Posted by
Josh Kon on Sunday, April 19, 2009 7:55:12 PM
Based on what do we afford value to human life? In most cases, answering this question is of no moment. The fact that human life has great value is or should be axiomatic. Therefore, defining by what criteria we actually find human life to possess worth does not deserve much of our intellectual efforts. But, especially on the margins of the human experience, pinning down what exactly we find worth preserving is of great import. That is to say, when discussing the many situations in which people find it permitted to extinguish human life -- such as abortion, war, capital punishment or euthanasia -- establishing what gives human life its worth is an intellectual exercise well worth our time.
It appears that if a society's value of human life is to be both intellectually consistent and honest, said value must be found from three sources: independent existence, consciousness and divine gift. Many find that one, two or a superficial collection of same are sufficient to sustain a good and functioning society. But, as shown below, this belief is misguided and naive. Without all three, society's value of human life is doomed to either exist at a teetering and arbitrary level or one whose double standards are detrimentally legion, or both.
An existence that is for the most part independent -- or largely self-sufficient -- appears to be at least a starting point to rationally affording value to life, especially that of humans. A life that is partially, let alone fundamentally or wholly, dependent on some other entity abdicates some of its worth to that on which it depends. For instance, the value of a human life which must forever be attached to a machine to breath is, as unfortunate and callous as it may sound, belittled by certain economical or moral considerations to which another human life would hopefully never need to answer. We speak of the potential for morally unplugging a person from a machine, because we just don't have the resources to maintain said machine; but most never speak of the possibility of morally unplugging a child from his food, merely because we just don't have the money for it this month.
All the same, this is not to say that a dependent child's life has less value than that of a self-sufficient adult, the inevitable result if here ends our analysis. To be sure, because taken to an extreme, or taken by itself, judging human value by this criteria alone can in fact lead to some perverse devaluation of human life, we must move on to the next factor -- consciousness.
The self-esteem movement of the 80's got something right. There is something to say about knowing your own worth before expecting others to acknowledge same. It stands to reason, therefore, that an entity who can sustain itself independently does not have much worth if it is not even aware of its own self. A plant can exists independently, so to speak, but because it is not self-aware, its value is infinitely less than that of a human. Consciousness is therefore a fundamental requirement to affording value to human life.
For many secular people, here ends the inquiry. For example, when an unborn baby - or more affectionately called, fetus -- reaches a certain level of consciousness and independence from the mother, it is magically and abruptly imbued with immeasurable value; thankfully, for now, the baby is given more worth than the fingernail-like value some grant it prior to its birth or viability. Significantly, though, the fact that an unborn baby has, if left alone, the likely potential for the full consciousness of an adult human is of no concern to these progressive minds. Yet the double standards that surface as a result of subscribing to this belief should persuade any fair-thinking mind to abandon it, for it is fundamentally flawed.
In the Part II we will explore these contradictions.