VOL. XXI, I
the
Bite The Sleeping Horse
Philosophy and Science
Publication Team Anthony Halstead Editor-in-Chief •
James Monsour Copy Editor •
Elizabeth Hoyle Layout Editor •
Courtney Shingle Executive Assitant •
Alesia Scoccia Cover Artist
Featuring Jonah Soucy and Taylor Bettencourt Cover Models
Table of Contents
Letter from the Editor -4Science and philosophy: as united as body as soul -5Build-a-baby Workshop -8Science, Scientism and the Spirit of Wonder - 11 The Engendered Soul? - 14 Dying to Live - 16 -
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. -Albert Einstein
February letter from the editor. Philosophy and Science. This might seem to be a strange theme for some, but I have a reason – if not several reasons – for choosing it. I remember taking a class with Dr. Alexander Sich in which he often complained of physicists trying to do the philosopher’s job. He took particular pains in class to refute the error of those he called “atomists,” which are those materialists who mistakenly think that to explain a thing, one must explain it by the parts that constitute it, and by the parts that constitute those parts, ad infinitum. Dr. Sich would then go on to refute the atomist position with the Aristotelian concepts of substance, form, essence, and nature. I need not go any further in recounting this memory, lest I accidentally write an article of my own. But it was his constant complaint that inspired me to put forth this theme for our writers. The writers saw the breadth of the theme and tackled many topics contained therein. From general discussions of the relationship of philosophy to science, to the hotly debated discussion of gender and several other topics, this edition of The Gadfly puts forth a brief survey of the issues that concern both science and philosophy and expresses the hope of reconciliation where the two stand in opposition. Anthony Halstead, Editor-in-Chief
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Science and philosophy: as united as body and soul Kate Carnell There is a strange division between the study of philosophy and the empirical sciences. Because secular society praises absolute certainty when it comes to man’s ability to know, philosophy, as a way of reaching conclusions about reality, is undervalued. This, on the surface, makes sense. Human beings have an innate hunger for knowledge and understanding. We like to be certain. Unfortunately, our intellectual heritage gave us thinkers who tried making philosophy purely empirical – and therefore, they believed, more accurate – by applying the scientific method to the art of philosophic contemplation, and draining scientific study of its orientation toward man’s eternal end. Scientific studies are considered by many outside this campus to be more reliable ways of seeking truth because they yield tangible, (usually) visible results. Statistics, for example, offer proofs of what we consider to be certain – even if, as scientists will tell you, it is as possible to lie with statistics (or science) as it is to lie using philosophy.
When we are too abstract, “we lose touch with who we are as physical beings.”
But because both disciplines deal with understanding the nature of reality, they serve an integral role in directing the progress of the other. We lose
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much of the potential good that could be done if the two fields cooperated and communicated more intensely. Sound philosophy is necessary for the sake of productive science, and sound science is necessary for true philosophy. When we insist that philosophy and science must stand apart in competition, we are seeking to exalt our own egos as scientist or philosopher and use what we know as a way to feel superior over the other party. This is human. We want to know our work has meaning. But no one triumphs when we divorce the physical from the metaphysical. Without philosophy – without the steady inquiry into the intangible and eternal truths of the universe that lead us to understand man’s being, purpose, and natural end – science is aimlessly ravenous for new knowledge and accomplishment. Likewise, without science – the grounded, the visible, and the measurable – philosophy becomes a series of mental exercises unable to consider that man might have a natural, eternal end. This is because human beings are a composite of body and soul. Naturally, we would need both science and philosophy (and theology, but that’s a given) in order to understand what God created us to be. When we are too abstract, too caught up in hypotheticals, we lose touch with who we are as physical beings. And when we are too caught up in the tangible and the provable, we destroy our ability to wonder, cut ourselves off from revelation, and forget that our persons are, truly, not destined for this world. What’s the use of any sort of knowledge if you can’t apply to any universe other than one you have created in your own mind,
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and therefore locked yourself away in? Likewise, what are you gaining if by applying the knowledge you have, you are leading yourself into sin and darkness because you have been led to believe that man has ultimate dominion over physical reality, and that physical reality is all there is? Philosophers and scientists both have the same fundamental desire. They seek to answer some of life’s hardest questions about what man is, what he is not, what the world is, how we interact with it, and what we can and cannot do with it. They both depend on the art of wonder. And for both, wonder is necessary for the fullest expression of their discipline. Philosophy helps us determine the “ought” of how we should interact
with the world, and science gives us the means to do it. For the sake of true human progress towards the good, both disciplines need a nationwide revolution of wonder. The known and the unknown within both must cooperate. There is no such thing as perfectly exact measurement. We can round our contemplations and our decimals, but we can never perfectly know without the aid of revelation, which requires humility of spirit. In the end, God has the last word over what we can, and cannot know, as human beings. It is only by admitting how much we aren’t certain of – and by including seemingly foreign aid into our quest for understanding – that who we are and where we are going is truly revealed to us.
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“The term ‘person’ has been coined to signify that a man cannot be wholly contained within the concept ‘individual member of the species’, but that there is something more to him, a particular richness and perfection in the manner of his being, which can only be brought out by the use of the word ‘person’.” St. John Paul II
Build-a-Baby Workshop Joe Dantona It is common to every father and mother throughout the history of man that they hold great hope for their child’s future. It is unique to the father and mother of our own age, however, to possess the power to predestine that future. And while many parents have tried to read their son’s story in the stars, none have ever been able to write their baby’s destiny in his genes. This possibility, which no father or mother ever imagined, but perhaps many have implicitly hoped, is now coming into reality: the day is practically upon us when a man and a woman can design a child with a test tube and a flow chart. And so what is the reply to the madness of this enterprise, which is an attempt to destroy a child’s right to be loved as he is, under the guise of making him more loveable? The advent of the designer baby is upon us. The fate of every mother’s daughter and every father’s son is decided in our day; and every one of them will look back on us in judgment for the choice we make. The arguments put forth for what, all-in-all, amount to factory babies, are in fact quite strong. The advocates for engineering children have compelling reasons; everything they desire to achieve appears to be good. And indeed many of their reasons are good. Surely we want an intelligent boy, and not an idiot. And what’s the sense in him being a little coward, when he could be bold? Why would he want his mother’s crooked nose, if we could prevent it? And why wouldn’t he want to be faster, stronger, and more agile? The doctors say they can do all of these things, and they won’t stop there! But man seldom stops at the first mistake. Of course everyone thinks that intellect is a good thing to have more of, and not less; and as for good looks, few would argue that a strong chin is the greatest gift in life, but it is certainly not the smallest. Speed and strength and all the skill that can come with them—these are fantastic things, which half our population has and wastes, while the other half whines and would kill for. The strength of these argu-
ments, taken alone, is surely too much for any reasonable man to bear. But no man has to bear them alone, in isolation from reality. Because what the crowd crying for cryogenic kids chiefly forgets is this: that a child is a person, and not a toy; he is not a Lego set or a box of Lincoln logs, to be arranged however one likes. A child is a call; a call to love another despite displeasures and dissatisfactions. A child is, in fact, a vocation, and therefore is, like any other vocation, a challenge. The vocation of the child is not just from society; it is not just a group of men which calls for him to be accepted, brought in, and raised. It is not even an appeal to God that must be made, at least not at first. The primary call to accept and to bring up our sons and daughters—not as we would like them to be, but rather as they ought to be—comes from our very nature. It is inscribed in the words ‘mother’ and ‘father;’ in fact, it is the very meaning of both. Parents are not those who decide what a child will be—that is what a child must do with himself, and with what he is given by nature—but are they who raise a child so that he can become himself. The folly of all these build-a-baby advocates’ arguments is this: even if you succeed in changing a child’s chromosomes, you will never succeed in subduing his free will. In all the positioning for the legitimacy of the will of the parents, there is left no room for the will of the child. Of course, this is a perennial problem in our so-sophisticated and technically adept modern age. The logic that justifies building a baby is the same that justifies aborting it. I say again that parents are called to raise a child so that he can become himself. This is not some liberal folly of the primacy of the freedom of choice, or a conservative hedge against the spooky science incompatible with the golden yesteryear. To acknowledge that a mother and a father are the caretakers, and not the creators, of their offspring is merely to say what has always been
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said by all peoples, in all times and in all places. It is to repeat what has been preached by every sensible religion and every humane philosophy. It is to state again a rather bland truth, which is the only really exciting kind of truth, because it is a truth which has been ignored: man is not the measure of all things, not even of himself. The advance of science, impressive and valuable as it is, is no sure canon for the species, either. Man is the maker of science, and not the other way around. Science is subordinated to our own end, or at least it ought to be. Science was made for man, and not man for the science. What is proposed would turn that delicate formula on its head; would unleash upon the world all the grave evils of a Pandora’s Box. It is the submission of science to man that keeps the atom bombs from dropping, and it is only because science bows its head to man that he is able to control it. But it is like any other wild horse, and looks constantly to once again gain its head. Science crouches at the door, and we must master it. It is mastery of the beast or to be mastered by it. That is the choice lying before us. Someone may misunderstand me, of course, when I say that science is subordinated to our end. It may be surmised that turning a baby’s eyes blue because we like it to be so, when his eyes would rather have been green if left up to God and conception, is nothing but the bowing of science to man. I mean, of course, to draw the old distinction between man’s end and his ends. Science is made for man’s end, not his chosen ends, which are fleeting and changeable as Ohio winter winds. Just because something can be done does not mean it ought to be done; and doing new things for the sake of doing new things is a sure way to destroy perfectly good old things. Our society is learning that lesson now, in all sorts of places. It need not learn it again here. The question that must now be asked anew is, what is the purpose of all this new skill in biology and especially genetics? We must ask what good can be done, rather than merely what goods can be obtained. It is one thing to genetically cure a child of Down’s syndrome or deafness because you want him to be without the challenges either bring; it is another act entirely to make him taller because you
would like him to be a basketball star. One act is an attempt to remove barriers between a person and his destiny; another is to try to define what his destiny is at all. We seem almost universally to resent the parents who force their child to be a doctor or to go to law school, blithely ignoring whatever it is the child dreams or wishes for himself. It must be asked how it is any different— save by being worse— to arrange a child’s life before he has even taken a breath. In all this, we must affirm the great love that a mother is by nature called to have for her child. In the face of the uncertainties of life, of fears, of hopes and of dreams, a mother’s love encompasses all these things and subsumes them for the good of that one who is closer to her than any other. That mother, whose love is irreplaceable and inexhaustible, is what each child needs and intrinsically deserves. There is a Mother who loves her children as they come to her, and it is only their maladies that she tries to change. And if she cannot, for the time being, sooth their sicknesses, she loves them anyway. Her children rise up and call her blessed, because she has given them good, and not evil, for all the days of their lives.
“A child is, in fact, a vocation, and therefore is, like any other vocation, a challenge.”
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“Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity.� -Nicola Tesla
Science, Scientism and the Spirit of Wonder James A. Harold
Remember the Hubble spacecraft telescope? It has lately been out of the news. I remember when it first started sending pictures from space. They were unexpectedly and amazingly beautiful. It was almost as if the supernatural—with its message of beauty—had suddenly and without warning invaded time. We are so used to meanings—like of smog and skyscrapers—being merely human in nature. It seems that there are people who just habitually live in such meanings, or who at least exclusively think in terms of them. That is why when some seemingly other worldly (implying some kind of supra-personal) meaning invades us, we can be profoundly shaken. Beauty, truth, and goodness can disrupt our human—all too human— world. It is of course a question as to whether these experiences are indeed ‘messages’ from another sphere. Assuming (for the moment) they are, it is interesting to note how quickly we become acclimatized to what is magnificent and then in short order take them for granted. For instance, since we now expect beauty from the Hubble pictures we are far less likely to even begin to be moved by them, which is why we need to foster again and again the wonder of children: to see things as if for the first time. It seems we have to continuously fight against a natural tendency to become jaded. With the Hubble example it is interesting to note not only the JPL scientists’ initial surprise at seeing the beauty of these pictures—as they obviously were never before seen by anyone—but also their response. They spoke (at that time) as though they had a religious experience. This response came from people not particularly known for their philosophical/theological sensitivity. There seems to be a link between the response of wonder and God, or at least the impulse to philosophize. Naturally one could say that I’m cherry picking with my singular example of the Hubble telescope, but I do not think that is true. No matter where or how small or how deep or how high one
goes in the universe there are wonders as magnificent as these pictures from space. Wonders are everywhere, all over science. They call for an explanation. These wonders form a connection between science and philosophy, and by extension, theology. It is not just science that has its wonders, for as noted by Plato long ago all of philosophy begins with wonder. In fact, wonder is not only the beginning of philosophy; it is also its end and its inner substrate. Without the spirit of wonder philosophy itself becomes human, all too human. In fact, without wonder philosophy tends to become boring, full of theories going in every which way, but without that male sense of reality (as C. S. Lewis would put it). Such theories are characterized by a complete lack of wonder. At most they seem ‘interesting,’ but without that pre-given, uninventable realness that characterizes those realities evoking authentic wonder. Not only does wonder characterize both science and philosophy, it is also the border between them. This is because when scientists in turn try to explain the object of their wonder, they naturally turn to God. For example, consider Albert Einstein, “The cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest mainspring of scientific research. My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe forms my idea of God.” Notice what Einstein is not saying. He is not saying that the things of the universe are themselves divine. When Einstein goes out and looks at the beauty, the order, the symmetry, the meaning, the preciousness, the intelligibility of the world, he is not saying that the world is somehow God. Rather, that the beauty and order and preciousness of the world speaks of something else. For what explains this order and meaning? The answer I
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think is this: Intelligibility implies intelligence. Meaning implies mind. Mindless matter lacks the inner resources to explain meaning. It seems to me that the source of wonder is not the material things themselves, which are actually ontologically below the person. It is rather the intelligibility and the order of those things, which point to intelligence and to an orderer. They are icons, pointers to God (or at least to some supernatural mind). Furthermore, this beauty and order and intelligibility of material things are actually non-empirical qualities. They are after all properties of things not open to empirical measurement. In contrast, when someone like David Hume looks out into the world, what he sees are (images that represent) carriages, houses, horses, mountains, etc. These images are so many inches high or long, are colored or gaseous, contiguous or not contiguous to other things, with one event following another, and so forth. In other words, what he sees are exclusively empirical properties of things as opposed to the above non-empirical properties, which are simultaneously the conveyers of wonder. For none of these non-empirical qualities weigh anything or are so-many inches high or colored or gaseous. Unfortunately, with respect to the topic of empirical and non-empirical properties, if we compare the vision of Einstein with that of Hume, the intellectual culture of modern science has gone with Hume. It now seems to be the scientific orthodoxy that things are exclusively made up of empirical properties alone. If you want to go to the moon, Hume’s approach seems to the way to go. But it is also a value-free world that leads in the end to skepticism and nihilism. In contrast, if you want warmth for your black, little heart and live in value-laden universe with ultimate meaning, then Einstein’s inclusion of the non-empirical dimension of reality makes sense too. But why do we have to choose? Whatever necessity there is comes not from science but from scientism. Scientism only refers to the present intellectual, scientific culture and not to what is properly speaking science. For notice the scientistic assertion that all facts are exclusively empirical in nature is not itself really a scientific assertion at all. What empirical
observation or set of observations could ever justify this interpretation? At most, all one can say is that the proper object of scientific research is empirical in nature. And then things like beauty and intrinsic preciousness and intelligibility do not (at least typically) seem to be proper objects of scientific investigation. But these insights in no way imply that therefore there are no other kinds of facts besides empirical facts. The assertion that the only kind of fact is empirical in nature is itself self-referentially false, as there is with this assertion a contradiction between what it is ‘saying’ and what it is ‘doing.’ It is ‘saying’ that all facts are empirical, and what it is ‘doing’ is making a non-empirical, philosophical assertion. This is not science; it is philosophy masquerading as science. It is scientism, which is constitutive of the intellectual culture among most scientists today. While granting the ubiquitous nature of this scientific orthodoxy of empiricism among scientists, it is merely theoretical and only skin deep. For when it comes to actual existential experience—such as noted above with the first Hubble pictures—the situation changes in a moment, because every once in a while there really is a breakthrough of supernatural meaning upon the contingent, such as with the experience of magnificent beauty of the Hubble pictures. When that happens this scientific orthodoxy/ideology is suddenly exposed—at least until further acclimation again produces a jaded response—as being wholly inadequate to explain the fullness of our experience of material reality. To assert that such moments do not or cannot exist is merely one more non-scientific formulation of this cultural scientism. There is no need to choose between science and wonder when one can have both. It is only scientism that wants us to choose against wonder and in favor of test tube measurements. Such measurements have their place, but they are not the only source of or even the apex of objectivity. In fact, to approach something magnificently beautiful with a test tube measurement approach is utterly unobjective (as the object determines the method, not vice versa). None of that is real science. Real science is open to wonder. In fact, wonder is the mainspring of science.
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“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life, you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” -René Decartes
The Engendered Soul? Dan Davis Within the Judeo-Christian tradition there has been much focus on how to understand the dual-nature of the human person. This focus is centered upon the notion of the human person as having both a material body as well as an immaterial soul. This understanding of the human person brings many difficulties when it comes to how we can philosophically understand the way in which we, as human beings, live in this in-between state of materiality and immateriality. This notion of “in-between-ness” was greatly developed by twentieth century philosopher of history Eric Voegelin in his Anamnesis. Voegelin resurrected an older-Greek term and called this in-between nature metaxy - the understanding that man lives in a state of tensions, of past and future, of material and transcendent, simultaneously. Or as nineteenth century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard alluded to in his Papers and Journals: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” The human person exists within this metaxic reality: we live in the present which is the continual transfer of future to past - while we are anchored to materiality, yet seek spiritual transcendence. The tensions within the human person are also manifest in other aspects of human experience. Within twenty-first century society, a subject of much debate and division has been how the individual person identifies with gender and sexuality. The sexuality of the person refers to his or her sexual attraction to other persons - heterosexual and homosexual, while gender is how person is identified - traditionally as either male or female. A new set of tensions has arisen within contemporary society over this notion of gender. For example, the ways in which we can philosophically approach the subject of transgendered peoples, those individuals born with male or female genitalia, but who identify with the opposite gender. For these individuals, the physical reality of the sexual organs contrasts with an immaterial soul association of gender. This tension between the physical genitalia of the individual in contrast to the self-aware-
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ness of gender points to the existence of an engendered soul. This notion of the engendered soul brings with it many questions which need to be addressed. E.g., if the soul is engendered how does it correspond to physical sexual attributes? Does the physical body or the engendered soul take precedence in determining the gender of an individual? Existentially, are we thus divided between female and male souls - or do we simply exist as individual souls before the Creator? Ultimately, another question must be asked as well, i.e., can this experience of an engendered soul (when the physical gender and perceived soul-gender do not match) be explained by anything else, e.g., a psychological discomfort in one’s own masculinity or femininity? What is clear is that gender is an integral aspect of the human person through-and-through. Our mind, body, and soul all function within an active correspondence to our gender. Some years back I read both The Female Brain and The Male Brain by neurobiologist Louann Brizendine who emphasized that the ways in which our brains develop and function is wholly integrated with our gender. With this recognition of the interconnectedness of gender with our entire human reality, we are left to answe two essential question: (a) does genitalia determine gender, or the soul; and (b) existentially, within greater cosmic reality, what does this actually mean for interpersonal relations and for the God-man dynamic? For the vast majority of human beings, this first question is not pertinent to daily existence. In turn, the transgendered community has promoted usage of the term cis-gendered to describe people whose genitalia and soul-gender correspond with one another. The usage of this term might be described as an attempt to normalize the experience of transgendered peoples. However, rather than normalizing “transgender”, it linguistically establishes a social division between so-called cis-gendered and transgendered peoples. Thus, a term used to label all people in order to keep a minority group from feeling segregated, actually linguis-
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tically divides society. Gender is an aspect of the person which influences our entire lived experience. Our DNA reveals our physical gender, our mind thinks and reacts in specific ways depending on our gender, and our soul reflects our engendered reality. Recent discussion on gender has increasingly focused on this notion of physical gender assignment (based upon genitalia) vs the interior experience of the engendered soul. From a Christian philosophical worldview, such apparent discord between the body and soul regarding gender recognition cannot simply be attributed as concupiscence. Rather we must approach this subject systematically. Gender as distinguished between male and female is not a social construct. It is a physical reality, upon which society has developed constructed notions and expectations - which we refer to as masculinity and femininity. Thus, when an archeologist analyzes an ancient body, the gender of that person can be determined from the genetic material, whereas it is the role of the historian to understand how the culture into which that person was born understood the notions of femininity and masculinity. This highlights how gender can be recognized as a physical reality rather than as a socially constructed notion. This is not to discredit the experience of being uncomfortable with and/or not associating with your physical gender. I would argue, therefore, that this discord between physical gender and the internal experience of gender is not actually rooted within gender itself, but within societal gender norms as expressed through the concepts of masculinity and femininity. I believe that we can understand the human person as having one source of gender, the physical body. The engendered soul is not a competitor with the body for determining gender, but rather the way in which we sense gender within the soul is an expression of our physical gender. Where I believe the transgendered experience might originate is within the societally constructed notions of masculinity and femininity. Within any social construct there will be people who find themselves at either end of normative expectation. It is understandable that these people would then associate with one another in such a way as to develop their own micro-societal notion of what is considered “normal.” For
the transgendered community, this seems to be expressed in propagating the term cis-gendered. The experience which leads to this sense of discord within those people who identify as transgendered is not actually rooted in their physical gender, but in how society understands how these people ought to express their gender. Now that a first, and undoubtedly unsatisfactory explanation has been given for the experience of gender, the discussion must turn to the final point of how the engendered individual can be recognized within greater cosmic reality. Does the engendered soul, as a reflection of physical gender, have any lasting impression upon our personhood when the body is removed from the equation? One might reference Galatians 3:28 where Saint Paul pronounces that “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” However, this section as a whole seems to be referencing social inequality rather than a denial of the engendered soul before God. After reflecting upon the evidence provided, I think that the human soul is engendered as it stands before the Divine. Our experiences shape our personhood and form our soul, and these experiences are rooted within our bodies via the senses. The reality of my manhood (in contrast to the notion of masculinity) is a present factor within all of my actions - thus shaping my soul before God. It would then seem that the human soul takes two distinct forms in the male and female varieties, although this distinction originates within the physical body. Therefore we can understand the soul as engendered insofar as it was formed before God by our lived experiences of engendered bodily reality. The reality of my manhood is an integral factor of my personhood - as I experience external reality and as I stand before God. We live in this metaxic reality of past and present, of physical and transcendent. In this same way, our engendered personhood, though rooted in our physicality, nonetheless transforms our spiritual existence. The cosmic reality of our souls is not isolated from the rest of our personhood, but is wholly intertwined into this metaxic experience of individuality in which we all partake.
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Dying to Live Anonymous Sitting in my math classroom during senior year of high school, I remember my teacher asking us when we thought we go from “growing up” to “dying.” I remember feeling perplexed- but not because I found the question to be so paradoxical it was almost impossible to answer. I was perplexed because I was wondering why he thought that growing up and dying were mutually exclusive. As if there were some mountain summit our bodies climb to in our lives until a certain age, watch a sunset, and then say, “okay time to go downhill.” I think life encompasses the two both unique yet universal experiences simultaneously. But I do not mean this in a sad and pessimistic view that we are all “dying”- because the fact is, we are all living. In a real way, throughout our life, we go through our own different stages of dyingsome are obviously more active than others. The reality is though, and it is not a sad one, each day lived is a day closer to our own death. This inevitable and common truth should actually bring much meaning to our lives. Knowing that we will not be on this earth forever, we can begin to focus our efforts on the value we give our lives and the lives of those around us. I was tempted to say that we should focus on the “quality of life” we experience. While this is never in and of itself a misguided focus, it should actually not be the ultimate good we seek in our earthly lives. Throughout our lives the “quality” we live will vary. Pain and suffering will indiscriminately come our way. And while we may see this as altering the “quality” of our lives, the “value” of our lives remains unchanged. In a world where we place the “quality of life” above the value of each individual life, we should consider a widespread threat to our inherent value today in the scope of medicine. That is to say, let us survey some end of life ethical concerns, which tell us that if pain and suffering come our way, then our lives become without value, worth, or dignity, and we have the right to end them. Nonmaleficence. Take an oath where that’s the
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first thing you pledge to abide by and rule your practice by. That’s what doctors do. In the Hippocratic Oath, doctors historically pledge this and many other bioethical principles by which to practice. This basic principle applies not only to medical professionals but to the scope of humanity. I don’t think that fearing death is unreasonable. In fact I believe it is completely logical. One reason to fear death is that we fear the ‘unknown.’ Another reason we fear death is because of the pain and suffering so often linked with it. As a nursing student I’ve seen only a small number of patients, in their hospital beds - some comatose, some in vegetative states, some their level of cognizance unknown. But among them the one most universal trait is that they are in pain and are suffering. On one hand, it is a relief to know that I have chosen a profession that intends to alleviate as much as possible the discomforts patients face both physically and mentally. On the other hand, when is enough, enough? What is the point of going into room after room, administering their life sustaining medicines, offering some comforting words, and heading to the next patient while they remain in their bed suffering? In fact, anyone who has watched another suffer, knows how sad it can be and how many questions it can bring up. I am convinced that the inherent dignity and value of each person demands care and demands natural life as long as permitted, despite their “quality of life.” Though this may initially come across as insensitive and uncompassionate, the truth is that the dignity each person has far outweighs anybody’s “right” to take fatal action to end their suffering. In fact, taking words from a friend, not only can “God and His love not be separated from suffering,” but also, “without suffering the joys of life would have no merit.” But nothing in modern medicine assures me more that continuing to offer care until natural death is the correct ethical thing to do, than the “death with dignity” law that several U.S. states and European countries have accepted. This is the
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law that allows physician assisted suicide that is being accepted socially, medically, politically, and worst of all ethically. In this process, a doctor prescribes a lethal dose of Seconal Sodium, which used in much lower doses is a sedative. The patient must take the medicine themselves, which makes this process different from euthanasia in that the doctor does not directly administer the fatal dose. Instead the doctor prescribes an inhumane suicide pill, which allows a patient to set a time, date, and place for the planned taking of their life. In the eye opening documentary, “How to Die in Oregon,” this act is looked at through the eyes of several individuals who have made the choice to end their lives. I was moved with much sorrow and compassion to see them in their various sufferings. I think what I saw them suffer from the most was fear. I have never been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and cannot empathize appropriately enough with the amount of fear, among other emotions, this must bring. The two scariest unknowns of death- what will happen? And how much pain and suffering will the process entail? When staring death in the face, we have decided to control the latter, and end our lives before we suffer too much. While suffering is unquestionably a harsh consequence of our state on earth, we must learn that “dignity” does not mean avoiding this suffering. In fact, as a friend told me, “it is an act of dignity and vulnerability to depend on God and trust his timing and also to believe that your life is worth other people loving you and taking care of you until God takes you from this earth.” Dignity is “the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed.” Why is our culture accepting that to choose our own death in order to prevent suffering make us in a state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed? “Compassion with Choices” is a group of volunteers that advocate for the act and work with the people choosing physician assisted suicide shown in the documentary. One passionate volunteer said, “What we’re doing is offering choice.” But since it is public fact that they are offering death, I’m asking myself, when did death and choice become synonymous? One patient, Cody, was followed for most of the documentary. Dying of terminal cancer in her 50s, her
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suffering was hard to watch. She said, “I grew up in the country. We put our dogs and animals down. We didn’t let animals suffer.” What state are we in to compare our human dignity to that of a suffering animal? Her doctor defended her Hippocratic Oath by saying, “Harm for her would have been taking away the control and saying ‘no no no you’ve got to do this the way your body decides instead of the way you as the person decides.’ ” But harm is not so relative a term that it can ever be said that watching someone take their life is not doing that person harm. The patients who have chosen this route have decided that their lives are no longer worth living due to the pain and suffering they have to endure. This is the same thought process of the clinically depressed who choose to take their own lives- though of course the suffering manifests differently and no, they do not have a physiological terminal illness. But the flaw is in the sentence “my life is not worth living.” The worth, the value, the dignity, the honor of each individual life is never something that can be altered - it is inherent and unchangeable in all circumstances. According to CNN, the patient must have a prognosis of 6 months or less to live in order to utilize the suicide law. Cody, the patient from above was prescribed her pills but outlived her 6 month prognosis. Death is unpredictable. Even by the doctors. Yet we add stipulations to a law to make it seem like death is an exact science that we have mastered. We are going to die. Most of us will grow old, and society will say that we are no longer of value- we are useless in our nursing home wheel chair. But the elderly shall continue to be taken care of because the truth remains that they have value just because they live, they breathe, they were born, and they were created with it. Some of us may die suddenly, and though we may find this sad, it should actually be nothing but an encouraging reality to live day by day doing the best we can. Some may die of terminal illness. I hope those who find themselves in that situation will have a knowledge of their unchanging dignity so deep that they will live out their natural life span.
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“The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage.� - Mark Russell
next edition, coming soon
VICES
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