Life Issues, Medical Choices - Christopher Kaczor, Janet E. Smith

Life Issues, Medical Choices (eBook)

Questions and Answers for Catholics

Christopher Kaczor, Janet E. Smith (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
208 Seiten
Servant (Verlag)
978-1-63582-304-2 (ISBN)

Medical and technological advances over the past decades have left millions of Catholics grappling with tough issues-and these dilemmas will only increase with complexity as medical advances escalate. In this updated and expanded edition, Life Issues, Medical Choices provides clear answers to difficult questions based upon fundamental principles to help concerned Catholics make morally sound choices for themselves and their loved ones. New issues explored in this book-questions pertaining to health care, organ transplants, adoption, elective surgeries, and other important issues-make this essential reading for anyone concerned about protecting and respecting human dignity. Read less

Medical and technological advances over the past decades have left millions of Catholics grappling with tough issuesand these dilemmas will only increase with complexity as medical advances escalate. In this updated and expanded edition, Life Issues, Medical Choices provides clear answers to difficult questions based upon fundamental principles to help concerned Catholics make morally sound choices for themselves and their loved ones. New issues explored in this bookquestions pertaining to health care, organ transplants, adoption, elective surgeries, and other important issuesmake this essential reading for anyone concerned about protecting and respecting human dignity. Read less

CHAPTER ONE

Fundamentals

Question 1: How would one argue, from a philosophical point of view, that human life has intrinsic value?

The question, Why does human life have intrinsic value? might be rephrased as, Why do human beings have dignity? Or, Why should we accord rights to people? Or, Why should we hold that human beings (as opposed to other beings) have moral status?

Some philosophers hold a view of the value of human life that is very nearly identical to that of Catholicism, the view that life has infinite value. Indeed, some secular philosophers even speak of human life as being “sacred.” Catholics believe that the truth about the value of life comes to us not only through revelation but also through natural law or reason. Human reason, even apart from revelation, can discover the dignity of the human person. Thus it is no surprise that the ancient Stoics, Plato, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and most Western political traditions have recognized that human life has intrinsic value or dignity.

Another indication that we naturally know that human life has intrinsic value is the fact that the laws of virtually all nations reflect the nearly universal belief that no one should kill innocent human life intentionally. Sometimes reverence for human life is expressed in terms of “rights.” We find a marvelous expression of the right to life in our own Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The U.N. Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that all human beings have rights: “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.”1 Article 3 of the declaration proclaims: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

To speak of the right to life as being “self-evident,” as does the Declaration of Independence, means it is a truth that should be obvious to all who can reason. It is, however, possible to offer some philosophic justification for this self-evident truth.

The philosophic claim for the intrinsic dignity and value of human life flows from the recognition that human beings are rational and free or self-determining creatures. That which is by nature free should not be “used” or treated as an instrument of use by others. Kant's categorical imperative, that we should never treat persons simply as “means” but always respect them as “ends in themselves,” captures well the principle that human beings have intrinsic value.

Other philosophers, such as Aristotle, have noted the more excellent nature of the human person. His argument is fairly straightforward: human beings differ in many ways from rocks, plants, and other animals. Indeed, there is an ordering of beings. Plants are more excellent than rocks, since they are alive and can grow. Animals excel plants, since they are not only alive but have the senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. Human beings excel all these lower animals, since they can understand their world, reflect on their place in the world, and freely engage in the world.

It makes sense to treat things in accord with what they are. Since human beings excel nonliving beings, plants, and animals, they should be treated in accord with their more excellent nature. Although some human beings cannot think rationally—for instance, the severely mentally handicapped—and some human beings, like those in surgery under anesthesia, cannot consciously sense the world around them, they do not thereby lose their dignity. These human beings still possess a human nature ordered to rationality, although it cannot be fully manifested because of some physical defect or malady, whether permanent or temporary. Although newborns cannot think rationally, we treasure them because they belong to the human family.

There is yet another way of making the argument that all human beings have infinite value, even if they cannot exercise their distinctive human capacities. Many non-Christian Western philosophers have held that we can know on the basis of reason that human beings have immortal souls (for more on this point, see Question 42). Aristotle, for instance, thought all members of a species had the same essence or form and that the form of the human being was the soul. If we have immortal souls, we have as a part of our being something that is quasi-divine. And since the soul is the principle of life, any living human being possesses a human soul and thus has infinite value. The popular Western doctrine that all human beings have certain fundamental rights finds a good foundation in the claim that we all share the same essence or form.

Another way to approach the question of the value of life is to observe that we recognize that our own lives are valuable and that it would be wrong for someone to murder us. Consistency requires that we treat all other human beings as we would wish to be treated. Although we differ from other human beings in many ways—in terms of intelligence, health, freedom, and moral goodness—these differences do not change the fact that, like us, these other human beings also have lives that are valuable.

Still another way of considering the question begins with the notion of equality. Most people believe in equal human rights, such as equal treatment under the law or equal rights to liberty. But the equality of human rights cannot be based on any characteristic that is not equally shared by human beings. Human beings are not alike in terms of race, gender, class, religion, health status, or disability. If human rights were based on autonomy or intelligence or moral excellence, since these characteristics come in degrees (we are more or less able to exercise our freedom, more or less intelligent, more or less ethically good), our rights should also be matters of degree. Since no two people are identical in terms of these degreed characteristics, each person would enjoy rights to a different degree than every other person. If we are to secure equal rights for all human persons, the basis for rights must be something shared equally by all human persons, for example, human nature. Therefore, the sound basis for attributing equal rights to any subset of human beings provides a basis for providing equal rights to all human beings. Since no other right, including the right to property or liberty, can be exercised without the right to life, the right to life is the basis for all other rights and is enjoyed by all human beings.

Thus philosophers have various reasons for holding that life has intrinsic value. As we have seen, the authors of the Declaration of Independence held the right to life to be a self-evident truth; others, such as Aristotle and Kant, grounded their conviction of the value of human life in the important differences between human nature and the nature of beings that are less than human. It is reasonable to believe that all human beings have an inalienable, inviolable right to life. Certainly Western civilizations have built legal codes on that claim.

Question 2: Why do Catholics value human life so highly?

To answer this question we look both to Scripture and to the Magisterium (the official teaching of the Church).

Scriptural Teaching

While even those who do not believe in God are capable of recognizing that human life has intrinsic value, those who believe in God, and especially those who are Christians, have special reason to value life. After all, “God is love” (1 John 4:16), and he created the whole universe out of love. God made human beings to receive his love, to return his love and to give love to others. Human beings were not made for some useful purpose: we are what philosophers call “ends in ourselves.” We have no other ultimate purpose than to live eternally with God.

It is an astonishing truth that God made human beings in his image. An immortal, rational, free and loving God made beings who have immortal souls and who are rational, free, and made to love and to be loved. Human life is sacred because it specifically reflects the nature of the divine.

Scripture tells a story of human existence that explains both why human beings are of such great value and why we struggle so much. God entered into a covenant relationship of unconditional love with human beings; this was broken by original sin. In the process, human beings injured their relationship with each other and caused great disturbances or disorder in their souls. God promised even after this break—what we call “the Fall”—that he would remain faithful to his love and would send a savior to rescue human beings from sin and alienation.

This relationship between God and human beings continues throughout the course of salvation history. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Moses, and all the prophets point to a resounding truth: God loves and exercises providential care for each and every human being, particularly those who suffer—for instance, the poor, the persecuted, the diseased, the forgotten, the unwanted. He also cares for all sinners, even terrible sinners—such as murderers, adulterers, and idolaters. God cares for the human family as a whole and for each one of us individually.

For Christians, Jesus Christ—truly God and truly...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	17.1.2023
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie
ISBN-10	1-63582-304-8 / 1635823048
ISBN-13	978-1-63582-304-2 / 9781635823042

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