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You Can't Become Rich In Your Pocket Until You Become Rich In Your Mind | ||||
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The non-interference philosophy of the free market has done much to shape our attitudes in areas ranging from politics to educationPOLITY VALUES, SCIENCE, REASON “Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when it is the only one we have” (Émile A. Chartier). Despite its manifest shortcomings even within economics, the non-interference philosophy of the free market has done much to shape our attitudes in areas ranging from politics to education. If we are not blinded by the false mystique of laissez faire, we may be open to alternative perspectives. Acknowledging the possibility of valuable worldviews and priorities beyond those of the free market, we may look at society through the eyes of other disciplines. For we have made significant progress in the social sciences as well as the natural sciences. Even in value theory, regarded by many as the academic discipline least likely to break new ground, we have advanced. This progress can serve as a general guide to addressing difficult open-ended issues. Consider the right to life case, which has rested on the following argument: (i) Every person has the right to life. (ii) The fetus is a person. (iii) Therefore, the fetus has the right to life. (iv) The fetus requires the mother’s womb to exercise that right to life. (v) Therefore, the fetus has the right to the mother’s womb. (vi) Although the mother may have the right to her own body, the right to life outweighs the right to decide what happens to one’s body. (vii) It is always wrong to invert these moral priorities, to take the mother’s right to decide what happens to her body as more important than the fetus’s right to life. (viii) Therefore, abortion is always wrong, independent of circumstances. This argument is widely accepted as logically valid. If the premises [(i), (ii), (iv), (vi), (vii)] are true, then the conclusion must be true. The debate has focused on the truth of the second premise. Is (or at what point is) the fetus a human being, a person morally entitled to be treated on the basis of his own interests? At one end of the spectrum it has been argued that the egg is a person as soon as it is fertilized. At the other end it has been claimed that whatever it is, it is not human until it leaves for medical school. Contrary to claims of the religious right, it is not at all obvious that the zygote, the fertilized egg, is a person. The zygote does not have a brain. It never did. It does not have a heart. It never did. It is not sentient. It never was. Even under a microscope, we would not recognize it as human. It is so different from anything we have ever regarded as a person that it is surely reasonable to question whether it is a person with moral rights. This is not to deny the close relationship between a zygote and a person. Biology texts routinely tell us that under favorable conditions the zygote will develop into a person. But this in itself implies the zygote is not yet a person. A child, not yet an adult, develops into an adult. A bunch of raw recruits, not yet a well-trained military force, develops into a military force. The caterpillar, not yet a butterfly, develops into a butterfly. A fertile egg, not yet a chicken, develops into a chicken. If the zygote is not yet a person but the just-born baby is, at what point does the fetus become a person? Science does not answer this question. The development of the fetus is a continuum from the fertilization of the egg to birth. This continuum is punctuated by discrete changes: the first electrical discharge from the brain, the first heartbeat, quickening. No one of these events is so much more important than the others that it defines the point of personhood. A religious approach may appear simpler, turning on the question: “When does the soul enter the body?” But scripture does not discuss when this occurs, or even whether ensoulment is instantaneous or gradual. Independent of scripture, when the fetus becomes a human being has a moral component. Where does the major moral difference lie among: (a) entering a fertility clinic and spilling unfertilized egg cells on the floor; (b) entering the same clinic and spilling fertilized egg cells on the floor; and Were the egg a person as soon as it is fertilized, the important difference would lie between (a) and (b). Were it to become a person at a later point, the difference would lie between (b) and (c). That the major moral difference lies between (b) and (c) suggests, at least from a moral perspective, that personhood is not simultaneous with conception. Our laws reflect this view. Note that it is not just a question of life. We show no compunction about using antibiotics to kill bacteria, insecticides to kill mosquitoes or cockroaches, radiation or chemotherapy to kill cancer cells. Most of us eat meat. We kill a flower by plucking it. Imagine the carnage that goes on in a perfume factory. None of this strikes us as morally wrong. The claim that all life has value, simply in virtue of being alive, is unconvincing. Persons, or at the very least, sentient beings, are the source of moral value. Even then it does not follow from strictures against unnecessary killing that a greater quantity of sentient life is automatically good. Those who would not kill a mosquito may spay or neuter cats and dogs. Contraception is not necessarily immoral. People have struggled fruitlessly over abortion issues for decades. But recent work by philosophers, Judith J. Thomson in particular, has cast the antiabortion argument in a new light. Thomson argues that a person may have a right to an abortion even if the fetus is a human being from the time of conception. She suggests you imagine yourself involuntarily plugged into the kidney machine of a violinist who needs the use of your kidneys to survive. To unplug yourself would kill the violinist. Do you have the moral right to unplug yourself, independent of how you came to be plugged in, and also independent of any inconvenience, pain or risk associated with remaining plugged in? Surely, the violinist has the right to life, even if he plays badly. And his right to life supersedes your right to decide what happens to your body. Surely, it would be kind, perhaps beyond the call of duty, to remain plugged in. But what about the claim that you do not have the moral right to unplug yourself? “I imagine you would regard this as outrageous, which suggests that something really is wrong with that plausible sounding argument I mentioned a moment ago.” (“A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, v. 1, n. 1 [1971].) The facts that a person has the right to something (life) and requires something else (the use of your kidneys or his mother’s womb) to secure that right do not guarantee his right to that something else. You surely have the right to your car. But suppose someone has stolen it and the only way you can get it back is by overtaking and apprehending the thief. And suppose my car is the only available car. Your right to your car plus the fact that you need my car to secure that right does not automatically give you the right to my car. In the same manner, that the fetus has the right to life but requires its mother’s womb to secure that right does not automatically give the fetus the right to its mother’s womb — so the mother may have the moral right to unplug herself from the fetus, even if the fetus is a human being. For, even though the fetus has the right to life, that does not guarantee him the right to his mother’s womb. This important (and surprising), albeit negative, contribution has not resolved the abortion issue. But it has brought a new level of understanding to the issue. The standard argument against abortion does not work. Abortion may still be morally wrong, but it must be shown to be wrong for other reasons, and the circumstances and intentions underlying an abortion may play a role in its morality. This reflects progress in an issue far from the realm of science. It has advanced our understanding of an important moral question and shown that more is involved than we had previously thought. At the same time, our theoretical understanding of the moral considerations involved in abortion is not the only issue, or even the primary one. Nor is it just a religious issue. The sanctity of human life is not confined to the Bible, nor is it confined to religious thought. It occupies a central place in secular foundations of morality, from utilitarianism to Kant’s deontology. It is morally wrong, on all accounts, to treat human life lightly. Yet the prevalence of abortions is only one symptom of a broader failure to value persons. Ironically, many pro-life positions, in their aggressive insensitivity to the plight of the mother, fail to come to terms with the basic moral issues and exacerbate the problem. The abortion debate itself, which encourages self-righteous anger on both sides of the issue, is not well focused. How do we teach the dignity of life? How do we encourage people to take responsibility for their lives so that they will avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place? These are practical problems whose solution requires compassion for individuals. Without that compassion, we lack the very moral sensitivity we find wanting in others. Still, our moral understanding can inform our moral sensitivity, and we can progress in moral understanding in the same way we advance scientific understanding. Science can serve as a model for other fields, including values. We have scientific beliefs and we act on them. We even teach them to our children. At the same time, we know our beliefs have changed dramatically over the centuries, and they may change again. We are fallible, and the possibility that we are wrong even now mandates openness on our part and a willingness to change should the evidence dictate. Hopefully, we also teach that openness. But — hopefully — we teach more than mere openness and tolerance. Clearly, science has made considerable progress. Moreover, this progress is not random, but has been generated by the interplay of creativity and rational criticism. We have standards, even though we may not be able to state them explicitly. Although almost anything may be tried, not just anything goes. To be acceptable, a newly proposed theory must explain the evidence explained by the extant theory. It must be expressible in a simple and elegant form that is compatible with other accepted theories. It must add to our understanding, ideally by explaining new phenomena. Nor is science a special discipline with its own rules. Scientific reasoning conforms to general standards of evidence and rationality. The mechanism by which evidence supports a theory, independent of its subject matter, is just the low probability there would be such evidence if the theory were not true. The discovery of that evidence increases the likelihood the theory is true, whether or not it is a theory of science. Within science, the geological theory of continental drift receives some confirmation from the fact that the east coast of the Americas fits (roughly) into the west coast of Europe and Africa. If the continents were once part of the same land mass and had drifted apart, one would expect such a fit. But the fit would be unlikely to occur by mere chance. As detail of the fit increases, it becomes increasingly less likely that it would have occurred by chance, and the confirmation of the continental drift hypothesis increases. So the discovery of additional features — the fit of the (Permian) Cape Mountains of South Africa with the (Permian) Sierras of Buenos Aires, the (Precambrian) Hebrides with the (Precambrian) Labrador formation, the gneiss plateau in Africa with the similar Brazilian pampas — adds to the confirmation of the theory. The discovery of close genetic similarities between flora and fauna on both sides of the Atlantic adds still further confirmation. In the same way, the nineteenth century discovery of Akkadian tablets in Brazil — “Barzil” is the Ugaritic word for iron — supports the non-scientific historical theory that Phoenicians landed in South America at least two thousand years ago. These tablets contained idiomatic expressions unfamiliar to nineteenth century scholars, and so were pronounced fraudulent by Ernest Renan, an eminent Biblical scholar of the time. Given that nineteenth century scholars were unaware of Ugaritic idiom, it is virtually impossible that such tablets had been forged. They would not have contained idiomatic expressions unless they had been inscribed by the Phoenicians. There are differences between the sciences and non-scientific disciplines, mostly related to the well-developed structural characteristics of scientific theories, especially in the natural sciences. But good reasoning is good reasoning in all disciplines. It is not the case that there is one standard for science and a different one for other intellectual disciplines. It is appropriate to apply the same standards of reasoning to questions of values as those accepted in science and history, law and mathematics. These standards, while they imply toleration for new scientific, historical or moral theories, also make it clear that there are objective criteria by which all understanding is to be judged. Not all scientific theories are equal or mutually incommensurable. Not all historical explanations are equal or mutually incommensurable. Not all value judgments are equal or mutually incommensurable. In all disciplines there are widely accepted standards of rationality that can be applied to argue for the superiority of certain theories or explanations or values. In light of these standards, what are appropriate values in today’s world? |
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