Comment On the Importance of Human Life
Posted by Jed Lopez on Thursday, November 10, 2011
The preservation of human life is the final word value, a pillar of ethics and the muse of all morality. This held true in most cultures and societies throughout history.
On first impression, the final sentence sounds patently wrong. We all know about human collectives that regarded human lives as dispensable, that murdered and tortured, that cleansed and annihilated complete populations in recurrent genocides. Surely, these defy the aforementioned statement?
Liberal philosophies declare that human life was treated as a main worth all through the ages. Authoritarian regimes don't contest the over-driving importance of this value. Life is sacred, worthwhile, to be cherished and preserved. But, in totalitarian societies, it can be deferred, subsumed, subjected to larger targets, quantized, and, due to this fact, applied with differential rigor in the following circumstances:
1.. Quantitative - when a lesser evil prevents a greater one. Sacrificing the lives of the few to save the lives of the many is a precept enshrined and embedded in activities resembling battle and medicinal care. All cultures, no matter how steeped (or rooted) in liberal lore settle for it. All of them ship troopers to die to save lots of the more quite a few civilian population. Medical docs sacrifice lives daily, to avoid wasting others.
It's boils all the way down to a quantitative evaluation ("the numerical ratio between those saved and people sacrificed"), and to questions of high quality ("are there privileged lives whose saving or preservation is definitely worth the sacrifice of others' lives?") and of evaluation (nobody can safely predict the outcomes of such ethical dilemmas - will lives be saved as the result of the sacrifice?).
2.. Temporal - when sacrificing life (voluntarily or not) in the current secures a better life for others in the future. These future lives needn't be more quite a few than the lives sacrificed. A life in the future immediately acquires the connotation of youth in need of protection. It's the previous sacrificed for the sake of the brand new, a trade off between those that already had their share of life - and those who hadn't. It's the bloody equivalent of a savings plan: one defers current consumption to the future.
The mirror picture of this temporal argument belongs to the third group (see subsequent), the qualitative one. It prefers to sacrifice a life in the current in order that one other life, also within the present, will continue to exist in the future. Abortion is an occasion of this approach: the life of the child is sacrificed to secure the future properly-being of the mother. In Judaism, it is forbidden to kill a female bird. Better to kill its off-spring. The mom has the potential to compensate for this lack of life by bringing giving delivery to other chicks.
3.. Qualitative - This is an particularly vicious variant because it purports to endow subjective notions and views with "scientific" objectivity. Persons are judged to belong to totally different qualitative groups (categorized by race, skin color, beginning, gender, age, wealth, or other arbitrary parameters). The result of this immoral taxonomy is that the lives of the "lesser" manufacturers of people are considered less "weighty" and worthy than the lives of the upper grades of humanity. The former are therefore sacrificed to benefit the latter. The Jews in Nazi occupied Europe, the black slaves in America, the aborigines in Australia are three examples of such pernicious thinking.
4.. Utilitarian - When the sacrifice of 1 life brings another individual material or different benefits. That is the considering (and motion) which characterizes psychopaths and sociopathic criminals, for instance. For them, life is a tradable commodity and it can be exchanged in opposition to inanimate items and services. Money and medicines are bartered for life.
On first impression, the final sentence sounds patently wrong. We all know about human collectives that regarded human lives as dispensable, that murdered and tortured, that cleansed and annihilated complete populations in recurrent genocides. Surely, these defy the aforementioned statement?
Liberal philosophies declare that human life was treated as a main worth all through the ages. Authoritarian regimes don't contest the over-driving importance of this value. Life is sacred, worthwhile, to be cherished and preserved. But, in totalitarian societies, it can be deferred, subsumed, subjected to larger targets, quantized, and, due to this fact, applied with differential rigor in the following circumstances:
1.. Quantitative - when a lesser evil prevents a greater one. Sacrificing the lives of the few to save the lives of the many is a precept enshrined and embedded in activities resembling battle and medicinal care. All cultures, no matter how steeped (or rooted) in liberal lore settle for it. All of them ship troopers to die to save lots of the more quite a few civilian population. Medical docs sacrifice lives daily, to avoid wasting others.
It's boils all the way down to a quantitative evaluation ("the numerical ratio between those saved and people sacrificed"), and to questions of high quality ("are there privileged lives whose saving or preservation is definitely worth the sacrifice of others' lives?") and of evaluation (nobody can safely predict the outcomes of such ethical dilemmas - will lives be saved as the result of the sacrifice?).
2.. Temporal - when sacrificing life (voluntarily or not) in the current secures a better life for others in the future. These future lives needn't be more quite a few than the lives sacrificed. A life in the future immediately acquires the connotation of youth in need of protection. It's the previous sacrificed for the sake of the brand new, a trade off between those that already had their share of life - and those who hadn't. It's the bloody equivalent of a savings plan: one defers current consumption to the future.
The mirror picture of this temporal argument belongs to the third group (see subsequent), the qualitative one. It prefers to sacrifice a life in the current in order that one other life, also within the present, will continue to exist in the future. Abortion is an occasion of this approach: the life of the child is sacrificed to secure the future properly-being of the mother. In Judaism, it is forbidden to kill a female bird. Better to kill its off-spring. The mom has the potential to compensate for this lack of life by bringing giving delivery to other chicks.
3.. Qualitative - This is an particularly vicious variant because it purports to endow subjective notions and views with "scientific" objectivity. Persons are judged to belong to totally different qualitative groups (categorized by race, skin color, beginning, gender, age, wealth, or other arbitrary parameters). The result of this immoral taxonomy is that the lives of the "lesser" manufacturers of people are considered less "weighty" and worthy than the lives of the upper grades of humanity. The former are therefore sacrificed to benefit the latter. The Jews in Nazi occupied Europe, the black slaves in America, the aborigines in Australia are three examples of such pernicious thinking.
4.. Utilitarian - When the sacrifice of 1 life brings another individual material or different benefits. That is the considering (and motion) which characterizes psychopaths and sociopathic criminals, for instance. For them, life is a tradable commodity and it can be exchanged in opposition to inanimate items and services. Money and medicines are bartered for life.