Merely Being Human...Does Anyone Seriously Argue This Alone Gives Value?

Some abortion-choice advocates argue against the pro-life position by saying that mere membership in a species (e.g. the human species) cannot ground someone's right to life. For most pro-life advocates, however, this is a straw man. Very few pro-life advocates claim that merely being a member of a species is the thing makes one valuable.

For example, many pro-life advocates ultimately appeal to God as the value-Giver.

Isn't the real problem that the abortion-choice advocate has disqualified religious references (explicitly or implicitly) at the outset of the discussion? Then she claims I have no grounding for value except appealing to species membership. This is unfair.

Two thoughts on this:

First, if we all agree that born human beings have instrinsic value and dignity, everyone in the discussion must answer the grounding question. Appeals to functional qualities lead to the same grounding problem as appeals to species membership. Any claim to value has to be grounded in some source of value. I would argue that born human beings (and unborn) have special dignity and intrinsic value based on their human nature, but then I must argue further for why human nature matters.

(I suppose someone can appeal to a brute fact of value, saying that they know by intuition that humans have special dignity. At some stage in philosophical discussion everyone has to appeal to brute facts, after all. This move simply sidesteps the grounding question as irrelevant.)

Second, it's a mistake to disqualify religious references. Everyone makes metaphysical claims in these discussions and bears the burden of defending those metaphysical claims. On what grounds does the "no-religious-references-allowed" advocate disqualify this one kind of metaphysical claim? If we're all making metaphysical claims, we're all on an equal playing field, whether we're appealing to God or not.

So often, scientists (and others) will claim their view is based on science rather than religion, but then they'll go on to make all sorts of non-scientific, metaphysical claims. I'm not saying they don't have an equal place at the metaphysical table. I'm saying precisely that they are arguing at the metaphysical table, whether they recognize it or not.

Comments

[BillyHW]

Even if we are unsure, shouldn't we err on the side of intrinsic value to all human life?

There is nothing lost in *not* killing the unborn.

[Heath Griner]

The law forbids destroying the egg of a bald eagle for one reason. It is common sense that interfering with the eagle at this stage of development will result in the loss of a bald eagle, period.
Yet when it comes to the most innocent and precious thing there is, a human baby, U.S. law allows people to play God with life.
I wish the day would come when human babies are afforded the same protection as endangered animal species.

[Douglas Westfall]

Excellent post Heath, thank you.

[Deborah]

Wesley J. Smith argues for what he calls "human exceptionalism" quite frequently. Go to his blog at http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/ and plug the words "human exceptionalism" into the blog search engine. This should keep you busy for a couple of months.

Regards.

[Jason Dulle]

Steve,

Good discussion. Tactically speaking, I would back up to ask the more fundamental question of why we should think anyone has the right to life? This question bypasses the question of criteria (which can easily sidetrack the conversation), going straight to the jugular: the grounding question. Forget haggling over what might make person X valuable, but person Y non-valuable. I want them to tell me why we ought to think that anyone has the right to life, including themselves. Where does such a right come from? Atheism cannot secure transcendent rights, and Darwinism makes mockery of the concept that one has a right to live. Only theism can ground the notion of transcendent rights, and only God could imbue us with value.

Then, maybe we can get to the issue of how any specific characteristic they might wish to propose as value-defining could be value-conferring or value-denying. We might ask how moral value inheres within the property of self-consciousness, or to provide a non-question begging argument for self-consciousness as a value-defining criterion for determining one’s right to life.

Jason