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Suffering and Transcendence

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Suffering and Transcendence 1 Suffering and Transcendence Mary Lemmons Suffering and Hope Conference University of St. Thomas November 10-13, 2005 In this world, suffering is inescapable. But what is suffering? Is it simply physical pain? If so, then the deaf, the betrayed, the bereaved, and the comatose do not suffer. But they do. Suffering is thus a broader category than physical pain. Let us then define suffering as undergoing a disadvantage or harm from which escape is not currently possible, although it may be possible in the future. For example, a new love may ease bereavement and cataract surgery may restore sight. In any case, the inability to escape, here and now, the disadvantage or harm focuses one’s attention upon suffering. This focus may even become the sole or paramount focus of one’s concern. If it does, suffering becomes a threat to one’s spirituality. For suffering focuses one’s attention on either a natural or moral evil, while spirituality thrives upon truth and goodness. In this way, suffering may seduce one’s attention away from goodness. To lose sight of the good is to lose sight of the truth and to open oneself to the lies of suffering; namely, that evil is all-encompassing, that one’s life lacks meaning, that there is no benevolent God, and, finally, that these lies are compatible with a free and just society. If these lies are not defeated, the sufferer is viewed both by himself and, most chillingly, by his family and the state as better off dead. At this point, the killing begins, either by the sufferer’s own hand or by the hand of pharmacists, as in the State of Oregon. Once begun, the lies that justify killing the innocent continue to seduce until spasms of nihilism and social unrest propel the healthy into the totalitarian’s powerful hand. It cannot be otherwise; because the sufferer can be killed only when his or her life is evaluated as having a merely instrumental value. And once that judgment is made, every one’s life is reduced to having only an instrumental value; because, if human life lacks intrinsic dignity in one situation it lacks it in all situations. And if human life lacks intrinsic dignity, it becomes legitimate to use others for one’s own ends — or, for the ends of others. To see others not as beings of intrinsic dignity but as fodder for ambition cannot but increase lawlessness and social unrest to the point that most yearn for the order imposed by tyrants; they, at least, make the trains run on time. The instrumental view of human life is thus a threat to free society. The seemingly perennial struggle against tyrants has taught the human race that the best bastion of opposition is the natural law, since this ethics defends human dignity by identifying human life as intrinsically good and thereby as able to transcend any kind of instrumentality or usefulness. It was this ethics, after all, that enabled America’s founders to identify King George as a tyrant who was violating the God-given inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.1 The goodness 1For an extended and definitive treatment of natural law’s role in the American Revolution see Forrest MacDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1985. 2 of human life and human dignity were also affirmed in 1948 by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; its preamble reads: Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people ... The General Assembly proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations ... 2 Human history thus shows not only that the importance of identifying human life as an intrinsic good cannot be underestimated, but also that free and respectful societies need laws that acknowledge the intrinsic goodness of human life and forbid suicide and euthanasia. The State of Oregon’s assisted suicide law thus threatens to loosen upon American society the instrumental view of human life that rejects the inalienable right to life proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We thus come to the American Rubicon: were the American founders correct in identifying life, as an inalienable, God-given right that is so basic to free society that it cannot be abrogated without endangering that free society? Or is the State of Oregon right in creating a right to die? Or is it the case that the right to life and the right to death are compatible with each other? To answer these questions it is necessary to determine whether human life has intrinsic or extrinsic value. For the right to life and the right to death can be compatible only if human life lacks intrinsic value and possesses an extrinsic and instrumental value; for then no right would be inalienable and all rights would have only an instrumental value that could vary by law. To settle this question of whether the value of human life is extrinsic or intrinsic, it is necessary to ascertain whether human life is indeed intrinsically good. There are three key arguments that this is the case. The first is through the experience of joy: joy enables us to affirm the goodness of life; just as, sadness moves us to deny life’s goodness. Hence, if one’s awareness of life’s goodness is known only on the emotional level, one will not be able to resist the devaluation of life that occurs when one is suffering. The second way that the goodness of life can be known is through the realization that life is but the bodily instantiation of existence. Bodily existence participates in the goodness of existence. But the difficulty here is that the contingency of human existence fills one with dread unless one is sure that a benevolent Creator can be trusted to hold one’s existence in perpetuity. The second way thus relies upon theological arguments known through philosophy or divine revelation. I leave it to the reader to gauge whether the typical American can find these theological arguments compelling. 2http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html 3 The third way is to know the goodness of human life is by focusing on the question of value: why is human life valuable? Why is anything of value? What does it mean to value? Ayn Rand explains it in this way: “Value” is that which one acts to gain and/or to keep. The concept ‘value’ is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible. ... There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or nonexistence–and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not ... Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. ... It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil. ... An organism’s life is its standard of value; that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil. ... Metaphysically, life ... is an end in itself. Virtue of Selfishness pp. 16-18. In other words, human life is the metaphysical foundation that makes value possible. Accordingly, the flourishing human life serves as the basic criterion for all that is good and for all that is evil. As a result, whatever promotes life’s flourishing is good for human beings, while whatever harms or hinders that flourishing is evil. This is true on all levels of human existence: physical, psychological, intellectually, and morally. For instance: food, oxygen and exercise are goods that advance physical flourishing as laughter and love promote psychological well-being as contemplating God and caring for others promote intellectual and moral flourishing. These things are thus goods because they advance the flourishing human life—both for oneself and for one’s society. For when human life is the foundational good, there can be no opposition between what’s good for the individual and what’s good for all. To recognize that human life is the basic good is to recognize it as intrinsically good. As intrinsically good, the value of human life can never be alienated by one’s circumstances. This means that the right to life is inalienable; and if inalienable, there can never be a right to death. For, life cannot underwrite death; the right to life cannot underwrite the right to death. It is thus a category mistake of the worst sort to place death in the category of rights and assert a right to die. Death can never really be a right, regardless of the State of Oregon’s legalize.
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