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The Intrinsic Value of Human Life: A Critique of
Life’s Dominion
Nikolai Lazarev
Contents
I. Introduction
Ronald
Dworkin claims that
the ongoing abortion controversy can be settled and the tension between
the two opposing groups to the argument on the morality of abortion
eliminated once we expressly acknowledge that we are all united in our
belief in the intrinsic value of human life. This highly optimistic
position piqued my interest and inspired me to examine how this notion
of intrinsic value can help us reconcile the two fiercely opposing
sides to the abortion debate. In this paper, I focus on the narrow
subject of the intrinsic value of human life. Consideration of the
general moral permissibility of abortion, foetal rights, foetal status
etc., is outside the scope of this paper. - In
section I, I outline Dworkin’s main thesis, showing how he
proposes to use the notion of intrinsic value to settle the abortion
controversy through understanding that we all share a common respect
for the intrinsic value of human life.
- In section
II, I outline Dworkin’s conception of intrinsic value. It
should be noted at the outset, that when I refer to intrinsic value I
mean it in the sense that Dworkin defines it, and not in any other
available interpretation.
- In section III, I turn
to examine Dworkin’s notion of intrinsic value. Through a
careful consideration of intrinsic value, I argue that
Dworkin’s interpretation of it is flawed and that a foetus,
as a developing human organism, cannot have this kind of value. I
further argue that his “solution”, given its
implausibility, cannot be embraced by people at large. I, therefore,
argue that Dworkin does not provide a new resolution to the abortion
controversy.
- In section IV, I conclude by arguing
that intrinsic value is not the only value that we apply in reaching
decisions as to how we should treat other human beings and foetuses.
- Finding
a Solution.
In Life’s
Dominion,[1]
Ronald Dworkin presents an
interesting argument in which he claims that the raging controversy in
relation to the morality of abortion is “based on a
widespread intellectual confusion”[2]
which, he continues, “we
can identify and dispel” (p.10). He argues that a reasonable
settlement of the controversy can be achieved which “will not
insult or demean any group, one that everyone can accept with full
self-respect”. This “confusion” in the
public forum over abortion is the result of a failure to recognise that
most people essentially object to abortion on two grounds, a derivative
objection and a detached objection. The
derivative objection is a position held by people who believe that
abortion is wrong and that the government must prohibit it because
foetuses are creatures with interests and rights, including a right to
life. Abortion is therefore wrong because it violates
foetuses’ right to life in the same way as it would violate
the right to life of an adult. Thus, people who believe that government
should regulate abortion for this reason believe that government has a
derivative responsibility. The detached objection is that a human life
has intrinsic value and is sacred just in itself. People who object to
abortion on this ground have a detached objection i.e. one that is not
derived from the rights or interests of the foetus. People who accept
that a foetus should be protected on this basis, therefore, believe
that government has a detached responsibility in regulating abortion
(p. 11). Dworkin argues that
the objection to abortion on the derivative ground (foetuses have
rights and interests in remaining alive) cannot be sustained (pp.
14-19). He argues that foetuses are not entities with rights or
interests. His attempt to dispel the intellectual confusion, therefore,
focuses on first, pointing out that people who apparently take
polarised views on the morality of abortion in reality share a common
belief in respect of the intrinsic value of human life, which forms the
basis of a detached objection. Once we all acknowledge that life is
intrinsically valuable and sacred, and we simply differ in our
interpretations of what respecting human life as intrinsically valuable
entails, we would, according to Dworkin, achieve reconciliation of the
highly polarised debate on abortion. The interpretations of what
respect should be advanced to the notion of intrinsic value may differ
from one person to another and Dworkin holds that government should not
impose a collective interpretation on individuals. Rather, it should
allow people to form their own views concerning life’s
intrinsic value, as in the case of abortion such views are
“essentially religious” insofar as they concern
people’s own convictions in relation to the pro-creative
decisions they make. To enforce a particular interpretation of how to
respect the intrinsic value of human life would be to infringe on the
freedom of religion, the cornerstone of western democracy.
Dworkin argues that his position on intrinsic
value would help to resolve the abortion controversy in the following
way: on the one hand, people would accept that a human life (or a human
organism such as a foetus) is intrinsically valuable and should
therefore be protected, yet on the other hand, government should remain
neutral and not prohibit abortion by interfering with the decisions of
pregnant women to have an abortion because everyone is entitled to
their own interpretation of what kind of respect they want to advance
to the intrinsic value of human life. As can be seen, the notion of
intrinsic value is the bedrock of Dworkin’s thesis. Once we
all agree that all we really share is the belief in the sanctity of
life, as derived from the notion of intrinsic value, the tension
between conservatives and liberals would disappear according to
Dworkin. II.
What Does Dworkin Mean by Intrinsic Value?
In
Dworkin’s argument the notion of intrinsic value plays a
central role not only because it is a way in which we can value human
life but also because it gives rise to another, yet perhaps more
important, notion of sacredness (or sanctity)[3]
of human life. The fact that human
life is sacred may form a strong basis for its protection, but before
we embrace this notion we must probe to see if there are any problems
with Dworkin’s understanding of sacred qua intrinsic value.
Dworkin’s notion of intrinsic value is
complex, and he is not always clear in delineating its boundaries. He
writes: “… human life has an intrinsic, innate
value; that human life is sacred just in itself; (my emphasis) and that
the sacred nature of a human life begins when its biological life
begins, even before the creature whose life it is has movement or
sensation or interests or rights of its own” (p. 11). He
continues by saying that the fact that human life has intrinsic value
can provide a strong reason to object violently to abortion
“because the important idea we share is that human life has
not just intrinsic but sacred value” (p. 25). Abortion is
therefore wrong because it would disregard and insult “the
intrinsic value, the sacred character, (my emphasis) of any stage or
form of human life”. So,
how does Dworkin construct his conception of intrinsic value? At the
outset he states that something has intrinsic value “if its
value is independent of what people happen to enjoy or want or need or
what is good for them” (p. 71). He then compares intrinsic
value with subjective value and instrumental value. A thing is
subjectively valuable to those who desire it (p. 71). He uses football
and whisky as examples of things that are valuable to people who enjoy
and desire them. As regards instrumental value, something is
instrumentally important if its value depends on its usefulness, its
capacity to help people get something else they want. Money and
medicine are things with instrumental value and Dworkin states that no
one would say that money has any value beyond its power to purchase
things people need and want or that medicine has value beyond its
ability to cure. It should
be noted that in his explanation of instrumental value Dworkin
considers not only the wants but also the needs of people. This
suggests that a thing may be instrumentally valuable not only when it
meets people’s wants but also when it meets
people’s needs, and makes a positive contribution to their
lives without them even realising it. Dworkin says that when we talk
about a human life being instrumentally valuable we are measuring it in
“terms of how much his being alive serves the interests of
others: of how much what he produces makes other people’s
lives better” (p. 72). What this means is that even if we
fail to appreciate the fact that the other person has made a
contribution to our lives, his life is still instrumentally valuable as
long as he, in some way or another, made our lives better. With the use
of the distinctions above we arrive at Dworkin’s conception
of intrinsic value in the following way: intrinsic value is distinct
from subjective value in that intrinsically valuable things are valued
independently of whether people want, need, desire or enjoy them.
Intrinsic value is also distinct from instrumental value in that
intrinsically valuable things have value independently of whether
people want or need them in order to obtain something else. This
slightly clarifies the notion of intrinsic value in that something is
intrinsically valuable regardless of our wants, needs or desires either
directly (subjectively) or instrumentally. Linda Barclay calls this a
“strong” notion of intrinsic value.[4]
On this account, an intrinsically
valuable thing is valuable regardless of its external connections to
our needs or wants. Before I
turn to examine what is wrong with the suggested notion of intrinsic
value, I will draw attention to Dworkin’s notion of the
“sacredness of life” which is inextricably linked
with it. For Dworkin, sacred value is a species of intrinsic value.
Here, he makes a further distinction between intrinsic values, which
are incremental, and intrinsic values which are not. Incremental values
are those intrinsic values of which “the more of them we have
the better” (p. 70) or “what we want more of no
matter how much we already have” (p. 73). Sacred value is not
an incremental value. He states the distinction thus: “The
hallmark of the sacred as distinct from the incrementally valuable is
that the sacred is intrinsically valuable because – and
therefore only once – it exists” (pp. 73
– 74). He uses “knowledge”, as an
example, to illustrate incremental value (the more knowledge we have
the better). Whereas human life, works of art and distinct animal
species all have sacred value, we do not think that the more Van Gogh
paintings we have the better, for instance. Once
the concept of sacred value is dealt with, Dworkin proceeds to give an
account of the origin of the sacred. He explains that two processes are
involved. Something can become sacred, 1) through association or
designation, or 2) historically (p.74). As regards the former, a thing
is sacred through association with what it represents. For example,
cats in ancient Egypt were associated with various deities, in the same
way that flags represent the shared values of the nation. Flags and
cats are therefore sacred because they are associated with other sacred
objects – deity and the nation. As regards the latter, a
sacred value can also arise historically, in two ways: through natural
investment and through human investment. These are both creative
processes, in the sense that they are capable of creating an object
with sacred value. From the point of view of natural investment, nature
can include a creative process from either a religious perspective (God
is the divine creator and the natural work is his creative work) or a
secular perspective (natural evolutionary processes, dating back
millions of years). On the other hand, human investment relates to a
creative process characterised by a deliberative human action. Dworkin
gives an example of an artist investing in a work of art. Such a work
of art would have a sacred value because of its history (i.e. how it
came to be) as the product of human creative investment (i.e. the
artist’s artistic efforts). Dworkin summarises his account of
sacred value in the following way: “[T]he nerve of the sacred
lies in the value we attach to a process or enterprise or project
rather than to its results considered independently from how they were
produced” (p.78). Indeed, we can also invest in our own
individual lives, by engaging in personal development, pursuing
education, forming goals etc. This would also give rise to a sacred
value. So, God and human action, as creative forces, give sacred value
to many (but not all) of their products (p. 80). The greater the
investment in these forces, the more value their products will have. It
follows that a human life has sacred value because a human being is a
product of natural creation (either in a religious or a secular sense)
and also as the result of a “deliberative human
creative” force (partly of our parents, of our culture, of
our investment in our own lives) Dworkin also notes, conveniently
aiding his case by excluding the pertinent case of rape, that a bad
cause can deprive an entity of intrinsic and hence sacred value. He,
therefore, accepts that a foetus that becomes conceived as a result of
rape has less intrinsic value than one that is not (pp. 56-57, 95-97)
which may justify abortion if the frustration of the intrinsic value of
the mother’s life from not aborting is greater than the loss
of the low intrinsic value of the foetus’s life. III.
A Spanner in the Works
Intrinsic
value of a duplicate?
What is problematic
with Dworkin’s conception of intrinsic value is the fact that
it is difficult to find a rational foundation to support the idea that
human life is in fact sacred and should be protected on this basis.
Should we protect every human life regardless of how it came into
existence[5]
or should we only protect lives
which are a product of a specially designated process of creation?
Also, if an artwork, according to Dworkin, can be intrinsically
valuable then can it be intrinsically valuable in the same sense as a
human life can be? Let us consider Van Gogh’s Sunflowers[6]
as an example. Dworkin would say
that The Sunflowers is sacredly valuable because it epitomises human
creative force and is a product of it. It therefore has a special
attribute, a property which makes it intrinsically valuable, that is
its historical process. Dworkin would say that its value is objective
and irreplaceable, and it would be a matter of “cosmic
shame” to destroy it. Now, suppose that Van Gogh painted
exactly the same Sunflowers and then he himself destroyed the original
painting. What we now have is an identical duplicate as a replacement
and, importantly, all the characteristic properties (human creative
investment) that were present in the first version are now present in
the duplicate. It seems wrong to say that there would be any loss of
value when the first Sunflowers was replaced by the second. Could this
be a weakness in Dworkin’s theory of sacred value because it
fails to account for things which can be destroyed by their creator and
then re-created in exactly the same manner, as duplicates, which
arguably involves no loss of objective value and in no way makes the
duplicate less intrinsically valuable than the original product? It
seems that the answer is yes, yet only insofar as this relates to
inanimate objects. Compare this with a human life. We think it is
gravely immoral to kill a living human being, even when that human
being can be replaced with exactly the same duplicate bearing all the
properties of the first one. That is to say, the value lies in the
existing human life, which cannot be equalled in value by a possible
duplicate human life. This may suggest that a human life can be
valuable intrinsically, as Dworkin suggests. Or, as Jeffrey Reiman put
it, asymmetrically,[7]
that is to say that although for a
human life to have a rational foundation to be valued in this way there
must be a constellation of special properties (historical processes)
which in fact give rise to this kind of value, it cannot be based on
“imputing goodness to those properties (or to their
possessors), since that is symmetric valuing.[8]
On this analysis, we must be valuing
human beings in a way that implies an intrinsic, or asymmetric
wrongness of killing them. The
Source of the Sacred and Inconsistent Superstitions
We
know it is wrong to kill humans.[9]
Dworkin says this is because a human
life is sacred and inviolable. But it appears that his conception of
intrinsic value does not allow us to clearly see why it is necessarily
wrong to kill humans, for there are problems in his explanation of what
it is that makes a human life valuable in this intrinsic way. He says
we value works of art and human life as sacred because our valuation of
them shares our attachment of value to the “process or
enterprise” that brought them into existence, the
“nerve of the sacred”. But the similarity ends
here. Dworkin then attempts to delineate the sacredness of human life
from other kinds of sacred things, such as art, by drawing distinctions
between the processes that gave rise to the sacred value of the entity
in question. Two processes
are involved in the creation of a human being, the natural process
(either God’s creation or a product of evolution) and the
human creative investment. On this basis, according to Dworkin, a human
life is far more eligible for sacredness than works of art or distinct
animal species for it involves not one but two
“sources” of sacred force – natural
process and human creative investment - whereas things other than human
life would generally lack one or the other. But the problem is that our
valuing of the natural process and human creative investment that
brings something into existence does not justify or even explain why we
should find that something created as a result has sacred value.
Suppose that we did find things sacredly valuable on this basis, then
we would find every entity as sacredly valuable that came into
existence as a result of a perceived valuable natural process of human
effort, which we do not and quite clearly should not. Dworkin seems to
recognise this awkward result of his argument and says that
“we do not treat everything that human beings create as
sacred” (p. 80). Unfortunately, he offers no further
principle to explain how we should select things that we do or do not
attach sacred value to. Instead, he seems to suggest that our valuing
of things as sacred is attributed to a “complex network of
feelings and intuitions”, which he then concedes may be no
more than “inconsistent superstitions” (pp. 80-81).
Dworkin, having noted a
potential scope for the existence of intrinsic value in human life,
offers a weak explanation of what it is that justifies valuing human
life in this way. Justification is needed, however, if he is to
persuade people of opposing views to abortion to accept his position
that human life is intrinsically valuable. If such a position is
accepted then people would, according to Dworkin, acknowledge that a
foetus is an organism of intrinsic value and that it must be a matter
for the mother to decide herself how she wants to respect it. In turn,
this would require state neutrality in any kind of decision on
procreation as these, as Dworkin points out, are essentially religious
matters. But his plan would inevitably fail if he cannot, and I argue
that he cannot, justify or explain why we should value human life
intrinsically and thus hope to unite people in acknowledgement of the
intrinsic value of human life. A
more plausible account of our moral views?
In
his attempt to show what he means by intrinsic value Dworkin presents a
number of other kinds of values, such as instrumental, subjective and
incremental. In this way he distinguishes intrinsic value from all the
others, thus demonstrating what intrinsic value is by showing what it
is not (or can be but does not have to be). The problem with this
approach is that it is based on two major assumptions: first, he
assumes that people will accept that there are such values and,
secondly, he assumes that people will inevitably accept his
distinctions. He confidently states what the common folk believe, yet
what is peculiar about his argument is that it is not clear whether he
himself believes that there are such values.[10]
This fails to add credibility to
his argument, which is necessary in order to encourage people to accept
this theory. In order to
argue that the sides to the abortion debate share a common respect for
the intrinsic value of human life and that it is just a matter of
personal interpretation, which would justify removing abortion from the
political agenda, Dworkin in effect, has to present a more plausible
account of our views, that is an account more plausible than the one
which says that our moral views on abortion are based on the question
of whether or not a foetus has rights, including a right to life. If
Dworkin can show that our moral views (based on foetal rights) are
wrong, then presumably we would agree that it is not these views that
underpin our moral attitudes to abortion but rather our common respect
for the intrinsic value of human life. Indeed, before this can be done
we have to test whether Dworkin’s claim that human life has
intrinsic value can be substantiated and that it is this notion that
explains our conflicting attitudes to abortion. I argue that
Dworkin’s notion of the intrinsic value of human life fails
insofar as it flows from various creative processes that Dworkin
identifies. Creative
Processes and Their Problems
One problem
in Dworkin’s notion of intrinsic value exists in the fact
that sacred value derives its “sacredness” from its
history, i.e. certain processes, as explained above. As he says,
“the nerve of the sacred lies in the value we attach to a
process” through which the thing came into being. The
necessary connection between the sacredness of value and its history is
problematic because although the value of life can be objective, it is
not intrinsic in the sense that Dworkin suggests if history has to play
the crucial part in formation of that value, for a value would not be
sacred if its object had not had a particular history. This means that
an entity with sacred value, a human life, would have to be situated in
relation to something else (its history: a process that made it
sacred), the combination of which has value.[11]
This shows that the sacredness of
human life depends on some external attribute (i.e. some creative
process). Does this pose problems to Dworkin’s conception of
intrinsic value? It has been suggested at some length that
“intrinsic value” means that an entity has value in
itself, that the source of the value is located within the entity itself[12]
and is not dependent on any
extrinsic source. Now, for Dworkin, intrinsic value depends on the
relational extrinsic property – a creative process
– which would thus imply that the value of life is not
intrinsic, but extrinsic. This is inconsistent with Dworkin’s
explanation of the sacredness of human life. He says that a human life
is “sacred just in itself”, which implies that we
have to look no further to see if life is in fact sacred. For Dworkin,
human life is sacred and therefore has intrinsic value just because it
is in existence. But this is contradictory to his position on intrinsic
value, for one would not be able to know an entity’s
intrinsic value without first knowing its history and assessing the
processes that could have given rise to sacred value. Does this mean
that life is sacred in itself, that life has intrinsic value? Or does
this mean that only life with a certain history has intrinsic value?
Also does an entity lack intrinsic value because it does not have a
history, or a particular history? It seems logical that if an entity is
valuable only because its history has value, the entity itself does not
have intrinsic value because it has value in relation to that of its
history. Therefore, an entity cannot be, based on Dworkin’s
view, “sacred just in itself”. Perhaps Dworkin
could more correctly state that a human life is valued as an end
because of its relational properties, regardless of whether it fulfils
our desires and needs.[13]
In any event, this position needs
to be clarified if the notion of intrinsic value is to stand any chance
of being accepted as a more plausible account of our moral views on
abortion. This is because if we were to accept this, we would
supposedly all assume that each of our lives is intrinsically valuable
per se as this would be a reasonable thing to do before we can say that
it is a matter of our personal judgement of how we wish to respect the
intrinsic value in our lives and in foetuses. Yet, based on
Dworkin’s notion of intrinsic value there is a problem in
saying that all existing human lives have intrinsic value. According to
Dworkin, Z’s (a person in existence) life is intrinsically
valuable insofar as it depends on her history. That is her life is
intrinsically valuable because it is the product of both natural and
human investment. This means that if Z were deceived about her past and
rather than being born through a natural process, Z was conceived and
subsequently born as a result of rape, for instance, it would follow,
according to Dworkin’s account, that Z’s life has
less intrinsic value than she may have thought she had, or even no
value at all.[14]
This clearly seems to be wrong.
Dworkin, in his defence, could perhaps say that that
something’s intrinsic value need not depend on its intrinsic
properties but can depend on its relational properties.[15]
But, as I showed above, this would
defy logic because intrinsic value must, in my mind, necessarily mean
that the value is related to the essential nature of a thing and is
inherent in it. The source of intrinsic value and its result (actual
and objective intrinsic value) must therefore coexist within the
intrinsically valuable entity itself without any external relational
properties. So, this counter-argument would not stand. Dworkin could
perhaps use another defence; a point suggested by F.M. Kamm.[16]
One could say that a certain
history can give an entity an additional property; for example, it
could make it be a statement. So, if our creation was God’s
statement then this property could, perhaps, give our lives intrinsic
value. In this case, Dworkin would be able to detach the entity from
its history (resulting in intrinsic value being independent of one of
its relational properties) by saying that it is only the statement, as
a property, giving intrinsic value to the entity, that results from the
entity’s history and that the intrinsic value of the entity
itself is independent of it having a certain history. Based on this
view, I concede that the entity’s intrinsic value may be
independent of its history, but the intrinsic value would still be
dependent on a relational property that is the statement. So, as I
suggested, it would be illogical to call this value intrinsic because
it has an external relational property – the statement, as
opposed to some inherent force, that gives rise to it. But let us
assume, for the sake of argument, that the statement which gives rise
to the intrinsic value of the entity was not a relational property
which would upset the notion of the intrinsic value as suggested above
but rather some abstract characteristic capable of giving rise to
intrinsic value in a detached fashion and independently of the entity
itself. Would the problem be solved? I think the answer is
“no”. Entities with no history would still lack any
kind of intrinsic value. Since it is history that gives something an
additional property, i.e. a statement – which is a
characteristic that could give intrinsic value, it follows that in the
absence of a certain history an entity would not have intrinsic value
as there would be no characteristic that could give rise to such
intrinsic value. My argument is that intrinsic value, contrary to
Dworkin’s position, must not include the notion of relational
properties which give rise to it (eg. history). To say this would be to
misrepresent the notion of intrinsic value. I have advanced arguments,
and considered possible comebacks of Dworkin to defend my view. Historical
Dilemma
It would be reasonable to assume
that Dworkin would have realised the untoward result of saying that an
entity’s intrinsic value is created by its history. I
illustrated above how this is problematic. What is peculiar is that if
Dworkin’s notion of intrinsic value is so problematic insofar
as it holds that the intrinsic value of an entity is derived from it
having a certain history, and Dworkin himself realised it, then why not
come up with an alternative, ahistorical theory? This would arguably be
a more plausible theory[17]
upon which the intrinsic value
would not have to be dependent on the entity having a certain history.
This would also alleviate the awkwardness of people at large having to
examine their past to see if their lives are in fact intrinsically
valuable. It would be obvious that a human life is intrinsically
valuable just because it is there, with no need to examine its history.
Perhaps, this would make Dworkin’s notion of intrinsic value
more embraceable, and he may stand a better chance of persuading people
to embrace it and in turn argue for the state’s neutrality in
pro-creative decisions. However, Dworkin does not put forward an
ahistorical theory. But why not? Examination of his position in
relation to the abortion of foetuses which were conceived as a result
of rape may reveal an answer. Dworkin claims that a foetus which
results from rape has less intrinsic value because, again referring to
its history, its life started in “a terrible desecration of
its [mother’s] investment in her own life” and
“a brutal violation of God’s law” (p.
96). On this basis, Dworkin says that abortion of such foetuses is
permissible (pp.96-97). Indeed, to hold otherwise would constitute a
very unpopular view because even conservatives believe that a foetus
that is the result of a rape should be aborted. Dworkin also quotes
Rabbi David Feldman, in a passage illustrating a stricter Jewish view
on abortion: “Abortion for rape victims would be allowed,
using a field and seed analogy: involuntary implantation of the seed
imposes no duty to nourish the alien seed.”[18]
Perhaps, to mollify the majority
and present his notion of intrinsic value in a more favourable light,
Dworkin conveniently carves out an exception to the general
inviolability of human life by arguing that abortions for rape victims
should be allowed. He allows this exception by reference to the
foetus’ history, i.e. how it came to be. Arguably, if
Dworkin’s theory of intrinsic value is independent of an
entity’s history he would not be able to carve out his
favourable exception which has the effect of appeasing the public.
Perhaps this is a political move, but what I am concerned with is
whether this exception sits comfortably with the general notion of
“historical intrinsic value”. If it does not then
we can perhaps accuse Dworkin of fabricating notions which are
incongruent with his general thesis. Thus, I examine whether it is
possible to substantiate the exception and thus permit a rape victim to
have an abortion based on the fact that the history of the foetus
accounts for a low intrinsic value which is outweighed by the intrinsic
value of its mother’s life. Let us review the histories that
Dworkin describes as the processes which could give an object its
intrinsic value. He would say that The Sunflowers is intrinsically
valuable or sacredly valuable because its history points out that it is
the result of Van Gogh’s creative genius, a result of human
creative effort. In this case, the history could successfully account
for the sacredness of the art work. But what if Van Gogh was coerced
into creating The Sunflowers on the threat of death? Arguably, the
painting would not be any less valuable.[19]
It may be less valuable to Van
Gogh himself, but this is irrelevant since personal or subjective value
has no bearing on sacred value at all. Following this line of argument,
we are posed to question Dworkin’s claim that the foetus,
which is a product of rape, has less intrinsic value because it began
its life in the frustration of its mother’s life. So, if not
all history affects the value of art works, as illustrated by The
Sunflowers example, why should a particular history of how a foetus
came to be affect the intrinsic value of that foetus?
If we agree that foetuses that are products of
rape have low intrinsic value, we could also say that adults who were
once conceived because of rape have less intrinsic value than those who
were conceived and born as a result of a natural and intentional sexual
act. Does this mean that “normal” adults who have
“full” intrinsic value would be permitted, or even
justified, in mistreating or even killing those born as a result of
rape on the basis that the latter have less intrinsic value? This
clearly cannot and should not be right. It follows that there is, at
best, a weak and, at worst, a non-existent historical basis for
Dworkin’s suggestion that a foetus that is a product of rape
has low intrinsic value. On the contrary, it should be possible, and
would also be congruent with Dworkin’s general theory on
intrinsic value, to identify a foetus as a human organism that has
intrinsic or sacred value independent of how it come into being (as
long as somehow it did come into being) even if its conception is the
result of rape. Aiding
the Sacred Entity
It has been suggested
above that Dworkin’s exception to the sacredness of life
which permits rape victims to have an abortion is inconsistent and
flawed. Let us now consider a normal situation in which a woman who
intentionally got pregnant wishes to perform an abortion for whatever
reason. How does Dworkin’s theory of value account for any
possible conflicts that can arise between the foetus and the mother?
Dworkin says that it is wrong and a matter of a “cosmic
shame” to destroy any sacred entity once it exists (pp. 74,
78, 84) because if we were to do so we would frustrate the natural
creative investment. If it is wrong to destroy a sacred entity, does it
also mean that we should actively protect it from being destroyed?
Dworkin suggests that it is important that sacred things flourish (p.
74) and that the human race survives and prospers (p.76). This implies
that Dworkin also intends that we must aid sacred things in their
flourishing and actively prevent them from being destroyed. He uses
handicapped people as an example saying that we must help them prosper
in order that they obtain a return on the investment in their lives
(p.99). Dworkin also argues that a woman should not allow her pregnancy
to frustrate her investment in her own life. But this position again
seems inconsistent, for if Dworkin argues that sacred things must be
protected and not destroyed, he should argue for the prevention of
naturally occurring miscarriages with as much commitment as he argues
for not destroying foetuses.[20]
But he does not. The problem is
that Dworkin does not clearly articulate a distinction between
destroying the sacred and not aiding the sacred with the result that it
would be destroyed. Without such a distinction it is very difficult to
see why people who oppose abortion on the ground that it wastes the
sacred life of the foetus should not also engage in a campaign to
prevent natural miscarriages.[21]
But suppose a woman requires an
abortion without which she would die. Indeed, if we do not permit her
to have that abortion, we would not aid her, and as a result she would
die. If we do perform an abortion we would destroy the foetus, which
presumably has lower intrinsic value, yet save the mother’s
life. This, therefore, suggests that when posed with conflicting
intrinsic values, we regard aiding (the mother) as more important than
not destroying the foetus. To hold otherwise would mean that abortion
should not be permitted at all. Dworkin fails to emphasise this
distinction, which creates some confusion, but this is only part of the
problem. Another problem is
that in abortion decisions a woman would effectively be asked to weigh
her intrinsic value in relation to that of the foetus. Understandably,
many people find the idea morally objectionable that a woman should be
permitted to destroy a foetus, even one with relatively low intrinsic
value, in order to save her own life which presumably has a higher
intrinsic value. It would, therefore, be very hard for Dworkin to
persuade the public to accept his notion of intrinsic value as this
would mean that pregnant women would have to engage in an unfamiliar
practice with no guidelines available to assess the value of their own
lives in comparison to the lives of their foetuses. This feature alone
presents great scope for opposing Dworkin’s theory of
intrinsic value. Liberal
and Conservative Accounts of Belief in the Intrinsic Value of Human Life
It
needs to be noted that although Dworkin claims that we believe in the
sacredness of human life, he characterises conservative understanding
of intrinsic value as different from liberal understanding. It is
important to examine his characterisation of beliefs of both liberals
(pp.32-34, 74, 75) and conservatives (pp. 31-32, 74) to see if his
account is accurate. Dworkin gives an account of the
liberals’ belief in the sanctity of human life as one based
on liberals’ shared appreciation of the human creative
intelligence. That is to say, a human life is valuable because it is
the product of his or her parents’ effort, his or her own
choices etc. It has been pointed out that this view is problematic[22]
as human beings are not the only
products of human creative intelligence. Indeed, nuclear weapons,
cigarettes and various poisons, for example, are also the products of
human creative intelligence. It could be argued that these products,
although created by the human creative process are not valuable at all,
let alone intrinsically valuable. If human life and, say, nuclear
weapons or cigarettes are all products of human creative intelligence,
then why should we consider human life valuable and the other things
not valuable at all? Indeed, we cannot and should not say that a packet
of cigarettes is as intrinsically valuable as a human life but this
does not obviously follow from Dworkin’s account of the
liberal belief in the intrinsic value of human life. In his account of
the conservative view, Dworkin says that the conservative would oppose
abortion because he believes that human life is created through
God’s creative genius or the process of natural evolution.
The conservative would recognise both of these as admirable creative
processes which, according to Dworkin, would explain why the
conservative would see a human foetus as an intrinsically valuable
organism and thus object to its destruction. This account of the
conservative’s belief is problematic.[23]
The life of a centipede or the
life of an individual maple tree just like the life of a human being,
is also the result of creative processes. According to this view, the
life of a human should not be any more valuable than the life of a
maple tree. But this is clearly not the view the conservative would
have. It is obvious that the conservative would object to abortion
because he or she attaches much greater value to the foetus than to
other objects created by the “same process”.
Dworkin’s account of the conservative view on abortion is
misrepresentative. Dworkin could perhaps defend his position by saying
that a human life is the pinnacle of evolution. But then we would have
to accept his assumption that a human life is, in fact, that pinnacle
of evolution. This could be seen as an abstract assumption and indeed
many,[24]
including Darwin, have argued that
it is a misconception to believe that we are the highest achievement of
evolution. Alternatively, Dworkin could say that the conservative
believes in the sanctity of life because a human being is made in
God’s image, which represents God’s creative
genius. I concede that this could explain why a religious conservative
could see a human life as intrinsically valuable but it still fails to
account for why, in the view suggested, non-religious conservatives
should recognise intrinsic value in a human organism. In addition,
devout religious conservatives may ground their beliefs about the
wrongness of abortion solely in their religious convictions. It would
then be neither up to the state, nor up to Dworkin to say on which
basis a foetus’s life should be respected since for a
religious conservative such basis is purely theistic.[25]
Dworkin’s account
therefore misrepresents both the liberals’ and the
conservatives’ views on abortion. As pointed out, the liberal
and the conservative are very unlikely to accept that human life is
intrinsically valuable as a result of creative processes in the sense
that Dworkin describes. Furthermore, even if we assume for the sake of
argument that such creative processes could account for the liberal and
conservative understanding of abortion we would still have to be
convinced that these processes are valuable in themselves, because
according to Dworkin only in this way could they give rise to the
sacredness of the entity that they create. But, Dworkin fails to give a
convincing explanation for why such creative processes are themselves
valuable. He says that “we [value] human artistic effort,
… because it can produce marvellous things like great
paintings of beauty [etc] … / we [value] nature because it
has produced striking geological formations and majestic plants and
living creatures we find extraordinary, including us” (p 80).
It has been suggested that this argument is “wholly
circular”[26]
in that according to Dworkin, we
value creative processes because of what they produce, but we
supposedly value the products because of the creative processes
involved in their creation. Following this logically it should mean
that if we find that a product is not marvellous then we should also
find that the process that created it is not admirable, but this is not
so, according to Dworkin. He specifically says that we find human
artistic effort (as a process) admirable even if some things it
produces are not marvellous, but this contradictory.[27]
I believe Dworkin could possibly
rebut this by saying that we value human creative effort because it can
but does not have to produce things we find wonderful. This would again
be problematic, for if we were to accept this, we would find processes
valuable that could bring about products that are in fact, harmful to
us. This cannot be right. Thus, Dworkin’s failure to explain
why and how these creative processes themselves are valuable, prevents
him from accounting for liberal and conservative understanding, as well
as that of anyone else, for why human life has intrinsic value. “I
am more intrinsically valuable than you are!”
Indeed, if
Dworkin’s notion of intrinsic value were embraced as he
argues it should be, the effect of this, in simple terms, would be that
a pregnant woman contemplating an abortion would have to determine
whether she has more intrinsic value than the foetus, and it would be
morally wrong for her to have an abortion, to destroy the foetus, if
her life has less intrinsic value compared to the foetus. It would be
implausible to construe the moral permissibility of a woman’s
decision to abort in terms of her evaluation of various intrinsic
values at stake, which is what Dworkin suggests (p. 60). It is more
likely that a woman would decide what to do based on her view of her
rights and interests and not based on her estimation of whether she is
more valuable than her foetus. There is a vast debate on whether the
foetus is a person and is an object with rights. It has been argued by
many, including Dworkin, that a foetus cannot possibly have any rights
or interests, at least not until the point when it develops the
capacity to feel pain. It has also been argued that a foetus cannot be
regarded as having a right to life, because a right to life presupposes
that one is “capable of desiring to continue existing as a
subject of experiences”. A foetus lacks consciousness and is
therefore incapable of forming such a desire and thus it does not have
a right to life.[28]
Judith Thomson also argued in her
famous hypothetical case about an innocent dying violinist who was
attached to a woman’s circulatory system, without her
consent, in order to save his life, that it would be morally
permissible to disconnect him from her body with the effect that he
would die because the right to life of the violinist does not confer
upon him a right to use the woman’s body.[29]
There are also debates as to when
a human person begins to exist[30]
or when ensoulment[31]
takes place.[32]
Others discuss the
woman’s right to exercise her freedom in controlling her own
body[33]
and examine how this may infringe
on any possible rights or interests of the foetus.[34] This
shows that we are prepared to judge on the moral permissibility of the
woman’s decision to abort in terms of things other than her
determination of whether she has more intrinsic value that her foetus.
Dworkin’s claim that we must allow the woman to exercise her
own judgement in deciding if she wants to abort or not, based on the
weighing up of the intrinsic values involved, is therefore
unsatisfactory insofar as it does not portray what happens in reality.
Similarly, his claim that in our pro-creative decisions we are
apparently already driven by our shared respect for the sanctity of
human life, is also false because, as I showed, most pro-creative
decisions are examined other than by reference to any intrinsic value
in the sense that Dworkin suggests, neither explicitly nor implicitly. IV.
Intrinsic Value: A Work of Fiction
What I find problematic about Dworkin’s
notion of intrinsic value is that it does not account for the
usefulness of a particular life to society at large. Dworkin explains
what he means by the sacredness of human life by drawing a distinction
between sacred and instrumental. In reality, I believe, a human life is
valued not only intrinsically but also, to use Dworkin’s
language, instrumentally, that is to say that we attach a value to a
human life on the basis of its usefulness to us. Dworkin tells us that
the reason we protect a human life is because it is intrinsically
valuable – the life is sacred and is inviolable and that is
why we protect it. But that is an inaccurate account. For we choose to
protect a human life not only because, as Dworkin suggests, it is
sacred but also because we have also assessed the usefulness of that
life to us, the society. Dworkin could accuse me of using a utilitarian
approach to valuing human life, but I would not be the only one[35]
for we do construe our actions in
relation to a particular life based to some degree on the instrumental
value of that life. Dworkin could disagree with this and say that human
life is sacred and thus it is important to let it flourish without the
need to impute any goodness to it. The reality is that life may be
sacred but that does not mean that society cannot, or does not, prevent
that life from flourishing. We, as a society, believe that criminals
are dangerous to our well-being. We assess the value of their lives,
therefore, based on the benefit (or harm) we can receive from them. If
we believe that their lives are harmful to us, as evidenced by their
criminal acts, we incapacitate them by sending them to prison. We
prevent their lives from flourishing because we value their lives on
the basis of their usefulness to us and conclude that it is better if
such a person’s life is constrained in some way or another.
In the same vein, when we lawfully execute a mass murderer, or when a
husband shoots a criminal who is about to kill his wife and his
daughter, we are not considering these losses of lives a matter of
“cosmic shame”, as Dworkin suggests. These lives
may still have intrinsic value but this value is not the only factor
which would account for the moral permissibility of our actions in
relation to those lives. So, the fact that a human life or foetus has
intrinsic value does not provide us with a compelling reason for why we
should advance protection to that life per se without reference to
other factors. Intrinsic
Value and Self-Preservation
Dworkin
argues that a human life or the life of a human organism is sacred once
it exists. But just because something exists does not necessarily make
it sacred or intrinsically valuable.[36]
Indeed, it should not. Dworkin
says that a foetus (as a human organism) is intrinsically valuable
because it is a product, among other things, of God’s
creative genius. But how does he know that the foetus is a product of
God, and was not created by the devil, for instance? If God has the
power to create, and does in fact create marvellous things, which we
find adorable, and thus choose to protect, then why is it not possible
that the devil or any other evil force can create things which are
atrocious and heinous? Can, in other words, a foetus not be a child of
the devil that would spread evil in this world and thus should be
destroyed? Perhaps, someone may attempt to dismiss this view as highly
abstract and metaphysical, and maybe they would even succeed. Yet, what
is important here is that not all lives are great and pleasant. For
instance, Hitler’s life brought so much misery and pain into
the world, with his killing of millions of people, that many people
would have no moral compunction about destroying his life. It would not
be a matter of cosmic shame for most people to execute him, for
instance. Indeed, we could probably say that it is a matter of cosmic
shame that such a life was lived and allowed to flourish. Most people
would adopt this view in relation to mass murderers, who are executed
in some American States, for instance, with little or no regret. In its
decisions to execute such people, society is arguably driven by its
striving for self-preservation. Very few people in their right mind
would consider sacrificing their own life to a murderer. Instead, many
people would consider it appropriate in this case, given the imminent
threat, to kill the attacker as this would be a reaction rooted in our
psychology of self-preservation and it would not be viewed as a morally
repugnant action in most circumstances. I have shown that there are
other factors pertinent to our life and death decisions and it would be
implausible to say that the intrinsic value of human life or of the
foetus is the only factor which should figure in our pro-creative
decisions. “A
Question of Conviction”
During
his seminar on Life’s Dominion,[37]
I pointed out to Professor Dworkin
some of the inconsistencies and flaws in his notion of intrinsic value
that I have examined in this paper. I pointed out to him that, with
respect, I believed he failed to provide an adequate proof that there
is in fact a common ground in the abortion controversy in the guise of
our belief in the intrinsic value of human life. I asked if he could
possibly provide any additional proof, which would convince me that
such is the case. In reply, he said: “the question about
intrinsic value is not a question of proof, it is a question of
conviction”. He further noted that a human life is a magical
creation; it is great because it has the power to inspire conscious
beings. I agree that some people may regard life as sacred because it
is “magical”, as Dworkin suggests. But if the
notion of intrinsic value is a matter of individual conviction
– then is it not possible that such convictions may differ
from individual to individual? He responded somewhat vaguely that the
fact that we all share a belief in the intrinsic value of human life is
not an issue that has to be proved to the satisfaction of everyone,
adding that the question of whether we can have reason to believe in
the intrinsic value of human life is different from the question of
whether it can be demonstrated that we all share such a belief. I
understand this to mean that although we all, according to Dworkin,
believe in the intrinsic value of human life, it is not always required
(or possible?) to prove that we do actually all share this view. But if
it is as undoubtedly clear as Dworkin suggests, that we are all united
in our belief in the sacredness of human life, then why is it not
possible to demonstrate this with relative ease to the satisfaction of
everyone? Perhaps, because Dworkin suspects that we do not all believe
in this notion, and advancement of factual evidence as proof may breed
justifiable resistance, this could account for the vague explanation
given. Whatever the answer to this question is, I believe an argument
can be put forward with force that people are inevitably divided in
their beliefs. Some will regard life as sacred because it has the power
to inspire, but some will not. Therefore, the notion that intrinsic
value is a question of conviction (or a product of feelings and
intuitions)[38]
is a rather weak standpoint if one
is to successfully argue that the notion of intrinsic value is what in
fact unites the sides in the polarised abortion debate.
In this paper I have identified and examined flaws
in Dworkin’s position on the intrinsic value of human life. I
have argued that he does not provide an acceptable principle which can
solve the ongoing abortion controversy, as he claims it to. Dworkin
merely draws attention to the problem. I have therefore undertaken the
task of explaining why we should pause before embracing the claim that
we consider human life intrinsically valuable for the reasons that
Dworkin provides. I hope I have been successful. Bibliography
Barclay L.,
“Rights, Intrinsic Values and the Politics of
Abortion”, Utilitas, xi(1999) Dworkin
R., Life’s Dominion (1993, New York)
Eberl
J. T., The Beginning of Personhood: A Thomistic Biological Analysis, 14
Bioethics 2000 Finnis J.,
The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion: A Reply to Judith Thomson, 2
Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1972-3. Goldman
A. H., Plain Sex, 6 Philosophy and Public Affairs 3 (1997)
Harris J., The Value of Life, An Introduction to
Medical Ethics, (1990, London) Hittinger
R., Books in Review, Life’s Dominion. http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9312/reviews/hittinger.html
Hursthouse R., Beginning
Lives, (1987, New York) Kamm
F. M., Abortion and the Value of Life: A Discussion of Life’s
Dominion, CLR Vol. 95i-1995 Kamm
F. M., Creation and Abortion, (1992, Oxford),
Korsgaard
C., Two Distinctions in Goodness, Phisophical Review, xcii (1983)
Morgan D., Issues in Medical Law and Ethics, (2001
London) Moore G. E.,
“The Conception of Intrinsic Value”, Philosophical
Studies, London, (1922) O’Day
K., “Intrinsic Value and Investment” Utilitas, xi
(1999) Paone D. V., To Be or
Not to Be, Reflections on Modern Bioethical Choices (1999, London)
Rachels J., Review of Dworkin in Bioethics, vii
(1994). Reiman J., Abortion
and the Ways We Value Human Life, (1999, Lanham)
Scanlon
T. M., Partisan For Life, New York Review of Books, Vol. 40, Number 13
(1993 NY) Thomson J. J., A
Defense of Abortion, 1 Philosophy and Public Ethics 1971
Tooley M., Abortion and Infanticide, 2 Philosophy
and Public Affairs, 1972 – 3,
Notes
[1]
R. Dworkin, New York (1993)
[2]
R. Dworkin, Life’s
Dominion, New York (1993), p.10. Hereafter, page references are given
in the text
[3]
Dworkin says that the intrinsic
value of human life is actually a sacred value in the sense that it is
intrinsically valuable once it exists.
[4] L. Barclay, “Rights,
Intrinsic Values and The Politics of Abortion”, Utilitas, ix
(1999)
[5]
Consider a foetus conceived because
of rape. What impact would this have on its intrinsic value?
[6] Vincent Van Gogh, – one of
his four paintings dating from August and September, 1888.
[7] J. Reiman, Abortion and the Ways We
Value Human Life, (1999, Maryland), pp. 4-5
[8] Ibid. p.4
[9] This is a generalisation and there
are exceptions. I will consider how these exceptions affect
Dworkin’s theory of intrinsic value at a later stage.
[10] L. Barclay, Rights, Intrinsic
Values and the Politics of Abortion
[11] F. M. Kamm, Abortion and the Value
of Life: A Discussion of Life’s Dominion, CLR Vol. 95i-1995,
p.177
[12] C. Korsgaard, Two Distinctions in
Goodness, Philosophical Review, xcii (1983)
[13] L. Barclay, Rights, Intrinsic
Values and the Politics of Abortion, pp. 220-221.
[14] F.M Kamm, Abortion and The Value
of Life, p. 178
[15] Suggested by Jonathan Bennett,
Letter from Jonathan Bennett, Professor of Philosophy, Syracuse
University, to F. M. Kamm (April, 1994)
[16] F. M. Kamm, Abortion and The Value
of Life, p. 178
[17] Suggested by F.M. Kamm
[18] F. Supp, 630 (1980) 696
– footnote in Life’s Dominion, p.248.
[19] Suggested by F.M. Kamm, p. 180.
[20] Ibid pp. 182 - 183
[21] Ibid.
[22] L. Barclay, p.2
[22]
[23] Ibid. p. 221
[24] see J. Rachels review of Dworkin
in Bioethics, vii (1994).
[25] L. Barclay, p.222
[26] Ibid. p. 223
[27] see above
[28] M. Tooley, Abortion and
Infanticide, 2 Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1972 – 3,
pp.44-45, 49.
[29] J. J. Thomson, A Defense of
Abortion, 1 Philosophy and Public Ethics 1971 – 71, pp. 57,
61
[30] J. T. Eberl, The Beginning of
Personhood: A Thomistic Biological Analysis, 14 Bioethics 2000
[31] The instantiation of a human soul
in the biological matter
[32] T. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia.,
Q 29, A. 1. Treatise on Man
[33] D. V. Paone, To Be or Not to Be,
Reflections on Modern Bioethical Choices (1999, London)
[34] F. M. Kamm, Creation and Abortion,
(1992, Oxford), p.18 see also J. Harris, The Value of Life, An
Introduction to Medical Ethics, Chpt. 8
[35] R. Hursthouse, Beginning Lives,
(1987 New York) p. 134
[36] R. Hursthouse, p.132.
[37] 26th Feb 2004, 2.00p.m.
– 4.00p.m., Moot Court Room, Bentham House, Endsleigh
Gardens, London
[38] As noted above
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