to whomever, and from that we take their word that what they say is true because their ethos grants them that status.  For example, if the question was regarding the nature of volcanoes, a vulcanologist would be best, though because of the nature of scientific inquiry and the related aspects of the fields, a geologist's advice would (should) be more valuable than the advice of one whose specialty is in medieval literature.  It is expected that whoever is talking, knows their field well enough to be able to speak from and about it.

Revelation is by itself in that it can be wholly subjective.  There does not need to be any reference to empirical validation in any way as the verification of the knowledge through revelation is the emotional sensation that accompanies it.  Experience necessarily is objectively based as it is empirical, for one experienced a thing or event and takes the learned information through sensory organs to store for processing and later retrieval.  Though the interpretation may have subjective elements, it is based upon an objective event in order to be interpreted.  Authority is the deferment of either revelation or experience, granting the knowledge to a third party as a valid source to speak on behalf of actually having the revelation or the experience. 

Most of the knowledge we have is based upon authority.  Believe that the Koran or Bible is the word of God?-that is based upon authority.  If one believes they actually existed according to their respective texts, no one is alive today who spoke to Moses, Jesus or Muhammad, or witnessed any of the acts or 'miracles' they are purported to have done (one reading this definitely did not see them), so authority is granted to those who told the believer: that would be the messengers of today, and the long line of authors who transcribed and 'spread the word' ultimately to the authors themselves.  Each has to be granted authority to believe what is read is actually real.  Believe in the theory of evolution?-unless you are a scientist working on the theory, your belief in evolution is based upon authority.  If you did not conduct the experiments, you grant authority to those who did perform the experiments; authority would still be granted to others in one's field of study.  But whether this is from another’s revelation or experience, as a deferment the issue remains that the one who originated that which is taken as knowledge either did so based upon their subjectively or objectively-based perception of reality. 

This brings up the crucial distinction between revelation and experience, whether one’s own or deferred through authority: it is the difference between that which is verifiable and that which isn’t.  Experience is that which any may have and come up with similar results – the more similar the variables, the more similar the results.  For example, if different people take a certain amount of water with the same composition and apply the same heat to it in the same environment, it will turn to vapor in nearly the exact same manner; however, if some variable changes through different attempts, such as the environment in elevation then there will be a change in the results by some degree.  The more variables that are introduced, the greater the variability in results, such as different chemical makeup, heat source and the like.  Anybody can take the same events and variables and come to the same conclusions.  The issue in life is finding the appropriate variables, and reading them properly.

Revelation is not tied to experience of the world, but of a feeling of something inside oneself.  There is no way to confirm it, for it is wholly subjective; there is nothing that anyone else can do to verify one’s revelation, for by the nature of revelation it is granting authority to one who said they had it.  There is no way to externally verify it.  Revelation is actually a claim to come to knowledge from an outside source, but without experience of any means of accumulating or transmitting said knowledge; it is to be a direct inspiration from God or another divine source directly into one’s mind/soul.  How can an individual attest to that the revelation was correct?-he ‘feels’ it, but how does he know that feeling is correct?  There is nothing outside of that feeling.  If they point to an external source, then it is experience and subject to interpretation.

This brings us to our last point: regardless of whether it is through revelation, experience or authority, each method of accumulating and processing knowledge is done through our mental makeup from our biology, evolution, society, education and more: the base from which we make our understanding of what we take as knowledge.  For experience, it is the reason why we know nature is not playing tricks upon us when we see a bent stick when it is partially submerged in water; for revelation, it is the reason why remote and primitive tribes who never heard of Christianity or Islam don’t attribute their revelations to Jesus, Muhammad or other Abahamic figures, but to their own interpretations of divinity – the reverse is true with why Christians and Muslims don’t attribute their revelations to the deities of those remote and primitive tribesmen.

Each level has its potential for contributing to knowledge in its own way: experience is limited to what we have done ourselves; authority is letting the expertise that another has earned contribute to our knowledge; revelation, on the other hand, is valid in one way that is not true revelation but how it can actually come about and that is as any knowledge gained is based and filtered through our mental maps (schemata) what is taken as revelation is the subconscious connections that exist within our minds – not actually ‘divine inspiration’ but the attempts at making connections that haven’t been made yet.  Newton’s realization of gravity from the apple falling is such an example – it wasn’t a wholly new idea, but the culmination of ideas he had been reviewing beforehand that got the last piece added to complete the picture’s organization.

This is important for any level may be improperly attributed, leading to invalid conclusions and false knowledge.  This is most readily apparent with revelation – especially divinely inspired – for there is no way that it can be verified.  One says he felt the hand of God – how can that be proven or disproven?  Equally, I can say I felt that his feeling was actually a gremlin making him believe it was God’s presence to try and trick him – how could I prove what I said, or be disproven?  For both claims, as Hitchens quipped: what is advanced without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.  This does not mean that experience and authority are immune to error.  Science is never fully settled, and phrenology is an example of what was scientific at one point, but found to be erroneous at a later time.  Where revelation cannot be reviewed; experience through science can be amended. 

It is up to us to recognize how we get knowledge and where that knowledge comes from.  This is especially the case granting authority for the one relaying knowledge does so based upon their understanding, in addition to their bias and interest in the world.  Just as we each have our cognitive maps through which we interpret things, so do any we grant authority – where did they get their knowledge they are trying to persuade us to accept?-are they trying to 'sell' us something? 

Are we to believe the worldview of those who limit themselves to the information gathered from their culture only, in a dogmatic way that it was given to them from an original source of revelation meaning that it cannot be verified in any way?-are we to believe the politician who has a vested interest in us believing his side of an issue?-are we to believe the scientist speaking in his field of expertise?  It is the difference between an illiterate tribesman from millenia ago as contrasted to Dawkins' and Hawking's findings in evolution and cosmology telling us how life and the universe came to be.  Revelation or 'gut feelings' may coincide with truth, but to verify we go beyond.  Being mindful does not involve thinking with one's gut.

Ultimately, it comes down to the distinction: know reality from reality or from those who say what is reality through a means not tied to reality. It is through this uncritical review where man can repeat like a parrot, or bark upon command, but not actually reason to come to the truth of a claim.  This is why mankind is the potentially rational animal for though he can reason, he also has the greater sin in not living up to his potential - acting as humans are capable.