Innocent Human Life
You may be interested in a web page I built shortly after 9/11/2001. The page on the true believer was my effort to come to grips with the psychological causality of this event. (Skeptic though I may be, I don't embrace David Hume's skepticism on causality!) We may be like blind men around an elephant when it comes to finding the core truth of this event and perhaps there are multiple core truths.
http://www.mymallandnews.com/frame08war.htm
I was thinking about the phrase you mentioned on one of your Face Book responses: "innocent human life" as regards to a human zygote and wondering if that corresponded with something that was real. I have my doubts. It is human and it is life, although it is not a fact that life starts at conception. Rather, life is transmitted to create the union of two gametes from male and female. However, the quality of "innocence" is at best a projection. It is more accurate to say that the zygote is neither innocent nor condemned. It just is, much like my shoe or my cat. When we say the grass is green, we are making a claim to fact imputation asserting that what we see that grass has an objective quality of greenness to it. That I may be color blind is not relevant if accurate instruments are available to confirm the greenness of that grass based on light wavelengths. No such test is available when we come to value judgments as regarding human life. While a human zygote cannot be said to be innocent, nor can it be said that it is mere human life like my finger nail clippings, expendable and without regard to consequences. And here is where the voters, legislatures, and courts step in. And what they have said, broadly, is that because that zygote is potential human life, distinctions must be made to protect that potential human life based on gestation. A rule of no abortions after conceptions is like a rule of death to all killers-- illogical and unjust given the complexity of life. We may see the trimester distinctions as arbitrary and overly broad brushed, but that is our law, which is nothing but distinctions and exceptions. The distinction between misdemeanor theft and felony theft is one dollar. The difference between legal abortion and infanticide is one day. The consensus behind that law may indeed change and perhaps the law relating to human life may change. But what most people see is that life is messy and filled with contradictions and paradoxes no matter how elevated there moral intentions are. I saw this rather brutally in my mother's self-termination last December, whose end was shepherded by militant pro-lifers. In a magical world where conservative shareholders would close down media outlets that create the entertainment that fosters casual sex, where poor women have the same access to information and options as rich women, where all fetus develop so that a mother's life is never endangered, where all children are wanted and are brought into caring, stable two-family households, and where deviance such as rape and incest ceases to exist, perhaps then will abortion be a thing of the past. But we live in the real world, and I think our inability to come to grips with the complexity of life, law, and morality leads to exactly that kind of fanacicism that I refer to in my essay on Hoffer's book.
I think you're confusing legal guilt with moral guilt. Of course the conceptus is not "guilty or condemned" in the legal sense: No judge or jury has pronounced a verdict on it. That's not what we're talking about. What we are talking about is whether or not the conceptus has acted morally (has chosen a mode of behavior) that constitutes rendering the conceptus in a state of moral guilt. (It hasn't murdered or raped or lied or stolen, etc.) It just is. Therefore, it is morally innocent.
But that is what I deny. Or, rather, I affirm that such a value judgment is unfounded. A zygote (let's call it Mary) has the potential of being rational, autonomous, and a full member of the human community after time has elapsed. But should we give Mary at one day the same moral regards-- the same imputation of morality to its essence-- as Mary at two years? You seem to suggest that the lapse of time is irrelevant. Zygote Mary and the toddler Mary are morally equivalent. I understand the passion behind that assertion, but I don't see the moral foundation to it beyond repeated assertions. Thus, I'm not prepared to accept your conclusion: "And since it is wrong to aim at the destruction of morally innocent human life, it is wrong to aim at the destruction of the conceptus."
"What makes the conceptus different from your cat or your shoe is that it is a human life, capable of free choices and moral deliberation. This, at least in part, makes the conceptus to be of infinitely greater value than either your cat or your shoe."
But zygote Mary is incapable for such to which we ascribe moral agency. I would argue that my cat and perhaps my computer are morally superior to zygote Mary.
"As bad as it may be to aim at the destruction of your cat or your shoe, it is of inexpressibly greater moral weight to aim at the destruction of a humanconceptus, a rational being."
We don't know if zygote Mary will be rational and nor does it matter, only that she is-- but from that point when she is no longer a fetus.
"If you deny that the value of the conceptus is in the thing itself and insist, instead, that we merely "gild and stain" it with value, as Hume would claim, then what you're saying is that it is morally permissible to aim at the destruction of one human life (in this case, that of the conceptus in question), but not others. But why do you "gild and stain" some human lives with more value than others? What if I "gild and stain" differently? What if I don't "gild and stain" you with value?"
This is the wedge argument. Thus, the implication is that if you abort babies, next we will be terminate the aged and then the mentally defectives. I gave you the answer--and that is that the law defines sometimes with precision what is permissible. As a citizen you can try to change the law. As a question of ethics and morality, if you cannot change the law, you must try to comport your own actions to your own conscience by never aborting.
"I think that subjectivist approach to value will make hash of ethics. Hume could make it look plausible because he lived at a time and place where shared values were assumed. In an increasingly multicultural world, a world where "value relativism" is gaining ascendency, I think we do not want to be promoting value subjectivism."
Agreed.
"You're not suggesting that value is subjective because we do not have the capacity to measure it empirically, are you?"
No. But lacking a capacity to objectively assess a value, it doesn't follow that I must accept your (what I believe are subjective) values.
"If you really think that a little baby in the womb is equally really blameworthy as, say, Charles Manson, well, then I guess it's at least good that we've cleared up where it is that we disagree."
Charles Manson is morally superior to zygote Mary, because Charles Manson made choices whereas zygote Mary has no capacity for choice. Charles doesn't have better morals than Mary, obviously. But he has the moral agency that Mary does not have.
“I'll explain AGAIN how it is that the conceptus cannot rightly be regarded as morally guilty. It has not chosen any course of action that is morally wrong. Therefore, it is not morally guilty of anything that would merit the death penalty. The conceptus is innocent of any such wrong. Now, perhaps, you will explain to me how it is that you deny this.”
I didn’t know what conceptus meant until you introduced me to the term. Wikipedia defines it thusly: “Conceptus (Latin is conceptio, derivatives of zygote) denotes the embryo and its adnexa (appendages or adjunct parts) or associated membranes (i.e. the products of conception) The conceptus includes all structures that develop from the zygote, both embryonic and extra embryonic. It includes the embryo as well as the embryonic part of the placenta and its associated membranes - amnion, chorion (gestational sac), and yolk sac.”
To answer you question and as I’ve said, the conceptus has no intrinsic morality at all. It cannot be innocent and it cannot be guilty certainly legally but also practically. Is it really your position that a women who takes a day after pill has committed homicide?
“I could say the same thing about you while you are sleeping, or while you are temporarily unconscious because your son threw the baseball at your head while playing catch. Are you suggesting that it would be morally permissible to "abort" you while you are in this state of being "potentially rational"?
Humanity encompasses more than thought. It also implies a certain element of autonomy and life experiences as well as protection and recognition by the community that the I am different from a zygote.
"The lapse of time is irrelevant. If you think the time a human being has been in existence is what constitutes the ground for its being accorded moral rights, then you flat out discriminate on the basis of what everyone agrees is an irrelevant characteristic--age. You're engaging in "ageism." You think the very young have no rights. If you really think this, you'll soon start thinking, if you're not careful, that the very old do not have any moral rights, either."
Human life have a sliding scale of rights, and this is without regard to whether they are living in tribe in New Guinea or in a Manhatten penthouse. I’m not saying that the right of a zygote is nil, but I cannot fathom why the right of a zygote must equal my rights.
"I'll try again:1) Mary is alive2) Mary is a human being3) Mary has done nothing to warrant the death penalty4) We don't execute human beings who do not warrant execution5) Therefore, we (morally) must not execute Mary.Let's just get crystal clear on this. Tell me which of these statements you deny."
I’ll be happy to concede 1-4 . But I reject the conclusion as it does not follow from the antecedent premises. There are times when we must execute ZM for any number of reasons, and our inability to execute with impunity and without guilt increases as ZM matures fetally. You are looking for moral clarity in an issue that rarely is morally clear. Further, you fail to extend that moral clarity to other issues concerning life, such as the death penalty and war. (Not all Catholics do, however. I was impressed by Cardinal Bernandin’s consistentcy on all life issues—he called it a seamless robe. )
I wrote this essay a few years ago.
Easy Answers
Beware when anyone has more answers than questions or answers hard questions with easy answers. For example, let’s consider two issues: the death penalty and abortion. I’m generally opposed to the death penalty, as it appears to me to be a perverse lottery that favors the execution of blacks, males, ugly and unpleasant people, the poor, and folks who live in Texas. On the other hand, I’ve never been a victim of a capital crime, and perhaps my feelings would go in another direction if I were. And I think it is true that the execution of the architect of genocide Adolph Eichmann in Israel and mass-murderer Timothy McVeigh was in some sense a moral victory.
Abortion is far more complex than merely making a simplistic dichotomy between pro-life and pro-choice positions. Few doctors endorse abortion as a means of birth control and such a grave step should never be taken lightly. Doctors, perhaps for insurance reasons, sometimes scare the daylights out of mother-to-be about the health of their child. But doctors are sometimes wrong, and it’s important to trust ourselves in such matters.
I’ve also met few absolutists on abortion, especially when they have to deal with the issue personally, as in a hypothetical in which a baby is an encephalic-- without a brain-- and the mother’s life in danger. Someone wrote to me saying that this “did happen to my closest friends a couple of years ago, and even more ironically, at the time, I was teaching an eight week course on Biblical ethics when the severity of her condition came to light. In a nutshell, she had four small kids at home, pregnant with her fifth, when she started having problems. Doctors said that: a) The baby essentially had no brain, his limbs were severely deformed, and other internal organs where malformed beyond hope. b) Because of some uterine problems, there was a very high chance that sometime in the ninth month she would suffer some major hemorrhage that could prove fatal to her. They of course, wanted to abort right away. She refused, and moreover, wanted to carry the baby full term and have a natural childbirth. (Initially, she actually wanted to give birth at home). For me, I saw the ethical question in a whole new light, now that it had a face on it. The baby had a zero percentage chance of surviving. For a staunch pro-lifer, it was a dilemma acknowledging that the right-to-life can't always be seen as an absolute. It didn't seem right that the mother should possibly lose her life, and four small children lose their mother, when the baby wasn't going to live no matter what. Fortunately, the mother decided to have a C-section at the earliest possible time. (32 weeks or something like that...don't exactly remember) She got through it okay. The baby lived for three days or so.”
God gives us minds and God gives doctors their skill. The point is not to look for rationalizations to support our actions but rather be prepared to acknowledge the complexity of life and that we must adapt moral principles to achieve the most ethical ends A one-size-fit-all principle that all life from conception on must be preserved at all costs can be immoral and even deadly, a principle, by the way, that anti-abortionists rarely extend to embracing military pacifism and mercy to criminals on death row. Especially immoral—and I use that word with precision—is the view that we should simply put our faith in God’s perfect will on all matters of health. Taken to its logical extreme, this claim should cause us to ignore car seatbelts and antibiotics for babies. Some sects have taken this position, bringing misery and death to those they claim they love.
"This implies that the law is arbitrary and that there is no actual moral difference between a law that, say, says it's obligatory to exterminate Jews just because they are Jewish and one that says it is impermissible to exterminate Jews just because they are Jewish. This kind of legal positivism is highly implausible. We do think there are just laws and unjust laws, and the reason we think this is because we do think there is such a thing as justice. Good laws approximate what is just, bad laws do not. Good law is based upon (comports with, reflects) morality. Morality is the basis of good law. If you lived in Nazi Germany, would you follow the law that says it's obligatory to exterminate Jews just because they are Jewish? Why not?"
There is a fallacy or argumentation that suggests any argument that invokes the Nazi era is automatically suspect because that time and circumstances was sui generis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
No matter, I’ll play. Law is far from arbitrary, and the consistency generally of law through time and culture suggest to me that natural law may be valid. I agree that morality informs or comports with good law. We differ however on what we regard as moral. He murder of Jews is categorically different than the killing of fetuses, not because of the laws in play, but because Jewish human and fetal humans are categorically different.
“Of course. You don't have to accept anything. But I assume you respect rational argument, and so the question is which positions are better justified rationally. “
I’m struggling to understand your rationale. I suspect it relates to Majesterium which in turn is based on some kind of a belief that morality derives from the sense that zygote Mary has a soul no less so than toddler Mary. But to me these justify nothing as a reject the Majesterium and have my doubts about the soul theory as least as it applies to a fetus.
http://www.mymallandnews.com/frame08war.htm
I was thinking about the phrase you mentioned on one of your Face Book responses: "innocent human life" as regards to a human zygote and wondering if that corresponded with something that was real. I have my doubts. It is human and it is life, although it is not a fact that life starts at conception. Rather, life is transmitted to create the union of two gametes from male and female. However, the quality of "innocence" is at best a projection. It is more accurate to say that the zygote is neither innocent nor condemned. It just is, much like my shoe or my cat. When we say the grass is green, we are making a claim to fact imputation asserting that what we see that grass has an objective quality of greenness to it. That I may be color blind is not relevant if accurate instruments are available to confirm the greenness of that grass based on light wavelengths. No such test is available when we come to value judgments as regarding human life. While a human zygote cannot be said to be innocent, nor can it be said that it is mere human life like my finger nail clippings, expendable and without regard to consequences. And here is where the voters, legislatures, and courts step in. And what they have said, broadly, is that because that zygote is potential human life, distinctions must be made to protect that potential human life based on gestation. A rule of no abortions after conceptions is like a rule of death to all killers-- illogical and unjust given the complexity of life. We may see the trimester distinctions as arbitrary and overly broad brushed, but that is our law, which is nothing but distinctions and exceptions. The distinction between misdemeanor theft and felony theft is one dollar. The difference between legal abortion and infanticide is one day. The consensus behind that law may indeed change and perhaps the law relating to human life may change. But what most people see is that life is messy and filled with contradictions and paradoxes no matter how elevated there moral intentions are. I saw this rather brutally in my mother's self-termination last December, whose end was shepherded by militant pro-lifers. In a magical world where conservative shareholders would close down media outlets that create the entertainment that fosters casual sex, where poor women have the same access to information and options as rich women, where all fetus develop so that a mother's life is never endangered, where all children are wanted and are brought into caring, stable two-family households, and where deviance such as rape and incest ceases to exist, perhaps then will abortion be a thing of the past. But we live in the real world, and I think our inability to come to grips with the complexity of life, law, and morality leads to exactly that kind of fanacicism that I refer to in my essay on Hoffer's book.
I think you're confusing legal guilt with moral guilt. Of course the conceptus is not "guilty or condemned" in the legal sense: No judge or jury has pronounced a verdict on it. That's not what we're talking about. What we are talking about is whether or not the conceptus has acted morally (has chosen a mode of behavior) that constitutes rendering the conceptus in a state of moral guilt. (It hasn't murdered or raped or lied or stolen, etc.) It just is. Therefore, it is morally innocent.
But that is what I deny. Or, rather, I affirm that such a value judgment is unfounded. A zygote (let's call it Mary) has the potential of being rational, autonomous, and a full member of the human community after time has elapsed. But should we give Mary at one day the same moral regards-- the same imputation of morality to its essence-- as Mary at two years? You seem to suggest that the lapse of time is irrelevant. Zygote Mary and the toddler Mary are morally equivalent. I understand the passion behind that assertion, but I don't see the moral foundation to it beyond repeated assertions. Thus, I'm not prepared to accept your conclusion: "And since it is wrong to aim at the destruction of morally innocent human life, it is wrong to aim at the destruction of the conceptus."
"What makes the conceptus different from your cat or your shoe is that it is a human life, capable of free choices and moral deliberation. This, at least in part, makes the conceptus to be of infinitely greater value than either your cat or your shoe."
But zygote Mary is incapable for such to which we ascribe moral agency. I would argue that my cat and perhaps my computer are morally superior to zygote Mary.
"As bad as it may be to aim at the destruction of your cat or your shoe, it is of inexpressibly greater moral weight to aim at the destruction of a humanconceptus, a rational being."
We don't know if zygote Mary will be rational and nor does it matter, only that she is-- but from that point when she is no longer a fetus.
"If you deny that the value of the conceptus is in the thing itself and insist, instead, that we merely "gild and stain" it with value, as Hume would claim, then what you're saying is that it is morally permissible to aim at the destruction of one human life (in this case, that of the conceptus in question), but not others. But why do you "gild and stain" some human lives with more value than others? What if I "gild and stain" differently? What if I don't "gild and stain" you with value?"
This is the wedge argument. Thus, the implication is that if you abort babies, next we will be terminate the aged and then the mentally defectives. I gave you the answer--and that is that the law defines sometimes with precision what is permissible. As a citizen you can try to change the law. As a question of ethics and morality, if you cannot change the law, you must try to comport your own actions to your own conscience by never aborting.
"I think that subjectivist approach to value will make hash of ethics. Hume could make it look plausible because he lived at a time and place where shared values were assumed. In an increasingly multicultural world, a world where "value relativism" is gaining ascendency, I think we do not want to be promoting value subjectivism."
Agreed.
"You're not suggesting that value is subjective because we do not have the capacity to measure it empirically, are you?"
No. But lacking a capacity to objectively assess a value, it doesn't follow that I must accept your (what I believe are subjective) values.
"If you really think that a little baby in the womb is equally really blameworthy as, say, Charles Manson, well, then I guess it's at least good that we've cleared up where it is that we disagree."
Charles Manson is morally superior to zygote Mary, because Charles Manson made choices whereas zygote Mary has no capacity for choice. Charles doesn't have better morals than Mary, obviously. But he has the moral agency that Mary does not have.
“I'll explain AGAIN how it is that the conceptus cannot rightly be regarded as morally guilty. It has not chosen any course of action that is morally wrong. Therefore, it is not morally guilty of anything that would merit the death penalty. The conceptus is innocent of any such wrong. Now, perhaps, you will explain to me how it is that you deny this.”
I didn’t know what conceptus meant until you introduced me to the term. Wikipedia defines it thusly: “Conceptus (Latin is conceptio, derivatives of zygote) denotes the embryo and its adnexa (appendages or adjunct parts) or associated membranes (i.e. the products of conception) The conceptus includes all structures that develop from the zygote, both embryonic and extra embryonic. It includes the embryo as well as the embryonic part of the placenta and its associated membranes - amnion, chorion (gestational sac), and yolk sac.”
To answer you question and as I’ve said, the conceptus has no intrinsic morality at all. It cannot be innocent and it cannot be guilty certainly legally but also practically. Is it really your position that a women who takes a day after pill has committed homicide?
“I could say the same thing about you while you are sleeping, or while you are temporarily unconscious because your son threw the baseball at your head while playing catch. Are you suggesting that it would be morally permissible to "abort" you while you are in this state of being "potentially rational"?
Humanity encompasses more than thought. It also implies a certain element of autonomy and life experiences as well as protection and recognition by the community that the I am different from a zygote.
"The lapse of time is irrelevant. If you think the time a human being has been in existence is what constitutes the ground for its being accorded moral rights, then you flat out discriminate on the basis of what everyone agrees is an irrelevant characteristic--age. You're engaging in "ageism." You think the very young have no rights. If you really think this, you'll soon start thinking, if you're not careful, that the very old do not have any moral rights, either."
Human life have a sliding scale of rights, and this is without regard to whether they are living in tribe in New Guinea or in a Manhatten penthouse. I’m not saying that the right of a zygote is nil, but I cannot fathom why the right of a zygote must equal my rights.
"I'll try again:1) Mary is alive2) Mary is a human being3) Mary has done nothing to warrant the death penalty4) We don't execute human beings who do not warrant execution5) Therefore, we (morally) must not execute Mary.Let's just get crystal clear on this. Tell me which of these statements you deny."
I’ll be happy to concede 1-4 . But I reject the conclusion as it does not follow from the antecedent premises. There are times when we must execute ZM for any number of reasons, and our inability to execute with impunity and without guilt increases as ZM matures fetally. You are looking for moral clarity in an issue that rarely is morally clear. Further, you fail to extend that moral clarity to other issues concerning life, such as the death penalty and war. (Not all Catholics do, however. I was impressed by Cardinal Bernandin’s consistentcy on all life issues—he called it a seamless robe. )
I wrote this essay a few years ago.
Easy Answers
Beware when anyone has more answers than questions or answers hard questions with easy answers. For example, let’s consider two issues: the death penalty and abortion. I’m generally opposed to the death penalty, as it appears to me to be a perverse lottery that favors the execution of blacks, males, ugly and unpleasant people, the poor, and folks who live in Texas. On the other hand, I’ve never been a victim of a capital crime, and perhaps my feelings would go in another direction if I were. And I think it is true that the execution of the architect of genocide Adolph Eichmann in Israel and mass-murderer Timothy McVeigh was in some sense a moral victory.
Abortion is far more complex than merely making a simplistic dichotomy between pro-life and pro-choice positions. Few doctors endorse abortion as a means of birth control and such a grave step should never be taken lightly. Doctors, perhaps for insurance reasons, sometimes scare the daylights out of mother-to-be about the health of their child. But doctors are sometimes wrong, and it’s important to trust ourselves in such matters.
I’ve also met few absolutists on abortion, especially when they have to deal with the issue personally, as in a hypothetical in which a baby is an encephalic-- without a brain-- and the mother’s life in danger. Someone wrote to me saying that this “did happen to my closest friends a couple of years ago, and even more ironically, at the time, I was teaching an eight week course on Biblical ethics when the severity of her condition came to light. In a nutshell, she had four small kids at home, pregnant with her fifth, when she started having problems. Doctors said that: a) The baby essentially had no brain, his limbs were severely deformed, and other internal organs where malformed beyond hope. b) Because of some uterine problems, there was a very high chance that sometime in the ninth month she would suffer some major hemorrhage that could prove fatal to her. They of course, wanted to abort right away. She refused, and moreover, wanted to carry the baby full term and have a natural childbirth. (Initially, she actually wanted to give birth at home). For me, I saw the ethical question in a whole new light, now that it had a face on it. The baby had a zero percentage chance of surviving. For a staunch pro-lifer, it was a dilemma acknowledging that the right-to-life can't always be seen as an absolute. It didn't seem right that the mother should possibly lose her life, and four small children lose their mother, when the baby wasn't going to live no matter what. Fortunately, the mother decided to have a C-section at the earliest possible time. (32 weeks or something like that...don't exactly remember) She got through it okay. The baby lived for three days or so.”
God gives us minds and God gives doctors their skill. The point is not to look for rationalizations to support our actions but rather be prepared to acknowledge the complexity of life and that we must adapt moral principles to achieve the most ethical ends A one-size-fit-all principle that all life from conception on must be preserved at all costs can be immoral and even deadly, a principle, by the way, that anti-abortionists rarely extend to embracing military pacifism and mercy to criminals on death row. Especially immoral—and I use that word with precision—is the view that we should simply put our faith in God’s perfect will on all matters of health. Taken to its logical extreme, this claim should cause us to ignore car seatbelts and antibiotics for babies. Some sects have taken this position, bringing misery and death to those they claim they love.
"This implies that the law is arbitrary and that there is no actual moral difference between a law that, say, says it's obligatory to exterminate Jews just because they are Jewish and one that says it is impermissible to exterminate Jews just because they are Jewish. This kind of legal positivism is highly implausible. We do think there are just laws and unjust laws, and the reason we think this is because we do think there is such a thing as justice. Good laws approximate what is just, bad laws do not. Good law is based upon (comports with, reflects) morality. Morality is the basis of good law. If you lived in Nazi Germany, would you follow the law that says it's obligatory to exterminate Jews just because they are Jewish? Why not?"
There is a fallacy or argumentation that suggests any argument that invokes the Nazi era is automatically suspect because that time and circumstances was sui generis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
No matter, I’ll play. Law is far from arbitrary, and the consistency generally of law through time and culture suggest to me that natural law may be valid. I agree that morality informs or comports with good law. We differ however on what we regard as moral. He murder of Jews is categorically different than the killing of fetuses, not because of the laws in play, but because Jewish human and fetal humans are categorically different.
“Of course. You don't have to accept anything. But I assume you respect rational argument, and so the question is which positions are better justified rationally. “
I’m struggling to understand your rationale. I suspect it relates to Majesterium which in turn is based on some kind of a belief that morality derives from the sense that zygote Mary has a soul no less so than toddler Mary. But to me these justify nothing as a reject the Majesterium and have my doubts about the soul theory as least as it applies to a fetus.
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