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Title: Issues in Population and Bioethics
Author: Sam Vaknin
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Copyright (C) 2002 by Lidija Rangelovska.^M
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Issues in Population and Bioethics
1st EDITION
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.
Editing and Design:
Lidija Rangelovska
Lidija Rangelovska
A Narcissus Publications Imprint, Skopje 2003
Not for Sale! Non-commercial edition.
© 2002 Copyright Lidija Rangelovska.
All rights reserved. This book, or any part thereof, may not be used
or reproduced in any manner without written permission from:
Lidija Rangelovska - write to:
[email protected] or to
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Visit the Author Archive of Dr. Sam Vaknin in "Central Europe Review":
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Visit Sam Vaknin's United Press International (UPI) Article Archive
-Click HERE!
Philosophical Musings and Essays
http://samvak.tripod.com/culture.html
Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited
http://samvak.tripod.com/
ISBN: 9989-929-39-4
Created by: LIDIJA RANGELOVSKA
REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
C O N T E N T S
I. And Then There Were Too Many
II. Eugenics and the Future of the Human Species
III. The Myth of the Right to Life
IV. The Aborted Contract
V. In Our Own Image - The Debate about Cloning
VI. Ethical Relativism and Absolute Taboos
VII. The Author
VIII. About "After the Rain"
And Then There Were Too Many
By: Sam Vaknin
The latest census in Ukraine revealed an apocalyptic drop of 10% in
its population - from 52.5 million a decade ago to a mere 47.5 million
last year. Demographers predict a precipitous decline of one third in
Russia's impoverished, inebriated, disillusioned, and ageing
citizenry. Births in many countries in the rich, industrialized, West
are below the replacement rate. These bastions of conspicuous
affluence are shriveling.
Scholars and decision-makers - once terrified by the Malthusian
dystopia of a "population bomb" - are more sanguine now. Advances in
agricultural technology eradicated hunger even in teeming places like
India and China. And then there is the old idea of progress: birth
rates tend to decline with higher education levels and growing
incomes. Family planning has had resounding successes in places as
diverse as Thailand, China, and western Africa.
In the near past, fecundity used to compensate for infant mortality.
As the latter declined - so did the former. Children are means of
production in many destitute countries. Hence the inordinately large
families of the past - a form of insurance against the economic
outcomes of the inevitable demise of some of one's off-spring.
Yet, despite these trends, the world's populace is augmented by 80
million people annually. All of them are born to the younger
inhabitants of the more penurious corners of the Earth. There were
only 1 billion people alive in 1804. The number doubled a century
later.
But our last billion - the sixth - required only 12 fertile years. The
entire population of Germany is added every half a decade to both
India and China. Clearly, Mankind's growth is out of control, as
affirmed in the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and
Development.
Dozens of millions of people regularly starve - many of them to death.
In only one corner of the Earth - southern Africa - food aid is the
sole subsistence of entire countries. More than 18 million people in
Zambia, Malawi, and Angola survived on charitable donations in 1992.
More than 10 million expect the same this year, among them the
emaciated denizens of erstwhile food exporter, Zimbabwe.
According to Medecins Sans Frontiere, AIDS kills 3 million people a
year, Tuberculosis another 2 million. Malaria decimates 2 people every
minute. More than 14 million people fall prey to parasitic and
infectious diseases every year - 90% of them in the developing
countries.
Millions emigrate every year in search of a better life. These massive
shifts are facilitated by modern modes of transportation. But, despite
these tectonic relocations - and despite famine, disease, and war, the
classic Malthusian regulatory mechanisms - the depletion of natural
resources - from arable land to water - is undeniable and gargantuan.
Our pressing environmental issues - global warming, water stress,
salinization, desertification, deforestation, pollution, loss of
biological diversity - and our ominous social ills - crime at the
forefront - are traceable to one, politically incorrect, truth:
There are too many of us. We are way too numerous. The population load
is unsustainable. We, the survivors, would be better off if others
were to perish. Should population growth continue unabated - we are
all doomed.
Doomed to what?
Numerous Cassandras and countless Jeremiads have been falsified by
history. With proper governance, scientific research, education,
affordable medicines, effective family planning, and economic growth -
this planet can support even 10-12 billion people. We are not at risk
of physical extinction and never have been.
What is hazarded is not our life - but our quality of life. As any
insurance actuary will attest, we are governed by statistical
datasets.
Consider this single fact:
About 1% of the population suffer from the perniciously debilitating
and all-pervasive mental health disorder, schizophrenia. At the
beginning of the 20th century, there were 16.5 million schizophrenics
- nowadays there are 64 million. Their impact on friends, family, and
colleagues is exponential - and incalculable. This is not a merely
quantitative leap. It is a qualitative phase transition.
Or this:
Large populations lead to the emergence of high density urban centers.
It is inefficient to cultivate ever smaller plots of land. Surplus
manpower moves to centers of industrial production. A second wave of
internal migrants caters to their needs, thus spawning a service
sector. Network effects generate excess capital and a virtuous cycle
of investment, employment, and consumption ensues.
But over-crowding breeds violence (as has been demonstrated in
experiments with mice). The sheer numbers involved serve to magnify
and amplify social anomies, deviate behaviour, and antisocial traits.
In the city, there are more criminals, more perverts, more victims,
more immigrants, and more racists per square mile.
Moreover, only a planned and orderly urbanization is desirable. The
blights that pass for cities in most third world countries are the
outgrowth of neither premeditation nor method. These mega-cities are
infested with non-disposed of waste and prone to natural catastrophes
and epidemics.
No one can vouchsafe for a "critical mass" of humans, a threshold
beyond which the species will implode and vanish.
Luckily, the ebb and flow of human numbers is subject to three
regulatory demographic mechanisms, the combined action of which gives
hope.
The Malthusian Mechanism
Limited resources lead to wars, famine, and diseases and, thus, to a
decrease in human numbers. Mankind has done well to check famine, fend
off disease, and staunch war. But to have done so without a
commensurate policy of population control was irresponsible.
The Assimilative Mechanism
Mankind is not divorced from nature. Humanity is destined to be
impacted by its choices and by the reverberations of its actions.
Damage caused to the environment haunts - in a complex feedback loop -
the perpetrators.
Examples:
Immoderate use of antibiotics leads to the eruption of drug-resistant
strains of pathogens. A myriad types of cancer are caused by human
pollution. Man is the victim of its own destructive excesses.
The Cognitive Mechanism
Humans intentionally limit the propagation of their race through
family planning, abortion, and contraceptives. Genetic engineering
will likely intermesh with these to produce "enhanced" or "designed"
progeny to specifications.
We must stop procreating. Or, else, pray for a reduction in our
numbers.
This could be achieved benignly, for instance by colonizing space, or
the ocean depths - both remote and technologically unfeasible
possibilities.
Yet, the alternative is cataclysmic. Unintended wars, rampant disease,
and lethal famines will ultimately trim our numbers - no matter how
noble our intentions and how diligent our efforts to curb them.
Is this a bad thing?
Not necessarily. To my mind, even a Malthusian resolution is
preferable to the alternative of slow decay, uniform impecuniosity,
and perdition in instalments - an alternative made inexorable by our
collective irresponsibility and denial.
Racing Down
Eugenics and the Future of the Human Species
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
"It is clear that modern medicine has created a serious dilemma ... In
the past, there were many children who never survived - they succumbed
to various diseases ... But in a sense modern medicine has put natural
selection out of commission. Something that has helped one individual
over a serious illness can in the long run contribute to weakening the
resistance of the whole human race to certain diseases. If we pay
absolutely no attention to what is called hereditary hygiene, we could
find ourselves facing a degeneration of the human race. Mankind's
hereditary potential for resisting serious disease will be weakened."
(Jostein Gaarder in "Sophie's World", a bestselling philosophy
textbook for adolescents published in Oslo, Norway, in 1991 and,
afterwards, throughout the world, having been translated to dozens of
languages)
The Nazis regarded the murder of the feeble-minded and the mentally
insane - intended to purify the race and maintain hereditary hygiene -
as a form of euthanasia.
German doctors were enthusiastic proponents of an eugenics movements
rooted in 19th century social Darwinism. Luke Gormally writes, in his
essay "Walton, Davies, and Boyd" (published in "Euthanasia Examined -
Ethical, Clinical, and Legal Perspectives", ed. John Keown, Cambridge
University Press, 1995):
"When the jurist Karl Binding and the psychiatrist Alfred Hoche
published their tract The Permission to Destroy Life that is Not Worth
Living in 1920 ... their motive was to rid society of the 'human
ballast and enormous economic burden' of care for the mentally ill,
the handicapped, retarded and deformed children, and the incurably
ill. But the reason they invoked to justify the killing of human
beings who fell into these categories was that the lives of such human
beings were 'not worth living', were 'devoid of value'"
It is this association with the hideous Nazi regime that gave eugenics
- a term coined by a relative of Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton,
in 1883 - its bad name. Richard Lynn, of the University of Ulster of
North Ireland, thinks that this recoil resulted in "Dysgenics - the
genetic deterioration of modern (human) population", as the title of
his controversial tome puts it.
The crux of the argument for eugenics is that a host of technological,
cultural, and social developments conspired to give rise to negative
selection of the weakest, least intelligent, sickest, the habitually
criminal, the sexually deviant, the mentally-ill, and the least
adapted.
Contraception is more widely used by the affluent and the
well-educated than by the destitute and dull. Birth control as
practiced in places like China distorted both the sex distribution in
the cities - and increased the weight of the rural population (rural
couples in China are allowed to have two children rather than the
urban one).
Modern medicine and the welfare state collaborate in sustaining alive
individuals - mainly the mentally retarded, the mentally ill, the
sick, and the genetically defective - who would otherwise have been
culled by natural selection to the betterment of the entire species.
Eugenics may be based on a literal understanding of Darwin's metaphor.
The 2002 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica has this to say:
"Darwin's description of the process of natural selection as the
survival of the fittest in the struggle for life is a metaphor.
"Struggle" does not necessarily mean contention, strife, or combat;
"survival" does not mean that ravages of death are needed to make the
selection effective; and "fittest" is virtually never a single optimal
genotype but rather an array of genotypes that collectively enhance
population survival rather than extinction. All these considerations
are most apposite to consideration of natural selection in humans.
Decreasing infant and childhood mortality rates do not necessarily
mean that natural selection in the human species no longer operates.
Theoretically, natural selection could be very effective if all the
children born reached maturity.
Two conditions are needed to make this theoretical possibility
realized: first, variation in the number of children per family and,
second, variation correlated with the genetic properties of the
parents. Neither of these conditions is farfetched."
The eugenics debate is only the visible extremity of the Man vs.
Nature conundrum. Have we truly conquered nature and extracted
ourselves from its determinism? Have we graduated from natural to
cultural evolution, from natural to artificial selection, and from
genes to memes?
Does the evolutionary process culminate in a being that transcends its
genetic baggage, that programs and charts its future, and that allows
its weakest and sickest to survive? Supplanting the imperative of the
survival of the fittest with a culturally-sensitive principle may be
the hallmark of a successful evolution, rather than the beginning of
an inexorable decline.
The eugenics movement turns this argument on its head. They accept the
premise that the contribution of natural selection to the makeup of
future human generations is glacial and negligible. But they reject
the conclusion that, having ridden ourselves of its tyranny, we can
now let the weak and sick among us survive and multiply. Rather, they
propose to replace natural selection with eugenics.
But who, by which authority, and according to what guidelines will
administer this man-made culling and decide who is to live and who is
to die, who is to breed and who may not? Why select by intelligence
and not by courtesy or altruism or church-going - or al of them
together? It is here that eugenics fails miserably.
Should the criterion be physical, like in ancient Sparta? Should it be
mental? Should IQ determine one's fate - or social status or wealth?
Different answers yield disparate eugenic programs and target
dissimilar groups in the population.
Aren't eugenic criteria liable to be unduly influenced by fashion and
cultural bias? Can we agree on a universal eugenic agenda in a world
as ethnically and culturally diverse as ours? If we do get it wrong -
and the chances are overwhelming - will we not damage our gene pool
irreparably and, with it, the future of our species?
And even if many will avoid a slippery slope leading from eugenics to
active extermination of "inferior" groups in the general population -
can we guarantee that everyone will? How to prevent eugenics from
being appropriated by an intrusive, authoritarian, or even murderous
state?
Modern eugenicists distance themselves from the crude methods adopted
at the beginning of the last century by 29 countries, including
Germany, The United States, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Venezuela,
Estonia, Argentina, Norway, Denmark, Sweden (until 1976), Brazil,
Italy, Greece, and Spain.
They talk about free contraceptives for low-IQ women, vasectomies or
tubal ligations for criminals, sperm banks with contributions from
high achievers, and incentives for college students to procreate.
Modern genetic engineering and biotechnology are readily applicable to
eugenic projects. Cloning can serve to preserve the genes of the
fittest. Embryo selection and prenatal diagnosis of genetically
diseased embryos can reduce the number of the unfit.
But even these innocuous variants of eugenics fly in the face of
liberalism. Inequality, claim the proponents of hereditary
amelioration, is genetic, not environmental. All men are created
unequal and as much subject to the natural laws of heredity as are
cows and bees. Inferior people give birth to inferior offspring and,
thus, propagate their inferiority.
Even if this were true - which is at best debatable - the question is
whether the inferior specimen of our species possess the inalienable
right to reproduce? If society is to bear the costs of over-population
- social welfare, medical care, daycare centers - then society has the
right to regulate procreation. But does it have the right to act
discriminately in doing so?
Another dilemma is whether we have the moral right - let alone the
necessary knowledge - to interfere with natural as well as social and
demographic trends. Eugenicists counter that contraception and
indiscriminate medicine already do just that. Yet, studies show that
the more affluent and educated a population becomes - the less fecund
it is. Birth rates throughout the world have dropped dramatically
already.
Instead of culling the great unwashed and the unworthy - wouldn't it
be a better idea to educate them (or their off-spring) and provide
them with economic opportunities (euthenics rather than eugenics)?
Human populations seem to self-regulate. A gentle and persistent nudge
in the right direction - of increased affluence and better schooling -
might achieve more than a hundred eugenic programs, voluntary or
compulsory.
That eugenics presents itself not merely as a biological-social
agenda, but as a panacea, ought to arouse suspicion. The typical
eugenics text reads more like a catechism than a reasoned argument.
Previous all-encompassing and omnicompetent plans tended to end
traumatically - especially when they contrasted a human elite with a
dispensable underclass of persons.
Above all, eugenics is about human hubris. To presume to know better
than the lottery of life is haughty. Modern medicine largely obviates
the need for eugenics in that it allows even genetically defective
people to lead pretty normal lives. Of course, Man himself - being
part of Nature - may be regarded as nothing more than an agent of
natural selection. Still, many of the arguments advanced in favor of
eugenics can be turned against it with embarrassing ease.
Consider sick children. True, they are a burden to society and a
probable menace to the gene pool of the species. But they also inhibit
further reproduction in their family by consuming the financial and
mental resources of the parents. Their genes - however flawed -
contribute to genetic diversity. Even a badly mutated phenotype
sometimes yields precious scientific knowledge and an interesting
genotype.
The implicit Weltbild of eugenics is static - but the real world is
dynamic. There is no such thing as a "correct" genetic makeup towards
which we must all strive. A combination of genes may be perfectly
adaptable to one environment - but woefully inadequate in another. It
is therefore prudent to encourage genetic diversity or polymorphism.
The more rapidly the world changes, the greater the value of mutations
of all sorts. One never knows whether today's maladaptation will not
prove to be tomorrow's winner. Ecosystems are invariably comprised of
niches and different genes - even mutated ones - may fit different
niches.
In the 18th century most peppered moths in Britain were silvery gray,
indistinguishable from lichen-covered trunks of silver birches - their
habitat. Darker moths were gobbled up by rapacious birds. Their
mutated genes proved to be lethal. As soot from sprouting factories
blackened these trunks - the very same genes, hitherto fatal, became
an unmitigated blessing. The blacker specimen survived while their
hitherto perfectly adapted fairer brethren perished ("industrial
melanism"). This mode of natural selection is called directional.
Moreover, "bad" genes are often connected to "desirable genes"
(pleitropy). Sickle cell anemia protects certain African tribes
against malaria. This is called "diversifying or disruptive natural
selection". Artificial selection can thus fast deteriorate into
adverse selection due to ignorance.
Modern eugenics relies on statistics. It is no longer concerned with
causes - but with phenomena and the likely effects of intervention. If
the adverse traits of off-spring and parents are strongly correlated -
then preventing parents with certain undesirable qualities from
multiplying will surely reduce the incidence of said dispositions in
the general population. Yet, correlation does not necessarily imply
causation. The manipulation of one parameter of the correlation does
not inevitably alter it - or the incidence of the outcome.
Eugenicists often hark back to wisdom garnered by generations of
breeders and farmers. But the unequivocal lesson of thousands of years
of artificial selection is that cross-breeding (hybridization) - even
of two lines of inferior genetic stock - yields valuable genotypes.
Inter-marriage between races, groups in the population, ethnic groups,
and clans is thus bound to improve the species' chances of survival
more than any eugenic scheme.
The Myth of the Right to Life
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
I. The Right to Life
Generations of malleable Israeli children are brought up on the story
of the misnamed Jewish settlement Tel-Hai ("Mount of Life"), Israel's
Alamo. There, among the picturesque valleys of the Galilee, a
one-armed hero named Joseph Trumpeldor is said to have died, eight
decades ago, from an Arab stray bullet, mumbling: "It is good to die
for our country." Judaism is dubbed "A Teaching of Life" - but it
would seem that the sanctity of life can and does take a back seat to
some overriding values.
The right to life - at least of human beings - is a rarely questioned
fundamental moral principle. In Western cultures, it is assumed to be
inalienable and indivisible (i.e., monolithic). Yet, it is neither.
Even if we accept the axiomatic - and therefore arbitrary - source of
this right, we are still faced with intractable dilemmas. All said,
the right to life may be nothing more than a cultural construct,
dependent on social mores, historical contexts, and exegetic systems.
Rights - whether moral or legal - impose obligations or duties on
third parties towards the right-holder. One has a right AGAINST other
people and thus can prescribe to them certain obligatory behaviors and
proscribe certain acts or omissions. Rights and duties are two sides
of the same Janus-like ethical coin.
This duality confuses people. They often erroneously identify rights
with their attendant duties or obligations, with the morally decent,
or even with the morally permissible. One's rights inform other people
how they MUST behave towards one - not how they SHOULD or OUGHT to act
morally. Moral behavior is not dependent on the existence of a right.
Obligations are.
To complicate matters further, many apparently simple and
straightforward rights are amalgams of more basic moral or legal
principles. To treat such rights as unities is to mistreat them.
Take the right to life. It is a compendium of no less than eight
distinct rights: the right to be brought to life, the right to be
born, the right to have one's life maintained, the right not to be
killed, the right to have one's life saved, the right to save one's
life (wrongly reduced to the right to self-defense), the right to
terminate one's life, and the right to have one's life terminated.
None of these rights is self-evident, or unambiguous, or universal, or
immutable, or automatically applicable. It is safe to say, therefore,
that these rights are not primary as hitherto believed - but
derivative.
The Right to be Brought to Life
In most moral systems - including all major religions and Western
legal methodologies - it is life that gives rise to rights. The dead
have rights only because of the existence of the living. Where there
is no life - there are no rights. Stones have no rights (though many
animists would find this statement abhorrent).
Hence the vitriolic debate about cloning which involves denuding an
unfertilized egg of its nucleus. Is there life in an egg or a sperm
cell?
That something exists, does not necessarily imply that it harbors
life. Sand exists and it is inanimate. But what about things that
exist and have the potential to develop life? No one disputes the
existence of eggs and sperms - or their capacity to grow alive.
Is the potential to be alive a legitimate source of rights? Does the
egg have any rights, or, at the very least, the right to be brought to
life (the right to become or to be) and thus to acquire rights? The
much trumpeted right to acquire life pertains to an entity which
exists but is not alive - an egg. It is, therefore, an unprecedented
kind of right. Had such a right existed, it would have implied an
obligation or duty to give life to the unborn and the not yet
conceived.
Clearly, life manifests, at the earliest, when an egg and a sperm
unite at the moment of fertilization. Life is not a potential - it is
a process triggered by an event. An unfertilized egg is neither a
process - nor an event. It does not even possess the potential to
become alive unless and until it is fertilized.
The potential to become alive is not the ontological equivalent of
actually being alive. A potential life cannot give rise to rights and
obligations. The transition from potential to being is not trivial,
nor is it automatic, or inevitable, or independent of context. Atoms
of various elements have the potential to become an egg (or, for that
matter, a human being) - yet no one would claim that they ARE an egg
(or a human being), or that they should be treated as such (i.e., with
the same rights and obligations).
The Right to be Born
While the right to be brought to life deals with potentials - the
right to be born deals with actualities. When one or two adults
voluntarily cause an egg to be fertilized by a sperm cell with the
explicit intent and purpose of creating another life - the right to be
born crystallizes. The voluntary and premeditated action of said
adults amounts to a contract with the embryo - or rather, with society
which stands in for the embryo.
Henceforth, the embryo acquires the entire panoply of human rights:
the right to be born, to be fed, sheltered, to be emotionally
nurtured, to get an education, and so on.
But what if the fertilization was either involuntary (rape) or
unintentional ("accidental" pregnancy)?
Is the embryo's successful acquisition of rights dependent upon the
nature of the conception? We deny criminals their loot as "fruits of
the poisoned tree". Why not deny an embryo his life if it is the
outcome of a crime?
The conventional response - that the embryo did not commit the crime
or conspire in it - is inadequate. We would deny the poisoned fruits
of crime to innocent bystanders as well. Would we allow a passerby to
freely spend cash thrown out of an escape vehicle following a robbery?
Even if we agree that the embryo has a right to be kept alive - this
right cannot be held against his violated mother. It cannot oblige her
to harbor this patently unwanted embryo. If it could survive outside
the womb, this would have solved the moral dilemma. But it is dubious
- to say the least - that it has a right to go on using the mother's
body, or resources, or to burden her in any way in order to sustain
its own life.
The Right to Have One's Life Maintained
This leads to a more general quandary. To what extent can one use
other people's bodies, their property, their time, their resources and
to deprive them of pleasure, comfort, material possessions, income, or
any other thing - in order to maintain one's life?
Even if it were possible in reality, it is indefensible to maintain
that I have a right to sustain, improve, or prolong my life at
another's expense. I cannot demand - though I can morally expect -
even a trivial and minimal sacrifice from another in order to prolong
my life. I have no right to do so.
Of course, the existence of an implicit, let alone explicit, contract
between myself and another party would change the picture. The right
to demand sacrifices commensurate with the provisions of the contract
would then crystallize and create corresponding duties and
obligations.
No embryo has a right to sustain its life, maintain, or prolong it at
its mother's expense. This is true regardless of how insignificant the
sacrifice required of her is.
Yet, by knowingly and intentionally conceiving the embryo, the mother
can be said to have signed a contract with it. The contract causes the
right of the embryo to demand such sacrifices from his mother to
crystallize. It also creates corresponding duties and obligations of
the mother towards her embryo.
We often find ourselves in a situation where we do not have a given
right against other individuals - but we do possess this very same
right against society. Society owes us what no constituent-individual
does.
Thus, we all have a right to sustain our lives, maintain, prolong, or
even improve them at society's expense - no matter how major and
significant the resources required. Public hospitals, state pension
schemes, and police forces may be needed in order to fulfill society's
obligations to prolong, maintain, and improve our lives - but fulfill
them it must.
Still, each one of us can sign a contract with society - implicitly or
explicitly - and abrogate this right. One can volunteer to join the
army. Such an act constitutes a contract in which the individual
assumes the duty or obligation to give up his or her life.
The Right not to be Killed
It is commonly agreed that every person has the right not to be killed
unjustly. Admittedly, what is just and what is unjust is determined by
an ethical calculus or a social contract - both constantly in flux.
Still, even if we assume an Archimedean immutable point of moral
reference - does A's right not to be killed mean that third parties
are to refrain from enforcing the rights of other people against A?
What if the only way to right wrongs committed by A against others -
was to kill A? The moral obligation to right wrongs is about restoring
the rights of the wronged.
If the continued existence of A is predicated on the repeated and
continuous violation of the rights of others - and these other people
object to it - then A must be killed if that is the only way to right
the wrong and re-assert the rights of A's victims.
The Right to have One's Life Saved
There is no such right because there is no moral obligation or duty to
save a life. That people believe otherwise demonstrates the muddle
between the morally commendable, desirable, and decent ("ought",
"should") and the morally obligatory, the result of other people's
rights ("must"). In some countries, the obligation to save a life is
codified in the law of the land. But legal rights and obligations do
not always correspond to moral rights and obligations, or give rise to
them.
The Right to Save One's Own Life
One has a right to save one's life by exercising self-defense or
otherwise, by taking certain actions or by avoiding them. Judaism - as
well as other religious, moral, and legal systems - accept that one
has the right to kill a pursuer who knowingly and intentionally is
bent on taking one's life. Hunting down Osama bin-Laden in the wilds
of Afghanistan is, therefore, morally acceptable (though not morally
mandatory).
But does one have the right to kill an innocent person who unknowingly
and unintentionally threatens to take one's life? An embryo sometimes
threatens the life of the mother. Does she have a right to take its
life? What about an unwitting carrier of the Ebola virus - do we have
a right to terminate her life? For that matter, do we have a right to
terminate her life even if there is nothing she could have done about
it had she known about her condition?
The Right to Terminate One's Life
There are many ways to terminate one's life: self sacrifice, avoidable
martyrdom, engaging in life risking activities, refusal to prolong
one's life through medical treatment, euthanasia, overdosing and self
inflicted death that is the result of coercion. Like suicide, in all
these - bar the last - a foreknowledge of the risk of death is present
coupled with its acceptance. Does one have a right to take one's life?
The answer is: it depends. Certain cultures and societies encourage
suicide. Both Japanese kamikaze and Jewish martyrs were extolled for
their suicidal actions. Certain professions are knowingly
life-threatening - soldiers, firemen, policemen. Certain industries -
like the manufacture of armaments, cigarettes, and alcohol - boost
overall mortality rates.
In general, suicide is commended when it serves social ends, enhances
the cohesion of the group, upholds its values, multiplies its wealth,
or defends it from external and internal threats. Social structures
and human collectives - empires, countries, firms, bands, institutions
- often commit suicide. This is considered to be a healthy process.
Thus, suicide came to be perceived as a social act. The flip-side of
this perception is that life is communal property. Society has
appropriated the right to foster suicide or to prevent it. It condemns
individual suicidal entrepreneurship. Suicide, according to Thomas
Aquinas, is unnatural. It harms the community and violates God's
property rights.
In Judeo-Christian tradition, God is the owner of all souls. The soul
is on deposit with us. The very right to use it, for however short a
period, is a divine gift. Suicide, therefore, amounts to an abuse of
God's possession. Blackstone, the venerable codifier of British Law,
concurred. The state, according to him, has a right to prevent and to
punish suicide and attempted suicide. Suicide is self-murder, he
wrote, and, therefore, a grave felony. In certain paternalistic
countries, this still is the case.
The Right to Have One's Life Terminated
The right to have one's life terminated at will (euthanasia), is
subject to social, ethical, and legal strictures. In some countries -
such as the Netherlands - it is legal (and socially acceptable) to
have one's life terminated with the help of third parties given a
sufficient deterioration in the quality of life and given the
imminence of death. One has to be of sound mind and will one's death
knowingly, intentionally, repeatedly, and forcefully.
II. Issues in the Calculus of Rights
The Hierarchy of Rights
The right to life supersedes - in Western moral and legal systems -
all other rights. It overrules the right to one's body, to comfort, to
the avoidance of pain, or to ownership of property. Given such lack of
equivocation, the amount of dilemmas and controversies surrounding the
right to life is, therefore, surprising.
When there is a clash between equally potent rights - for instance,
the conflicting rights to life of two people - we can decide among
them randomly (by flipping a coin, or casting dice). Alternatively, we
can add and subtract rights in a somewhat macabre arithmetic.
Thus, if the continued life of an embryo or a fetus threatens the
mother's life - that is, assuming, controversially, that both of them
have an equal right to life - we can decide to kill the fetus. By
adding to the mother's right to life her right to her own body we
outweigh the fetus' right to life.
The Difference between Killing and Letting Die
Counterintuitively, there is a moral gulf between killing (taking a
life) and letting die (not saving a life). The right not to be killed
is undisputed. There is no right to have one's own life saved. Where
there is a right - and only where there is one - there is an
obligation. Thus, while there is an obligation not to kill - there is
no obligation to save a life.
Killing the Innocent
The life of a Victim (V) is sometimes threatened by the continued
existence of an innocent person (IP), a person who cannot be held
guilty of V's ultimate death even though he caused it. IP is not
guilty of dispatching V because he hasn't intended to kill V, nor was
he aware that V will die due to his actions or continued existence.
Again, it boils down to ghastly arithmetic. We definitely should kill
IP to prevent V's death if IP is going to die anyway - and shortly.
The remaining life of V, if saved, should exceed the remaining life of
IP, if not killed. If these conditions are not met, the rights of IP
and V should be weighted and calculated to yield a decision (See
"Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life" by Baruch A. Brody).
Utilitarianism - a form of crass moral calculus - calls for the
maximization of utility (life, happiness, pleasure). The lives,
happiness, or pleasure of the many outweigh the life, happiness, or
pleasure of the few. If by killing IP we save the lives of two or more
people and there is no other way to save their lives - it is morally
permissible.
But surely V has right to self defense, regardless of any moral
calculus of rights? Not so. Taking another's life to save one's own is
rarely justified, though such behavior cannot be condemned. Here we
have the flip side of the confusion we opened with: understandable and
perhaps inevitable behavior (self defense) is mistaken for a moral
right.
If I were V, I would kill IP unhesitatingly. Moreover, I would have
the understanding and sympathy of everyone. But this does not mean
that I had a right to kill IP.
Which brings us to September 11.
Collateral Damage
What should prevail: the imperative to spare the lives of innocent
civilians - or the need to safeguard the lives of fighter pilots?
Precision bombing puts such pilots at great risk. Avoiding this risk
usually results in civilian casualties ("collateral damage").
This moral dilemma is often "solved" by applying - explicitly or
implicitly - the principle of "over-riding affiliation". We find the
two facets of this principle in Jewish sacred texts: "One is close to
oneself" and "Your city's poor denizens come first (with regards to
charity)".
Some moral obligations are universal - thou shalt not kill. They are
related to one's position as a human being. Other moral values and
obligations arise from one's affiliations. Yet, there is a hierarchy
of moral values and obligations. The ones related to one's position as
a human being are, actually, the weakest.
They are overruled by moral values and obligations related to one's
affiliations. The imperative "thou shalt not kill (another human
being)" is easily over-ruled by the moral obligation to kill for one's
country. The imperative "thou shalt not steal" is superseded by one's
moral obligation to spy for one's nation.
This leads to another startling conclusion:
There is no such thing as a self-consistent moral system. Moral values
and obligations often contradict each other and almost always conflict
with universal moral values and obligations.
In the examples above, killing (for one's country) and stealing (for
one's nation) are moral obligations. Yet, they contradict the
universal moral value of the sanctity of life and the universal moral
obligation not to kill. Far from being a fundamental and immutable
principle - the right to life, it would seem, is merely a convenient
implement in the hands of society.
The Aborted Contract And the Right to Life
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
The issue of abortion is emotionally loaded and this often makes for
poor, not thoroughly thought out arguments. The questions: "Is
abortion immoral" and "Is abortion a murder" are often confused. The
pregnancy (and the resulting fetus) are discussed in terms normally
reserved to natural catastrophes (force majeure). At times, the embryo
is compared to cancer, a thief, or an invader: after all, they are
both growths, clusters of cells. The difference, of course, is that no
one contracts cancer willingly (except, to some extent, smokers --but,
then they gamble, not contract).
When a woman engages in voluntary sex, does not use contraceptives and
gets pregnant - one can say that she signed a contract with her
fetus. A contract entails the demonstrated existence of a reasonably
(and reasonable) free will. If the fulfillment of the obligations in a
contract between individuals could be life-threatening - it is fair
and safe to assume that no rational free will was involved. No
reasonable person would sign or enter such a contract with another
person (though most people would sign such contracts with society).
Judith Jarvis Thomson argued convincingly ("A Defence of Abortion")
that pregnancies that are the result of forced sex (rape being a
special case) or which are life threatening should or could, morally,
be terminated. Using the transactional language: the contract was not
entered to willingly or reasonably and, therefore, is null and
void. Any actions which are intended to terminate it and to annul its
consequences should be legally and morally permissible.
The same goes for a contract which was entered into against the
express will of one of the parties and despite all the reasonable
measures that the unwilling party adopted to prevent it. If a mother
uses contraceptives in a manner intended to prevent pregnancy, it is
as good as saying: " I do not want to sign this contract, I am doing
my reasonable best not to sign it, if it is signed - it is contrary to
my express will". There is little legal (or moral) doubt that such a
contract should be voided.
Much more serious problems arise when we study the other party to
these implicit agreements: the embryo. To start with, it lacks
consciousness (in the sense that is needed for signing an enforceable
and valid contract). Can a contract be valid even if one of the
"signatories" lacks this sine qua non trait? In the absence of
consciousness, there is little point in talking about free will (or
rights which depend on sentience). So, is the contract not a contract
at all? Does it not reflect the intentions of the parties?
The answer is in the negative. The contract between a mother and her
fetus is derived from the larger Social Contract. Society - through
its apparatuses - stands for the embryo the same way that it
represents minors, the mentally retarded, and the insane. Society
steps in - and has the recognized right and moral obligation to do so
- whenever the powers of the parties to a contract (implicit or
explicit) are not balanced. It protects small citizens from big
monopolies, the physically weak from the thug, the tiny opposition
from the mighty administration, the barely surviving radio station
from the claws of the devouring state mechanism. It also has the right
and obligation to intervene, intercede and represent the unconscious:
this is why euthanasia is absolutely forbidden without the consent of
the dying person. There is not much difference between the embryo and
the comatose.
A typical contract states the rights of the parties. It assumes the
existence of parties which are "moral personhoods" or "morally
significant persons" - in other words, persons who are holders of
rights and can demand from us to respect these rights. Contracts
explicitly elaborate some of these rights and leaves others
unmentioned because of the presumed existence of the Social
Contract. The typical contract assumes that there is a social contract
which applies to the parties to the contract and which is universally
known and, therefore, implicitly incorporated in every contract. Thus,
an explicit contract can deal with the property rights of a certain
person, while neglecting to mention that person's rights to life, to
free speech, to the enjoyment the fruits of his lawful property and,
in general to a happy life.
There is little debate that the Mother is a morally significant person
and that she is a rights-holder. All born humans are and, more so, all
adults above a certain age. But what about the unborn fetus?
One approach is that the embryo has no rights until certain conditions
are met and only upon their fulfillment is he transformed into a
morally significant person ("moral agent"). Opinions differ as to what
are the conditions. Rationality, or a morally meaningful and valued
life are some of the oft cited criteria. The fallaciousness of this
argument is easy to demonstrate: children are irrational - is this a
licence to commit infanticide?
A second approach says that a person has the right to life because it
desires it.
But then what about chronic depressives who wish to die - do we have
the right to terminate their miserable lives? The good part of life
(and, therefore, the differential and meaningful test) is in the
experience itself - not in the desire to experience.
Another variant says that a person has the right to life because once
his life is terminated - his experiences cease. So, how should we
judge the right to life of someone who constantly endures bad
experiences (and, as a result, harbors a death wish)? Should he better
be "terminated"?
Having reviewed the above arguments and counter-arguments, Don Marquis
goes on (in "Why Abortion is Immoral", 1989) to offer a sharper and
more comprehensive criterion: terminating a life is morally wrong
because a person has a future filled with value and meaning, similar
to ours.
But the whole debate is unnecessary. There is no conflict between the
rights of the mother and those of her fetus because there is never a
conflict between parties to an agreement. By signing an agreement, the
mother gave up some of her rights and limited the others. This is
normal practice in contracts: they represent compromises, the
optimization (and not the maximization) of the parties' rights and
wishes. The rights of the fetus are an inseparable part of the
contract which the mother signed voluntarily and reasonably. They are
derived from the mother's behaviour. Getting willingly pregnant (or
assuming the risk of getting pregnant by not using contraceptives
reasonably) - is the behaviour which validates and ratifies a contract
between her and the fetus. Many contracts are by behaviour, rather
than by a signed piece of paper. Numerous contracts are verbal or
behavioural. These contracts, though implicit, are as binding as any
of their written, more explicit, brethren. Legally (and morally) the
situation is crystal clear: the mother signed some of her rights away
in this contract. Even if she regrets it - she cannot claim her rights
back by annulling the contract unilaterally. No contract can be
annulled this way - the consent of both parties is required. Many
times we realize that we have entered a bad contract, but there is
nothing much that we can do about it. These are the rules of the game.
Thus the two remaining questions: (a) can this specific contract
(pregnancy) be annulled and, if so (b) in which circumstances - can be
easily settled using modern contract law. Yes, a contract can be
annulled and voided if signed under duress, involuntarily, by
incompetent persons (e.g., the insane), or if one of the parties made
a reasonable and full scale attempt to prevent its signature, thus
expressing its clear will not to sign the contract. It is also
terminated or voided if it would be unreasonable to expect one of the
parties to see it through. Rape, contraception failure, life
threatening situations are all such cases.
This could be argued against by saying that, in the case of economic
hardship, f or instance, the damage to the mother's future is
certain. True, her value- filled, meaningful future is granted - but
so is the detrimental effect that the fetus will have on it, once
born. This certainty cannot be balanced by the UNCERTAIN value-filled
future life of the embryo. Always, preferring an uncertain good to a
certain evil is morally wrong. But surely this is a quantitative
matter - not a qualitative one. Certain, limited aspects of the rest
of the mother's life will be adversely effected (and can be
ameliorated by society's helping hand and intervention) if she does
have the baby. The decision not to have it is both qualitatively and
qualitatively different. It is to deprive the unborn of all the
aspects of all his future life - in which he might well have
experienced happiness, values, and meaning.
The questions whether the fetus is a Being or a growth of cells,
conscious in any manner, or utterly unconscious, able to value his
life and to want them - are all but irrelevant. He has the potential
to lead a happy, meaningful, value-filled life, similar to ours, very
much as a one minute old baby does. The contract between him and his
mother is a service provision contract. She provides him with goods
and services that he requires in order to materialize his
potential. It sounds very much like many other human contracts. And
this contract continue well after pregnancy has ended and birth
given.
Consider education: children do not appreciate its importance or value
its potential - still, it is enforced upon them because we, who are
capable of those feats, want them to have the tools that they will
need in order to develop their potential. In this and many other
respects, the human pregnancy continues well into the fourth year of
life (physiologically it continues in to the second year of life - see
"Born Alien"). Should the location of the pregnancy (in uterus, in
vivo) determine its future? If a mother has the right to abort at
will, why should the mother be denied her right to terminate the "
pregnancy" AFTER the fetus emerges and the pregnancy continues OUTSIDE
her womb? Even after birth, the woman's body is the main source of
food to the baby and, in any case, she has to endure physical hardship
to raise the child. Why not extend the woman's ownership of her body
and right to it further in time and space to the post-natal period?
Contracts to provide goods and services (always at a personal cost to
the provider) are the commonest of contracts. We open a business. We
sell a software application, we publish a book - we engage in helping
others to materialize their potential. We should always do so
willingly and reasonably - otherwise the contracts that we sign will
be null and void. But to deny anyone his capacity to materialize his
potential and the goods and services that he needs to do so - after a
valid contract was entered into - is immoral. To refuse to provide a
service or to condition it provision (Mother: " I will provide the
goods and services that I agreed to provide to this fetus under this
contract only if and when I benefit from such provision") is a
violation of the contract and should be penalized. Admittedly, at
times we have a right to choose to do the immoral (because it has not
been codified as illegal) - but that does not turn it into moral.
Still, not every immoral act involving the termination of life can be
classified as murder. Phenomenology is deceiving: the acts look the
same (cessation of life functions, the prevention of a future). But
murder is the intentional termination of the life of a human who
possesses, at the moment of death, a consciousness (and, in most
cases, a free will, especially the will not to die). Abortion is the
intentional termination of a life which has the potential to develop
into a person with consciousness and free will. Philosophically, no
identity can be established between potential and actuality. The
destruction of paints and cloth is not tantamount (not to say
identical) to the destruction of a painting by Van Gogh, made up of
these very elements. Paints and cloth are converted to a painting
through the intermediacy and agency of the Painter. A cluster of cells
a human makes only through the agency of Nature.
Surely, the destruction of the painting materials constitutes an
offence against the Painter. In the same way, the destruction of the
fetus constitutes an offence against Nature. But there is no denying
that in both cases, no finished product was eliminated. Naturally,
this becomes less and less so (the severity of the terminating act
increases) as the process of creation advances.
Classifying an abortion as murder poses numerous and insurmountable
philosophical problems.
No one disputes the now common view that the main crime committed in
aborting a pregnancy - is a crime against potentialities. If so, what
is the philosophical difference between aborting a fetus and
destroying a sperm and an egg? These two contain all the information
(=all the potential) and their destruction is philosophically no less
grave than the destruction of a fetus. The destruction of an egg and a
sperm is even more serious philosophically: the creation of a fetus
limits the set of all potentials embedded in the genetic material to
the one fetus created. The egg and sperm can be compared to the famous
wave function (state vector) in quantum mechanics - the represent
millions of potential final states (=millions of potential embryos and
lives). The fetus is the collapse of the wave function: it represents
a much more limited set of potentials. If killing an embryo is murder
because of the elimination of potentials - how should we consider the
intentional elimination of many more potentials through masturbation
and contraception?
The argument that it is difficult to say which sperm cell will
impregnate the egg is not serious. Biologically, it does not matter -
they all carry the same genetic content. Moreover, would this
counter-argument still hold if, in future, we were be able to identify
the chosen one and eliminate only it? In many religions (Catholicism)
contraception is murder. In Judaism, masturbation is "the corruption
of the seed" and such a serious offence that it is punishable by the
strongest religious penalty: eternal ex-communication ("Karet").
If abortion is indeed murder how should we resolve the following moral
dilemmas and questions (some of them patently absurd):
Is a natural abortion the equivalent of manslaughter (through
negligence)?
Do habits like smoking, drug addiction, vegetarianism - infringe upon
the right to life of the embryo? Do they constitute a violation of the
contract?
Reductio ad absurdum: if, in the far future, research will
unequivocally prove that listening to a certain kind of music or
entertaining certain thoughts seriously hampers the embryonic
development - should we apply censorship to the Mother?
Should force majeure clauses be introduced to the Mother-Embryo
pregnancy contract? Will they give the mother the right to cancel the
contract? Will the embryo have a right to terminate the
contract? Should the asymmetry persist: the Mother will have no right
to terminate - but the embryo will, or vice versa?
Being a rights holder, can the embryo (=the State) litigate against
his Mother or Third Parties (the doctor that aborted him, someone who
hit his mother and brought about a natural abortion) even after he
died?
Should anyone who knows about an abortion be considered an accomplice
to murder?
If abortion is murder - why punish it so mildly? Why is there a debate
regarding this question? "Thou shalt not kill" is a natural law, it
appears in virtually every legal system. It is easily and immediately
identifiable. The fact that abortion does not "enjoy" the same legal
and moral treatment says a lot.
In Our Own Image
The Debate about Cloning
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
There are two types of cloning. One involves harvesting stem cells
from embryos ("therapeutic cloning"). These are the biological
equivalent of a template. They can develop into any kind of mature
functional cell and thus help cure many degenerative and auto-immune
diseases.
The other kind of cloning is much derided in popular culture - and
elsewhere - as the harbinger of a Brave, New World. A nucleus from any
cell of a donor is embedded in an egg whose own nucleus has been
removed. The egg is then implanted in a woman's womb and a cloned baby
is born nine months later. Biologically, the cloned infant is a
replica of the donor.
Cloning is often confused with other advances in bio-medicine and
bio-engineering - such as genetic selection. It cannot - in itself -
be used to produce "perfect humans" or select sex or other traits.
Hence, some of the arguments against cloning are either specious or
fuelled by ignorance.
It is true, though, that cloning, used in conjunction with other
bio-technologies, raises serious bio-ethical questions.
Scare scenarios of humans cultivated in sinister labs as sources of
spare body parts, "designer babies", "master races", or "genetic sex
slaves" - formerly the preserve of B sci-fi movies - have invaded
mainstream discourse.
Still, cloning touches upon Mankind's most basic fears and hopes. It
invokes the most intractable ethical and moral dilemmas. As an
inevitable result, the debate is often more passionate than informed.
Right to Life Arguments
According to cloning's detractors, the nucleus removed from the egg
could otherwise have developed into a human being. Thus, removing the
nucleus amounts to murder.
It is a fundamental principle of most moral theories that all human
beings have a right to life. The existence of a right implies
obligations or duties of third parties towards the right-holder. One
has a right AGAINST other people. The fact that one possesses a
certain right - prescribes to others certain obligatory behaviours and
proscribes certain acts or omissions. This Janus-like nature of rights
and duties as two sides of the same ethical coin - creates great
confusion. People often and easily confuse rights and their attendant
duties or obligations with the morally decent, or even with the
morally permissible. What one MUST do as a result of another's right -
should never be confused with one SHOULD or OUGHT to do morally (in
the absence of a right).
But is the egg - alive?
This question is NOT equivalent to the ancient quandary of "when does
life begin". Life crystallizes, at the earliest, when an egg and a
sperm unite (i.e., at the moment of fertilization). Life is not a
potential - it is a process triggered by an event. An unfertilized egg
is neither a process - nor an event. It does not even possess the
potential to become alive unless and until it merges with a sperm.
Should such merger not occur - it will never develop life.
The potential to become X is not the ontological equivalent of
actually being X, nor does it spawn moral and ethical rights and
obligations pertaining to X. The transition from potential to being is
not trivial, nor is it automatic, or inevitable, or independent of
context. Atoms of various elements have the potential to become an egg
(or, for that matter, a human being) - yet no one would claim that
they ARE an egg (or a human being), or that they should be treated as
one (i.e., with the same rights and obligations).
Moreover, it is the donor nucleus embedded in the egg that endows it
with life - the life of the cloned baby. Yet, the nucleus is usually
extracted from a muscle or the skin. Should we treat a muscle or a
skin cell with the same reverence the critics of cloning wish to
accord an unfertilized egg?
Is this the main concern?
The main concern is that cloning - even the therapeutic kind - will
produce piles of embryos. Many of them - close to 95% with current
biotechnology - will die. Others can be surreptitiously and illegally
implanted in the wombs of "surrogate mothers".
It is patently immoral, goes the precautionary argument, to kill so
many embryos. Cloning is such a novel technique that its success rate
is still unacceptably low. There are alternative ways to harvest stem
cells - less costly in terms of human life. If we accept that life
begins at the moment of fertilization, this argument is valid. But it
also implies that - once cloning becomes safer and scientists more
adept - cloning itself should be permitted.
This is anathema to those who fear a slippery slope. They abhor the
very notion of "unnatural" conception. To them, cloning is a
narcissistic act and an ignorant and dangerous interference in
nature's sagacious ways. They would ban procreative cloning,
regardless of how safe it is. Therapeutic cloning - with its mounds of
discarded fetuses - will allow rogue scientists to cross the boundary
between permissible (curative cloning) and illegal (baby cloning).
Why should Baby Cloning be Illegal?
Cloning's opponents object to procreative cloning because it can be
abused to design babies, skew natural selection, unbalance nature,
produce masters and slaves and so on. The "argument from abuse" has
been raised with every scientific advance - from in vitro
fertilization to space travel.
Every technology can be potentially abused. Television can be either a
wonderful educational tool - or an addictive and mind numbing pastime.
Nuclear fission is a process that yields both nuclear weapons and
atomic energy. To claim, as many do, that cloning touches upon the
"heart" of our existence, the "kernel" of our being, the very
"essence" of our nature - and thus threatens life itself - would be
incorrect.
There is no "privileged" form of technological abuse and no hierarchy
of potentially abusive technologies. Nuclear fission tackles natural
processes as fundamental as life. Nuclear weapons threaten life no
less than cloning. The potential for abuse is not a sufficient reason
to arrest scientific research and progress - though it is a necessary
condition.
Some fear that cloning will further the government's enmeshment in the
healthcare system and in scientific research. Power corrupts and it is
not inconceivable that governments will ultimately abuse and misuse
cloning and other biotechnologies. Nazi Germany had a state-sponsored
and state-mandated eugenics program in the 1930's.
Yet, this is another variant of the argument from abuse. That a
technology can be abused by governments does not imply that it should
be avoided or remain undeveloped. This is because all technologies -
without a single exception - can and are abused routinely - by
governments and others. This is human nature.
Fukuyama raised the possibility of a multi-tiered humanity in which
"natural" and "genetically modified" people enjoy different rights and
privileges. But why is this inevitable? Surely this can easily by
tackled by proper, prophylactic, legislation?
All humans, regardless of their pre-natal history, should be treated
equally. Are children currently conceived in vitro treated any
differently to children conceived in utero? They are not. There is no
reason that cloned or genetically-modified children should belong to
distinct legal classes.
Unbalancing Nature
It is very anthropocentric to argue that the proliferation of
genetically enhanced or genetically selected children will somehow
unbalance nature and destabilize the precarious equilibrium it
maintains. After all, humans have been modifying, enhancing, and
eliminating hundreds of thousands of species for well over 10,000
years now. Genetic modification and bio-engineering are as natural as
agriculture. Human beings are a part of nature and its manifestation.
By definition, everything they do is natural.
Why would the genetic alteration or enhancement of one more species -
homo sapiens - be of any consequence? In what way are humans "more
important" to nature, or "more crucial" to its proper functioning? In
our short history on this planet, we have genetically modified and
enhanced wheat and rice, dogs and cows, tulips and orchids, oranges
and potatoes. Why would interfering with the genetic legacy of the
human species be any different?
Effects on Society
Cloning - like the Internet, the television, the car, electricity, the
telegraph, and the wheel before it - is bound to have great social
consequences. It may foster "embryo industries". It may lead to the
exploitation of women - either willingly ("egg prostitution") or
unwillingly ("womb slavery"). Charles Krauthammer, a columnist and
psychiatrist, quoted in "The Economist", says:
"(Cloning) means the routinisation, the commercialisation, the
commodification of the human embryo".
Exploiting anyone unwillingly is a crime, whether it involves cloning
or white slavery. But why would egg donations and surrogate motherhood
be considered problems? If we accept that life begins at the moment of
fertilization and that a woman owns her body and everything within it
- why should she not be allowed to sell her eggs or to host another's
baby and how would these voluntary acts be morally repugnant? In any
case, human eggs are already being bought and sold and the supply far
exceeds the demand.
Moreover, full-fledged humans are routinely "routinised,
commercialized, and commodified" by governments, corporations,
religions, and other social institutions. Consider war, for instance -
or commercial advertising. How is the "routinisation,
commercialization, and commodification" of embryos more reprehensible
that the "routinisation, commercialization, and commodification" of
fully formed human beings?
Curing and Saving Life
Cell therapy based on stem cells often leads to tissue rejection and
necessitates costly and potentially dangerous immunosuppressive
therapy. But when the stem cells are harvested from the patient
himself and cloned, these problems are averted. Therapeutic cloning
has vast untapped - though at this stage still remote - potential to
improve the lives of hundreds of millions.
As far as "designer babies" go, pre-natal cloning and genetic
engineering can be used to prevent disease or cure it, to suppress
unwanted traits, and to enhance desired ones. It is the moral right of
a parent to make sure that his progeny suffers less, enjoys life more,
and attains the maximal level of welfare throughout his or her life.
That such technologies can be abused by over-zealous, or mentally
unhealthy parents in collaboration with avaricious or unscrupulous
doctors - should not prevent the vast majority of stable, caring, and
sane parents from gaining access to them.
Ethical Relativism and Absolute Taboos
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
I. Taboos
II. Incest
III. Suicide
IV. Race
V. Moral Relativism
I. Taboos
Taboos regulate our sexual conduct, race relations, political
institutions, and economic mechanisms - virtually every realm of our
life. According to the 2002 edition of the "Encyclopedia Britannica",
they are "the prohibition of an action or the use of an object based
on ritualistic distinctions of them either as being sacred and
consecrated or as being dangerous, unclean, and accursed."
Jews are instructed to ritually cleanse themselves after having been
in contact with a Torah scroll - or a corpse. This association of the
sacred with the accursed and the holy with the depraved is the key to
the guilt and sense of danger which accompany the violation of a
taboo.
In Polynesia, where the term originated, "taboos could include
prohibitions on fishing or picking fruit at certain seasons; food
taboos that restrict the diet of pregnant women; prohibitions on
talking to or touching chiefs or members of other high social classes;
taboos on walking or traveling in certain areas, such as forests; and
various taboos that function during important life events such as
birth, marriage, and death."
Political correctness is a particularly pernicious kind of taboo
enforcement. It entails an all-pervasive self-censorship coupled with
social sanctions. Consider the treatment of the right to life, incest,
suicide, and race.
II. Incest
In contemporary thought, incest is invariably associated with child
abuse and its horrific, long-lasting, and often irreversible
consequences. But incest is far from being the clear-cut or monolithic
issue that millennia of taboo imply. Incest with minors is a private -
and particularly egregious - case of pedophilia or statutory rape. It
should be dealt with forcefully. But incest covers much more besides
these criminal acts.
Incest is the ethical and legal prohibition to have sex with a related
person or to marry him or her - even if the people involved are
consenting and fully informed adults. Contrary to popular mythology,
banning incest has little to do with the fear of genetic diseases.
Even genetically unrelated parties (a stepfather and a stepdaughter)
can commit incest.
Incest is also forbidden between fictive kin or classificatory kin
(that belong to the same matriline or patriline). In certain societies
(certain Native American tribes, or the Chinese) it is sufficient to
carry the same family name (i.e., to belong to the same clan) to
render a relationship incestuous. Clearly, eugenic considerations have
little to do with incest.
Moreover, the use of contraceptives means that incest does not need to
result in pregnancy and the transmission of genetic material.
Inbreeding (endogamous) or straightforward incest is the norm in many
life forms, even among primates (e.g., chimpanzees). It was also quite
common until recently in certain human societies - the Hindus, for
instance, or many Native American tribes, and royal families
everywhere.
Nor is the taboo universal. In some societies, incest is mandatory or
prohibited, according to one's social class (Bali). In others, the
Royal House started a tradition of incestuous marriages, later
emulated by the lower classes (Ancient Egypt). The list is long and it
serves to demonstrate the diversity of attitudes towards this most
universal practice.
The more primitive and aggressive the society, the more strict and
elaborate the set of incest prohibitions and the fiercer the penalties
for their violation. The reason may be economic. Incest interferes
with rigid algorithms of inheritance in conditions of extreme scarcity
(for instance, of land and water) and consequently leads to
survival-threatening internecine disputes.
Freud said that incest provokes horror because it touches upon our
forbidden, ambivalent sexual cravings and aggression towards members
of our close family. Westermark held that "familiarity breeds
repulsion" and that the incest taboo - rather than counter inbred
instincts - simply reflects emotional reality. Both ignored the fact
that the incest taboo is learned - not inherent.
We can easily imagine a society where incest is extolled, taught, and
practiced - and out-breeding is regarded with horror and revulsion.
The incestuous marriages among members of the royal households of
Europe were intended to preserve the familial property and expand the
clan's territory. They were normative, not aberrant. Marrying an
outsider was considered abhorrent.
III. Suicide
Self-sacrifice, avoidable martyrdom, engaging in life risking
activities, refusal to prolong one's life through medical treatment,
euthanasia, overdosing, and self-destruction that is the result of
coercion - are all closely related to suicide. They all involve a
deliberately self-inflicted death.
But while suicide is chiefly intended to terminate a life - the other
acts are aimed at perpetuating, strengthening, and defending values or
other people. Many are appalled by the choice implied in suicide - of
death over life. They feel that it demeans life - i.e., abnegates its
meaning.
Life's meaning - the outcome of active selection by the individual -
is either external (i.e., God's plan) or internal (i.e., the outcome
of an arbitrary frame of reference).
Our life is rendered meaningful only by integrating into an eternal
thing, process, design, or being. Suicide makes life trivial because
the act is not natural - not part of the eternal framework, the
undying process, the timeless cycle of birth and death. Suicide is a
break with eternity.
Sidgwick said that only conscious (i.e., intelligent) beings can
appreciate values and meanings. So, life is significant to conscious,
intelligent, though finite, beings - because it is a part of some
eternal goal, plan, process, thing, design, or being. Suicide flies in
the face of Sidgwick's dictum. It is a statement by an intelligent and
conscious being about the meaninglessness of life.
If suicide is a statement, than society, in this case, is against the
freedom of expression. In the case of suicide, free speech dissonantly
clashes with the sanctity of a meaningful life. To rid itself of the
anxiety brought on by this conflict, society cast suicide as a
depraved or even criminal act and its perpetrators are much
castigated.
The suicide violates not only the social contract - but, many will
add, covenants with God or nature. Thomas Aquinas said that - since
organisms strive to survive - suicide is an unnatural act. Moreover,
it adversely affects the community and violates the property rights of
God, the imputed owner of one's spirit. Christianity regards the
immortal soul as a gift and, in Jewish writings, it is a deposit.
Suicide amounts to the abuse or misuse of God's possessions,
temporarily lodged in a corporeal mansion.
This paternalism was propagated, centuries later, by Blackstone, the
codifier of British Law. Suicide - being self-murder - is a grave
felony, which the state has a right to prevent and to punish for.
In certain countries this still is the case. In Israel, for instance,
a soldier is considered to be "military property" and an attempted
suicide is severely punished as "a corruption of a army chattel".
Paternalism, a malignant mutation of benevolence, is about
objectifying people and treating them as possessions. Even
fully-informed and consenting adults are not granted full, unmitigated
autonomy, freedom, and privacy. This tends to breed "victimless
crimes". The "culprits" - gamblers, homosexuals, communists, suicides,
drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes - are "protected from
themselves" by an intrusive nanny state.
The possession of a right creates a corresponding obligation not to
act to frustrate its exercise. Suicide is often the choice of a
mentally and legally competent adult. Life is such a basic and deep
set phenomenon that even the incompetents - the mentally retarded or
mentally insane or minors - can fully gauge its significance and make
"informed" decisions, in my view.
The paternalists claim counterfactually that no competent adult "in
his right mind" will ever decide to commit suicide. They cite the
cases of suicides who survived and felt very happy that they have - as
a compelling reason to intervene. But we all make irreversible
decisions for which, sometimes, we are sorry. It gives no one the
right to interfere.
Paternalism is a slippery slope. Should the state be allowed to
prevent the birth of a genetically defective child or forbid his
parents to marry in the first place?
Should unhealthy adults be forced to abstain from smoking, or steer
clear from alcohol? Should they be coerced to exercise?
Suicide is subject to a double moral standard. People are permitted -
nay, encouraged - to sacrifice their life only in certain, socially
sanctioned, ways. To die on the battlefield or in defense of one's
religion is commendable. This hypocrisy reveals how power structures -
the state, institutional religion, political parties, national
movements - aim to monopolize the lives of citizens and adherents to
do with as they see fit. Suicide threatens this monopoly. Hence the
taboo.
IV. Race
Social Darwinism, sociobiology, and, nowadays, evolutionary psychology
are all derided and disparaged because they try to prove that nature -
more specifically, our genes - determine our traits, our
accomplishments, our behavior patterns, our social status, and, in
many ways, our destiny. Our upbringing and our environment change
little. They simply select from ingrained libraries embedded in our
brain.
Moreover, the discussion of race and race relations is tainted by a
history of recurrent ethnocide and genocide and thwarted by the dogma
of egalitarianism. The (legitimate) question "are all races equal"
thus becomes a private case of the (no less legitimate) "are all men
equal". To ask "can races co-exist peacefully" is thus to embark on
the slippery slope to slavery and Auschwitz. These historical echoes
and the overweening imposition of political correctness prevent any
meaningful - let alone scientific - discourse.
The irony is that "race" - or at least race as determined by skin
color - is a distinctly unscientific concept, concerned more with
appearances (i.e., the color of one's skin, the shape of one's head or
hair), common history, and social politics - than with heredity. Most
human classificatory traits are not concordant. Different taxonomic
criteria conjure up different "races". IQ is a similarly contentious
construct, although it is stable and does predict academic achievement
effectively.
Thus, racist-sounding claims are as unfounded as claims about racial
equality. Still, while the former are treated as an abomination - the
latter are accorded academic respectability and scientific scrutiny.
Consider these two hypotheses:
I. That the IQ (or any other measurable trait) of a given race or
ethnic group is hereditarily determined (i.e., that skin color and IQ
- or another measurable trait - are concordant) and is strongly
correlated with certain types of behavior, life accomplishments, and
social status.
II. That the IQ (or any other quantifiable trait) of a given race or
"ethnic group" is the outcome of social and economic circumstances and
even if strongly correlated with behavior patterns, academic or other
achievements, and social status - which is disputable - is amenable to
"social engineering".
Both theories are falsifiable and both deserve serious, unbiased,
study. That we choose to ignore the first and substantiate the second
demonstrates the pernicious and corrupting effect of political
correctness.
Claims of the type "trait A and trait B are concordant" should be
investigated by scientists, regardless of how politically incorrect
they are. Not so claims of the type "people with trait A are ..." or
"people with trait A do ...". These should be decried as racist tripe.
Thus the statement "The traits of being an Ashkenazi Jew (A) and
suffering from Tay-Sachs induced idiocy (B) are concordant" is true 1
of every 2500 times.
The statements "people who are Jews (i.e., with trait A) are
(narcissists)", or "people who are Jews (i.e., with trait A) do this:
they drink the blood of innocent Christian children during the
Passover rites" - are vile racist and paranoid statements.
People are not created equal. Human diversity - a taboo topic - is a
cause for celebration. It is important to study and ascertain what are
the respective contributions of nature and nurture to the way people -
individuals and groups - grow, develop, and mature. In the pursuit of
this invaluable and essential knowledge, taboos are dangerously
counter-productive.
V. Moral Relativism
Protagoras, the Greek Sophist, was the first to notice that ethical
codes are culture-dependent and vary in different societies,
economies, and geographies. The pragmatist believe that what is right
is merely what society thinks is right at any given moment. Good and
evil are not immutable. No moral principle - and taboos are moral
principles - is universally and eternally true and valid. Morality
applies within cultures but not across them.
But ethical or cultural relativism and the various schools of
pragmatism ignore the fact that certain ethical percepts - probably
grounded in human nature - do appear to be universal and ancient, if
not eternal. Fairness, veracity, keeping promises, moral hierarchy -
permeate all the cultures we have come to know. Nor can certain moral
tenets be explained away as mere expressions of emotions or behavioral
prescriptions - devoid of cognitive content, logic, and a relatedness
to certain facts.
Still, it is easy to prove that most taboos are, indeed, relative.
Incest, suicide, feticide, infanticide, parricide, ethnocide,
genocide, genital mutilation, social castes, and adultery are
normative in certain cultures - and strictly proscribed in others.
Taboos are pragmatic moral principles. They derive their validity from
their efficacy. They are observed because they work, because they
yield solutions and provide results. They disappear or are transformed
when no longer useful.
Incest is likely to be tolerated in a world with limited possibilities
for procreation. Suicide is bound to be encouraged in a society
suffering from extreme scarcity of resources and over-population.
Ethnocentrism, racism and xenophobia will inevitably rear their ugly
heads again in anomic circumstances. None of these taboos is
unassailable.
None of them reflects some objective truth, independent of culture and
circumstances. They are convenient conventions, workable principles,
and regulatory mechanisms - nothing more. That scholars are
frantically trying to convince us otherwise - or to exclude such a
discussion altogether - is a sign of the growing disintegration of our
weakening society.
T H E A U T H O R
SHMUEL (SAM) VAKNIN
Curriculum Vitae
Click on blue text to access relevant web sites - thank you.
Born in 1961 in Qiryat-Yam, Israel.
Served in the Israeli Defence Force (1979-1982) in training and
education units.
Education
Graduated a few semesters in the Technion - Israel Institute of
Technology, Haifa.
Ph.D. in Philosophy (major : Philosophy of Physics) - Pacific Western
University, California.
Graduate of numerous courses in Finance Theory and International
Trading.
Certified E-Commerce Concepts Analyst.
Certified in Psychological Counselling Techniques.
Full proficiency in Hebrew and in English.
Business Experience
1980 to 1983
Founder and co-owner of a chain of computerized information kiosks in
Tel-Aviv, Israel.
1982 to 1985
Senior positions with the Nessim D. Gaon Group of Companies in Geneva,
Paris and New-York (NOGA and APROFIM SA):
- Chief Analyst of Edible Commodities in the Group's Headquarters in
Switzerland.
- Manager of the Research and Analysis Division
- Manager of the Data Processing Division
- Project Manager of The Nigerian Computerized Census
- Vice President in charge of RND and Advanced Technologies
- Vice President in charge of Sovereign Debt Financing
1985 to 1986
Represented Canadian Venture Capital Funds in Israel.
1986 to 1987
General Manager of IPE Ltd. in London. The firm financed international
multi-lateral countertrade and leasing transactions.
1988 to 1990
Co-founder and Director of "Mikbats - Tesuah", a portfolio management
firm based in Tel-Aviv.
Activities included large-scale portfolio management, underwriting,
forex trading and general financial advisory services.
1990 to Present
Free-lance consultant to many of Israel's Blue-Chip firms, mainly on
issues related to the capital markets in Israel, Canada, the UK and
the USA.
Consultant to foreign RND ventures and to Governments on
macro-economic matters.
President of the Israel chapter of the Professors World Peace Academy
(PWPA) and (briefly) Israel representative of the "Washington Times".
1993 to 1994
Co-owner and Director of many business enterprises:
- The Omega and Energy Air-Conditioning Concern
- AVP Financial Consultants
- Handiman Legal Services
Total annual turnover of the group: 10 million USD.
Co-owner, Director and Finance Manager of COSTI Ltd. - Israel's
largest computerized information vendor and developer. Raised funds
through a series of private placements locally, in the USA, Canada and
London.
1993 to 1996
Publisher and Editor of a Capital Markets Newsletter distributed by
subscription only to dozens of subscribers countrywide.
In a legal precedent in 1995 - studied in business schools and law
faculties across Israel - was tried for his role in an attempted
takeover of Israel's Agriculture Bank.
Was interned in the State School of Prison Wardens.
Managed the Central School Library, wrote, published and lectured on
various occasions.
Managed the Internet and International News Department of an Israeli
mass media group, "Ha-Tikshoret and Namer".
Assistant in the Law Faculty in Tel-Aviv University (to Prof. S.G.
Shoham).
1996 to 1999
Financial consultant to leading businesses in Macedonia, Russia and
the Czech Republic.
Collaborated with the Agency of Transformation of Business with
Social Capital.
Economic commentator in "Nova Makedonija", "Dnevnik", "Izvestia",
"Argumenti i Fakti", "The Middle East Times", "Makedonija Denes", "The
New Presence", "Central Europe Review" , and other periodicals and in
the economic programs on various channels of Macedonian Television.
Chief Lecturer in courses organized by the Agency of Transformation,
by the Macedonian Stock Exchange and by the Ministry of Trade.
1999 to 2002
Economic Advisor to the Government of the Republic of Macedonia and to
the Ministry of Finance.
2001 to present
Senior Business Correspondent for United Press International (UPI)
Web and Journalistic Activities
Author of extensive Websites in Psychology ("Malignant Self Love") -
An Open Directory Cool Site
Philosophy ("Philosophical Musings")
Economics and Geopolitics ("World in Conflict and Transition")
Owner of the Narcissistic Abuse Announcement and Study List and the
Narcissism Revisited mailing list (more than 3900 members)
Owner of the Economies in Conflict and Transition Study list.
Editor of mental health disorders and Central and Eastern Europe
categories in web directories (Open Directory, Suite 101, Search
Europe).
Columnist and commentator in "The New Presence", United Press
International (UPI), InternetContent, eBookWeb and "Central Europe
Review".
Publications and Awards
"Managing Investment Portfolios in states of Uncertainty", Limon
Publishers, Tel-Aviv, 1988
"The Gambling Industry", Limon Publishers., Tel-Aviv, 1990
"Requesting my Loved One - Short Stories", Yedioth Aharonot, Tel-Aviv,
1997
"The Macedonian Economy at a Crossroads - On the way to a Healthier
Economy" (with Nikola Gruevski), Skopje, 1998
"Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited", Narcissus Publications,
Prague and Skopje, 1999, 2001, 2002
The Narcissism Series - e-books regarding relationships with abusive
narcissists (Skopje, 1999-2002)
"The Exporters' Pocketbook", Ministry of Trade, Republic of Macedonia,
Skopje, 1999
"The Suffering of Being Kafka" (electronic book of Hebrew Short
Fiction, Prague, 1998)
"After the Rain - How the West Lost the East", Narcissus Publications
in association with Central Europe Review/CEENMI, Prague and Skopje,
2000
Winner of numerous awards, among them the Israeli Education Ministry
Prize (Literature) 1997, The Rotary Club Award for Social Studies
(1976) and the Bilateral Relations Studies Award of the American
Embassy in Israel (1978).
Hundreds of professional articles in all fields of finances and the
economy and numerous articles dealing with geopolitical and political
economic issues published in both print and web periodicals in many
countries.
Many appearances in the electronic media on subjects in philosophy and
the Sciences and concerning economic matters.
Contact Details:
[email protected]
[email protected]
My Web Sites:
Economy / Politics:
http://ceeandbalkan.tripod.com/
Psychology:
http://samvak.tripod.com/index.html
Philosophy:
http://philosophos.tripod.com/
Poetry:
http://samvak.tripod.com/contents.html
Return
After the Rain
How the West
Lost the East
The Book
This is a series of articles written and published in 1996-2000 in
Macedonia, in Russia, in Egypt and in the Czech Republic.
How the West lost the East. The economics, the politics, the
geopolitics, the conspiracies, the corruption, the old and the new,
the plough and the internet - it is all here, in colourful and
provocative prose.
From "The Mind of Darkness":
"'The Balkans' - I say - 'is the unconscious of the world'. People
stop to digest this metaphor and then they nod enthusiastically. It is
here that the repressed memories of history, its traumas and fears and
images reside. It is here that the psychodynamics of humanity - the
tectonic clash between Rome and Byzantium, West and East,
Judeo-Christianity and Islam - is still easily discernible. We are
seated at a New Year's dining table, loaded with a roasted pig and
exotic salads. I, the Jew, only half foreign to this cradle of
Slavonics. Four Serbs, five Macedonians. It is in the Balkans that all
ethnic distinctions fail and it is here that they prevail
anachronistically and atavistically. Contradiction and change the only
two fixtures of this tormented region. The women of the Balkan -
buried under provocative mask-like make up, retro hairstyles and too
narrow dresses. The men, clad in sepia colours, old fashioned suits
and turn of the century moustaches. In the background there is the
crying game that is Balkanian music: liturgy and folk and elegy
combined. The smells are heavy with muskular perfumes. It is like time
travel. It is like revisiting one's childhood."
The Author
Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited
and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for
Central Europe Review and eBookWeb , a United Press International
(UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health
and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.
Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of
Macedonia.
Visit Sam's Web site at
http://samvak.tripod.com
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