Freedomvrights.com
Writings and Publications by Joseph B. H. McMillan
Is “The Sanctity of Human Life” Really a Principle?
by
Joseph B.H. McMillan
Following publication of my article Unless Republicans and Conservatives Adopt a Sound set of Principles, they are Destined for the Political Scrapheap, I was chided for omitting “the sanctity of human life” which, I was told, is the most fundamental of all conservative principles.
I have seen similar claims from some of those Republicans now vying for prominent roles in the Republican party, and the conservative movement – for which read, they are positioning themselves for a run at the presidency in 2012.
One is Mike Pence, who lists “the sanctity of human life” as one of the core conservative values, along with the other ‘principles’ I cited in my article – low taxes, and small government.
But this raises two questions.
First, is “the sanctity of human life” really a principle?
And second, if it is, what does it mean?
I set out the definition of a principle in my article, but a brief restatement may be helpful. A principle is “a fundamental truth or proposition on which others (other subsidiary truths) depend;” or “a primary assumption forming the basis of a chain of reasoning.”
If we then apply that definition to the ‘principle’ of “the sanctity of human life”, we come up with an immediate problem.
The problem is that life is not the beginning of a process; it is the result of something else.
A principle cannot be based on a state of affairs (life) which is the consequence of an act which gave rise to it. In other words, it is the act of creating life that should form the “primary assumption” from which “a chain of reasoning” should flow. By declaring that the consequence (life) forms the starting point, we start the “chain of reasoning” several notches up the chain. In that respect, “the sanctity of human life” can only be a secondary, or derived, principle.
“Reverence for Life” from a “Will-to-Live”?
So far as I am aware, only one philosopher (although many philosophers refuse to recognize him as a philosopher) sought to establish ‘the sanctity of life’ as a principle in the proper sense of the word. He was Albert Schweitzer.
Schweitzer called his principle “reverence for life,” and defined it like this: “Ethics consists, therefore, in my experiencing the compulsion to show all will-to-live the same reverence as I do to my own. There we have given us that basic principle of the moral which is a necessity of thought. It is good to maintain and encourage life; it is bad to destroy life or obstruct it.”
And thus, says Schweitzer, “[t]he basic principle of ethics, that principle which is a necessity of thought, which has a definite content, which is engaged in constant, living, and practical dispute with reality, is: Devotion to life resulting from reverence for life.”
As is evident from the first quote, Schweitzer formulates his “reverence for life” on what he identifies as the “will-to-live”.
He says this: “As in my own will-to-live there is a longing for wider life and for the mysterious exaltation of the will-to-live which we call pleasure, with dread of annihilation and of the mysterious depreciation of the will-to-live which we call pain; so is it also in the will-to-live all around me, whether it can express itself before me, or remains dumb.”
And the “will-to-live” he explains like this: “The essential nature of the will-to-live is determination to live itself to the full. It carries within it the impulse to realize itself in the highest possible perfection.”
Examples of the “will-to-live, says Schweitzer, can be found “[i]n the flowering tree, in the strange forms of the medusa, in the blade of grass, in the crystal; everywhere it strives to reach the perfection with which it is endowed. In everything that exists there is at work an imaginative force, which is determined by ideals.”
So, Schweitzer describes “reverence for life” man like this. “Life as such is sacred to him. He tears no leaf from a tree, plucks no flower, and takes care to crush no insect.”
Now, the strength of Schweitzer’s formulation of a principle that embraces what we could call “the sanctity of human life” (although Schweitzer extends the ‘sanctity of life’ to every living thing, including insects, grass and leaves), is that he doesn’t simply assert that there is some nebulous thing called a ‘right to life’, then set out what he thinks it includes, but rather, he constructs his principle on what he regards as a natural fact – that is, that all living things want to live.
Neither does Schweitzer look to God to find his principle, because that would begin by making assumptions which cannot be proved – ie, that there is a God. So his principle of “reverence for life”, or the ‘sanctity of life’, is not derived from the Scriptures.
On the other hand, however, there are some serious flaws in Schweitzer’s construction of his principle, and in the assumptions he makes regarding the “will-to-live.” I deal with these shortcomings more fully in my book (Freedom v. A Tyranny of Rights), but I should outline here what I think are the main ones.
First, Schweitzer looks to the “will-to-live” because he concludes that we, as human beings, can never discover any purpose to human life.
He puts it this way: “In the world we can discover nothing of any purposive evolution in which our actions can acquire meaning. Nor is the ethical to be discovered in any form in the world-process. The only advance in knowledge that we can make is to describe more and more minutely the phenomena which make up the world and their implications. To understand the meaning of the whole - and that is what a world-view demands! - is for us an impossibility. The last fact which knowledge can discover is that the world is a manifestation, and in every way a puzzling manifestation, of the universal will to live.”
And that leads to the second problem – his assumptions regarding the “will-to-live.”
The “will-to-live” in fact has the complete opposite effect to the one Schweitzer claims. It does not engender ‘reverence’ for other life. On the contrary, the “will-to-live” requires killing of other life in order to maintain life. Nature is a continuous cycle of killing, from the bottom up, and from the top down. When we stop killing, we die.
The “will-to-live” is really nothing more than the survival instinct, in man and beast alike. A wonderful amateur video shot in the Kruger National Park in South Africa (Battle at Kruger) dramatically illustrates the instinct for survival in play. It is worth watching!
Ironically, Schweitzer didn’t recognize that the simple fact that he was seeking to convert a basic survival instinct into a moral precept, itself pointed to the fact that ‘morality’ may be something distinct from our primitive instincts, and not a function of them.
Kant knew that. “But [man] is not so completely an animal as to be indifferent to what reason says on its own account, and to use it merely as an instrument for the satisfaction of his wants as a sensible[meaning sensual] being. For the possession of reason would not raise his worth above that of the brutes, if it is to serve him only for the same purpose that instinct serves in them; it would in that case be only a particular method which nature had employed to equip man for the same ends for which it has qualified brutes, without qualifying him for any higher purpose.”
The mention of a “higher purpose” brings me to the other problem with Schweitzer’s construction of his “reverence for life” ‘principle’. Schweitzer is simply wrong to claim that a “world-view” demands an understanding of “the meaning of the whole”. He is also wrong when he claims that the “ethical [can not] be discovered in any form in the world-process.” I shall return to these issues shortly.
Before I do so, I should address briefly some of the other ‘origins’ claimed for a ‘principle’ of “the sanctity of human life”.
A Right to Life?
The main one is what is called a “right to life.” This so-called “right to life” is enshrined in pretty much every charter and bill of human rights across the world. But no one can really demonstrate where it came from.
In the United States it is said to have come from God. In Europe, they don’t even bother to make such lofty claims for its origin.
The European Right to Life
In Europe, the “right to life” protects even the vilest killer of children from losing his own “right to life”. This is because the “right to life” is said to be “an inalienable attribute of human beings” having “supreme value in the international hierarchy of human rights", and as such should be "unanimously guaranteed in legally binding standards at universal and regional levels.” So says the Explanatory Report to Protocol 13 of the European Convention of Human Rights.
Protocol 13 abolishes the death penalty in all circumstances, even “in time of war or of imminent threat of war.”
In fact, this Protocol simply signals to the terrorist killers of innocent people that no matter how many lives they snuff out, no matter what degree of contempt they show for the “right to life” of innocent men, women and children, no matter what depravities they are prepared to visit upon human dignity, their “right to life” is guaranteed. They need not show any regard for the “inalienable attribute of human beings", the "supreme value in the international hierarchy of human rights.” Their “right to life” is accorded absolute immunity from interference.
So where do the advocates of this absolute “right to life” claim it comes from? What gives one person a ‘right’ to extinguish the “right to life” of another person without jeopardizing his own “right to life”?
According to the Europeans, it comes from “the evolution that has occurred in several member states of the Council of Europe [which] expresses a general tendency in favour of abolition of the death penalty." It even goes further. It asserts that the “member states of the Council of Europe” are “convinced that everyone's right to life is a basic value in a democratic society and that the abolition of the death penalty is essential for the protection of this right and for the full recognition of the inherent dignity of all human beings.”
So, the “right to life” comes from an “evolution” of a “general tendency”, and of someone being “convinced” that the “right to life” is “a basic value in a democratic society”. Wow!!!!
This formulation of the origin of a “right to life” by the Europeans can best be summed up by adapting from Nietzsche’s description of Kant: the European “right to life,” arising “by virtue of an [evolution] of a [general tendency],” displays such European “profundity and curlicues that people simply failed to note the comical [European] foolishness involved in such an [assertion].”
Comical as the European claim to the origin of the “right to life” may be, it is also tragic. While it guarantees the “right to life” of the vilest killers, it permits the killing of unborn children conceived by consensual acts between ‘free’ people. In short, it’s a grotesque joke!
A Right to Life Endowed by God?
So, since we can’t find any sensible origin of the “right to life” in “comical” European “profundity and curlicues,” can we find it in an appeal to God?
Now, when people claim that God, or their Creator, endowed human beings with such a right, I take them to mean the Creator referred to in the Scriptures. If not, the obstacles in establishing an argument for a ‘God-given’ “right to life” are insurmountable. Before they start, they first have to prove that there is a God who bestowed the ‘right’, and no honest and sane person today would seriously make such a claim. The logic parameters and hurdles have been thoroughly explored, and the burden of meeting and overcoming them is immense. So I will proceed on the basis that we are talking about the God referred to in the Scriptures.
The only place in the Scriptures were I can find any mention of anything like a “right to life” is at Revelations 22:14: “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, …”
But this construction does not endow human beings with a right to life; it requires that they undertake obligations to earn the right – the obligations set out in the Ten Commandments. And the right clearly refers to the afterlife, not this life.
Nevertheless, since this only reference to a sort of ‘right to life’ in the last chapter of the Scriptures refers us back to the events at the beginning of the Scriptures, perhaps we should look there.
Revelations 22:14 refers to two events – the “tree of life” and the “commandments”, that is, the Ten Commandments.
The first reference to the “tree of life” is at Genesis 2:9. It was planted in the Garden of Eden. We all know what happened then which resulted in Adam and Eve being kicked out of the Garden with the specific intention of depriving them (and thus all mankind) of their ‘right’ to eat of the “tree of Life.” [Genesis 22 – 24]
But, before we go to the next reference, the “commandments”, to see how we regain this “right” lost to us through the behavior of Adam and Eve, let’s see what the Scriptures say about man when he was first created. Can we find a “right to life” there which may have ‘survived’ Adam and Eve’s misbehavior?
So we go to Genesis 1:26 through 28. Now, many claim that somewhere in these verses God “endowed” human beings with a “right to life.”
So let me set out the verses.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
I don’t see anything there that could be construed as a “right to life”. No doubt some would argue that being created in the “image of God” endows humans with such a right. But if that were the case, the ‘right’ could not have survived the expulsion from the Garden because there were two elements which man needed to ‘realize’ the “image of God” – knowing good and evil, and living for ever. So we see in Genesis 3:22 that man was expelled from the Garden before he could do the second. Man was expelled “lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life.”
Yet, notwithstanding that a literal reading of these verses can’t establish any “right to life”, a literal reading, especially of Genesis 1:26 – 28, does a disservice to the profound nature of those verses. By lumping together all the various facets of the creation verses, as they concern man, we render much of what is said superfluous.
In my article The Law: Salvation, the State, and the Kingdom of God, I explain the significance of these verses, especially in the distinction they make between those basic animal instincts ‘programmed’ into human beings (symbolized in verse 28), and what I refer to as our “morality module” (for want of a better phrase), or what Kant called the “moral law”, which is symbolized by the reference to the “image of God” (verse 27). And what is fundamental to verse 27, as will shortly become clear, is the reference to the “image of God” being “male and female.”
So, in our search for something resembling a “right to life” in the Scriptures we have to follow the other clue from Revelations 22:14, and we go to Exodus 20 and the Ten Commandments.
Now here, many claim, we find expressly a ‘”right to life” in the sixth Commandment – Thou shalt not kill (or murder).
But there are a number of difficulties with such an assertion.
First, this Commandment is an obligation, not a right. It doesn’t say no one can kill me, even if I agree not to kill them. Only if others agree to observe this Commandment on a reciprocal basis can I claim that I have something resembling a ‘right’. I have a ‘right’ to expect others to honor the obligations we have undertaken on a reciprocal basis. But it’s no guarantee.
Secondly, even if we assume that the events recorded in Exodus regarding what happened at Mount Sinai are literal and not symbolic, God did not impose these obligations on the Israelites, He offered them, and the Israelites were free to accept or reject them [Exodus 19:5 – “Now therefore, IF ye will obey my voice …”]. An invitation to agree to certain obligations is very different to being “endowed” with a “right” to something, especially if the obligation I agree to is not reciprocated.
Thirdly, ascribing the sixth Commandment with the status of a ‘right’ assumes that the sixth Commandment is a principle in the proper sense of the word; that is, that it is not a subsidiary or derived principle. A subsidiary or derived principle itself depends on a more fundamental principle to make it viable. This aspect of the Commandment thus needs further examination.
For that, I need to go to the great Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus of Alexandria.
In his analysis of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments), he says this: “Now God divided them, being ten, as they are, into two tables of five each, which he engraved on two pillars. And the first five have the precedence and preeminence in honor; but the second five have an inferior place assigned to them.”
And Philo adds: “So that of the one table the beginning is the God and Father and Creator of the universe; and the end are one’s parents, who imitate his nature, and so generate particular individuals. And the other table of five contains all the prohibitions against adultery, and murder, and theft, and false witness, and covetousness.”
Now this reverts back to what I said should be noted about Genesis 1:27 – the “image of God” being “male and female.” Now we can see why – because it is the “male and female” together who “imitate” God’s nature in the creation and perpetuation of human life.
And in respect of the fifth Commandment itself, Philo explains the connection between the fifth Commandments, and the second five Commandments. It forms a bridge, so to speak, between the first four Commandments, and Commandments 6 to 10.
He says this: “For being the concluding one of the first table, in which the most sacred duties to the Diety are enjoined, it has also some connection with the second table which comprehends the obligations towards our fellow creatures; and the cause of this, I imagine, is as follows: The nature of one’s parents appears to be something on the confines between the mortal and immortal essences. Of mortal essence, on account of their relationship to men and also other animals, and likewise of the perishable nature of the body. And of immortal essence, by reason of the similarity of the act of generation to God the Father of the universe.”
Essentially, what Philo was saying is that the second five Commandments derive from the first five Commandments, or more specifically, from the fifth Commandment. That is, the second five Commandments are secondary, or derived, from the fifth Commandment.
Now, that makes perfect sense, and fits exactly with Genesis 1:27 – the “image of God” was created “male and female.” Because it takes both to perpetuate the “image” God had created of Himself.
So, if Philo was right, we should be able to find the origin of the sixth Commandment, the prohibition against killing, or murder, in the Fifth Commandment.
The fifth Commandment is quite simple: “Honour thy father and thy mother.”
Yet, it embraces a great many issues. It clearly establishes the sanctity of the family – father, mother, and the child that is created by them. And the basis of this ‘sacred’ relationship is found back in the creation verses. In Genesis 1:26 we find the first occasion when God is said to speak to someone else before He begins the process of creating something – “Let US make man in OUR image, …”
The importance of that wording lies in the issue of consent. The creation of life, human life, is predicated on consent. The man and the woman consent to join together to create new life in their own image, as Adam created Seth – “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image.” [Genesis 5:3]
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall become one flesh.” [Genesis 2:24]
Likewise, the Ten Commandments are, as I have said, based on consent. Even God does not presume to compel the Israelites to submit to these Commandments by force, or threat. He invites them to “obey [His] voice.” [Exodus 19:5]
But when we look at the creation story in its entirety, what we see is God preparing the ground for His final creation – man; man in the image of God. And the rest of the Scriptures record the lengths He goes to in order to meet His obligations to care for what He has created, including, in the Christian tradition, sacrificing His own son for them.
What this so dramatically illustrates is the fundamental obligations that attach to the creation of life, especially life in the image of those who create it. And, of course, one of the most fundamental obligations that must attach to the creation of life is the obligation not to harm that life, and especially not kill that life. Now, I know that the Scriptures record God’s anger at the behavior of the creatures He created, even resulting in Him apparently destroying most of them.
I do not read such verses literally as indicative of God personally unleashing His anger of those He created, because I read the Scriptures as God setting up laws which provide human beings with the means of existence, and the means of achieving life after death. I deal with those issues more fully in my articles The Law: Salvation, the State, and the Kingdom of God, and Are We Genetically Programmed by, and with, the Ten Commandments? so I won’t elaborate on them here.
So, that aside, what we see in the fifth Commandment is the origin of the prohibition against killing – it is rooted in the obligation not to harm the life we create by way of a consensual joining together of a man and a woman to create a new life, a new life in the likeness and image of those who freely partake in the act the natural consequence of which is the creation of a new life.
The “sanctity of human life” is therefore a function of, and emanates from, the sanctity of the joining together of a man and a woman to create new life.
In short, the “sanctity of human life” derives from the ‘sanctity of marriage’.
That, in turn, has further fundamental implications. The “sanctity of human life” derived from the sanctity of marriage goes far beyond the obligation not to harm the life we create. It imposes obligation which predate the union of a man and a woman to create life, like abstinence, and it imposes obligations of those who join together to create new life to subvert their ambitions and vanity to the interests of the life they create. It requires, and demands, sacrifice!
So what we now see is that what we call “the sanctity of human life” is a secondary, or derived, principle, not a primary, or original, principle. The original and primary principle is the sanctity of marriage. The former depends on, and is derived from, the latter.
And so we discover that the derived principle of “the sanctity of human life” now acquires content; content it lacked before.
First, “the sanctity of life,” being derived from the sanctity of marriage, imposes obligations on those who will one day create life which predate the act, the union, which will create that life. And it imposes obligations on all parents to instill in their children a recognition and understanding of that obligation.
Secondly, it requires those who create life to subvert their own interests to the interests of the life they create.
Thirdly, it is predicated on consent. Now this is fundamental to the principle because it determines in what circumstances one party to the creation of life is relieved of the obligations which attach to new life. Thus, if a woman is raped, which by definition means that she did not consent to the act which creates new life, and indeed may have been forced to relinquish the virtue she had maintained in order to meet her obligations to the life she would, or may, one day create, she cannot be compelled to assume the obligations which attach to the principle. That is, should she decide to abort that new life, it is not she who perpetrates a breach of the principle, but the person who forced her to submit to the act.
What that means is that the rapist is guilty of murder, even if the woman who has been brutally violated actually undergoes the procedure which results in the killing of the innocent child.
Fourthly, being predicated on consent, the act that creates new life must necessarily impose on all those who freely consent to engage in the act a responsibility to fulfill the obligations which it creates. That is, if two people consensually engage in sex, even if they did not intend to create new life, but new life is the result, they cannot be relieved of the obligations towards the life they create as a result. That is, aborting a human being (however we like to describe it), would breach the prohibition against killing where the act that conceived that human being was consensual.
And that leads to a fifth obligation. Before a man and a woman engage in the act the natural consequence of which is the creation of life, they should only do so on the basis that both are committed to meet their obligations to the new life which may be created, AND that they have prepared for that eventuality. Essentially, this is an obligation not to be promiscuous.
So, it is fair to say that “the sanctity of human life” as found in the Scriptures is a principle; it’s just not a primary principle. It is a principle derived from the sanctity of marriage, or from the consensual engagement in the act that gives rise to the creation of life. And that attaches onerous obligations on those who engage in the act.
“The Sanctity of Human Life” as a Secular Principle
But, in the modern secular environment, many would reject such a principle on the simple basis that they do not believe in a God, and would not recognize any principle derived from the Scriptures.
And that was the reason why I wrote the series of seven articles called The Ten Principles of Freedom. In those articles I demonstrate that the principle which we derive from the Scriptures does not depend on a belief in God, and neither does it fall apart if we make the same arguments without reference to the Scriptures, or God.
The basic principle which gives rise to the “sanctity of human life” is really quite simple, and incontestable. Without human life, human life can have no purpose or meaning. Any purpose or meaning to human life requires life in the first place. And the only natural way life is generated, and perpetuated, is by the union of a man and a woman to create new life. Every single human being on earth only has life because thousands of previous generations have perpetuated human life to the present day.
That the only natural way to create and perpetuate human life is by the union of a man and a woman to create new life is not some wild assumption or speculation. It is a fundamental fact; a fundamental fact from which we can embark on a “chain of reasoning” knowing with certainty that the foundation of that “chain of reasoning” is sound.
So, whatever else someone finds to do in life, they first need life. From that, we can say with some confidence that the perpetuation of human life is the only discernable purpose of human life. Any other purpose is either pure speculation, or un-provable belief. And the only discernable purpose of human life being the perpetuation of human life in the only natural way, is distinct from whatever purpose each individual ascribes to life in order to give it some meaning while he or she has life.
From that precept, or principle, logically flows a secondary fundamental fact, or principle: the creation of human life is the most fundamental undertaking any human being can engage in. Nothing else we do can create human life in a natural way.
From that must necessarily follow (and we see it everywhere, in both the animal world, and the human world) another fundamental, although secondary principle: the creation of human life, being the most fundamentally important thing any human being can do, must attach to those who do so fundamental obligations towards the life they create.
And principal amongst such obligations must be an obligation not to harm that life, but to nurture and protect that life. If that were not so, all other obligations would be meaningless. Thus the obligations which arise from the creation of human life form the basis for all other human obligations.
Yet it must go further. The act which creates human life is central to what we call morality – how we should behave. In that respect, it follows that the obligations which attach to human beings in respect of the creation of life form the basis of everything we recognize as morality.
Since I have, as I have said, addressed these issues fully in my Ten Principles of Freedom articles, and in my books, I shall not restate the arguments here.
Conclusion
So, returning to Schweitzer’s assertion that we can not detect any purpose to life, I say we can. We may not be able to identify the whole purpose of life and the universe, but we can identify a purpose – the perpetuation of human life through the union of a man and a woman to create new life.
And that defeats Schweitzer’s second objection. This is his objection, cited above: “Nor is the ethical to be discovered in any form in the world-process.” In fact exactly the reverse is true. The ethical is to be discovered in the very act of the creation of life since the consequences of the act attach obligations on those who engage in it, and those obligations form the basis of morality, or the ethical.
Now, that leaves one final possible objection. Many will argue that such a principle doesn’t adequately deal with the issue of when a fetus becomes a viable human being. Could this principle still permit abortion up to a certain point.
I say, the question is mute. It is the creation of LIFE that attaches the obligations, both before and after the act. How we describe that life is irrelevant. That life is viable from the instant of conception. Only an imbecile would argue that a fertilized ovary is not a living thing. And that life, if those who created it meet their obligations towards it, will become a human being. In fact, it is a human being in all but final form. It is a human life. And killing or harming that life is a breach of the principle, and it is a breach of the obligations those who freely and consensually created it have towards it.
So I conclude with this. “The sanctity of human life” is a secondary principle derived from the primary principle based on the creation of life. The principle could be defined like this: the consensual union of a man and woman which creates life, intentionally or not, attaches to that man and that woman fundamental obligations which flow from their actions (and precede their actions), and principal among those obligations is the obligation not to harm the life they create.
Now some may ridicule this analysis as an exercise in pedantry. For my part, however, I think it is time that conservatives (and most Republicans) stopped “banging on the table” with slogans and started giving some intellectual, and commonsense, substance to what they claim are their core ‘principles’ and ‘values’. Until they do, they will not be taken seriously!
Copyright © Joseph B.H. McMillan 2008 All Rights Reserved
Freedom v. A Tyranny of Rights is now published in the US! Click here to purchase your copy from Amazon.com.
Home | Articles | Books | Biography | Contact
Copyright©Escaping Books, S.L. and Joseph B.H. McMillan,2007