"It Can't Happen Here."
Perhaps the most dangerous sentence ever uttered.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:12 PM
11 Comments
Secondhand Smoke: Your 24/7 Seminar on Bioethics and the Importance of Being Human
This Blog considers assisted suicide/euthanasia, bioethics, human cloning, biotechnology, radical environmentalism, and the dangers of animal rights/liberation. My views expressed here, as in my books and other writings, reflect my understanding that the philosophy of human exceptionalism is the bedrock of universal human rights. Or, to put it another way: human life matters. (The opinions expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of any organization with which I am affiliated.)
Sunday, November 19, 2006
About Me
- Name: Wesley J. Smith
- Location: Castro Valley, CA, United States
I am a Senior Fellow in Human Rights and Bioethics at the Discovery Institute and the author of 12 books, including A Rat Is A Pig Is A Dog Is A Boy, which is relevant to the issues considered by this blog.
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11 Comments:
Certainly true, but to what in specific are you referring to?
Nothing in particular and everything. I hear that sentence a lot, whether about infanticide, assisted suicide, fetal farming, cloning, animal liberation, etc.
And the lie that accompanies both:
"Next time we'll know better."
Yes, indeed deep toad and t e fine. Anyone with a fourth?
...because our morality has evolved.
Ha! Right, Robert B. We have "matured" and embrace "ambiguity."
Which is not to say that changes in our morality do not occur. But it is our consensus about what is right and wrong and what we are willing to do about it that changes, not that humanity itself has brought forth a better morality.
When a society changes, it then works to bring its laws and economics to match its consensus.
Take slavery. Moral arguments had been argued over 1000s of years not just the 2 score of years after the Missouri compromise. To the North, no matter its racial views, slavery was easily abandoned because it was irrelevant to their economy. Of course, based on economics and politics, Northerners just as easily could ignore the continuation of slavery in the South. Real moral change comes in the struggle and even imposition of moral values where others passively or actively are committed to a status quo of injustice. The stakes only become higher the more a society becomes economically and political dependent on that status quo.
Take euthanasia. It is now based on personal choice, suffering and wasting away of PVS victims. But how soon will Wall Street judge the viability of our health and social security system based on the diligent elimination of high public costs of the infirm elderly and marginal. Once our economic growth is gauged upon these factors then that dependency will begin to control our morality inevitably.
True moral evolution is in recognizing what is moral and what is amoral, and chosing to do the right thing even if it means upsetting the Status Quo.
Have you ever noticed that almost all major religions (scientism being the primary exception) have the same basic rule in place? Love your neighbor as yourself. And have you noticed that if you really do that - love somebody like he was yourself no matter what his station in life - you're less likely to get in a moral quandary in the first place?
Tabs: Determining to love your neighbor as you love yourself is one of the things that illustrates that we are an extraordinary species. Religion seeks deeper answers beyond the mere physical, which, whether the answers are true or not, demonstrates a desire to transcend beyond being mere meat. No other known species in the universe thinks in this manner. And it leads to tremendous altruism, as in the tsunami relief.
An addendum to my last point. People who are not religious are altruistic, too. My point is that altruism has become ingrained in the human species to an extent we see in no other species.
Wesley - I consider secular humanism to be a religion, too, though it doesn't focus on a deity; neither does Zen Buddhism. Philosophical religions are just as valid as theological ones in that respect. What's important is that all people be respectful toward other ideas, even if we don't agree with them.
You're right, altruism certainly does separate humans from everything else alive in the known universe. We have the ability to love selflessly. We should always encourage selfless love, both in ourselves and in others.
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