Second Sight

In a recent allocution the Pope addressed some questions concerning Humanae Vitae. I have selected a few key points (see full text).

“And it is here that knowledge of the natural rhythms of the woman’s fertility becomes important for the couple’s life. The methods of observation which enable the couple to determine the periods of fertility permit them to administer what the Creator has wisely inscribed in human nature without interfering with the integral significance of sexual giving. …We may ask ourselves: how is it possible that the world today, and also many of the faithful, find it so difficult to understand the Church’s message which illustrates and defends the beauty of conjugal love in its natural expression?…Indeed, as we well know, not even reason suffices: it must be the heart that sees. Only the eyes of the heart succeed in understanding the proper needs of a great love, capable of embracing the totality of the human being.”

Outstanding here is the use of thoughtful and compassionate language which contrasts with the usual tone of pronouncements on this subject. There is no condemnation but an aspiration that we should grow towards a fuller understanding. Yet there are points which I think need fuller discussion.

First, there is an implicit acceptance that human reason is inadequate to demonstrate the truth of the existing doctrine. That of course we already knew. But it is not clear what is meant by “the eyes of the heart”. If this, as it would appear, is a subjective realisation then something more needs to be said about the many holy people, lay and cleric, who do not have this subjective realisation or from where it might arise – and how such a realisation could be imposed as universal and unqualified law.

Second, the “wisely inscribed in human nature” needs some attention. The natural, average, rate of fertility is somewhere between eight and 10 births, as 19th century records show. In that, and earlier times, such a rate was necessary to ensure that the human race grew only at a moderate rate – because of high early mortality. So we simply evolved that way. But in most of the world today such a fertility rate would not be supportable. This overhang from our evolutionary past (and there are plenty of examples of such overhangs) is no longer appropriate. The phrase “wisely inscribed” does not fit well with the way in which God appears to work through the mechanism of evolution.

Or does it? I look for answers from you

What is the difference between right and wrong? Our society is generally agreed that there is a difference, and that it is very important. But from that point onwards controversy begins. There are three main ways of discerning this difference: deontology, which sets out by “rule” that certain actions are permitted, and others forbidden; utilitarianism, which employs a judgment about the balance of consequences from an action; and virtue ethics, which focuses not on the action but on the quality of the actor. The three approaches may often, but not by any means always, arrive at the same conclusions, and there are many overlaps; nevertheless they are fundamentally different.

In this column I want to look at deontology because, by whatever name you call it, it is the approach which comes most naturally to Catholics. On later occasions I will look at the other two.

In our terms, the principle is based on the law of God as mediated to us through Scripture and the moral teaching of the Church. This, of course, is not arbitrary since God made us, and it is through his law that we conform to his will and so reach our fullness in being joined to him in heaven. Scripture is not a comprehensive guide because, as the theologian, Fr Josef Fuchs, pointed out, the Bible is not a manual of moral theology.

 Nevertheless, it contains the Ten Commandments and it is conventional (as indeed the layout of the Catechism shows) to set out the moral law, and its broad application, under the headings of the Decalogue. In this expansion, the teaching Church makes considerable use of the Natural Law, about which I wrote at some length in my column of July 4.

In this scheme, we find a division between those actions which are wrong by their own intrinsic nature, which means that the consequences - bad or good - are irrelevant, and those which may in certain circumstances be modified. The first category is derived from observation or understanding of our fundamental nature as created by God. Examples might be the wrongness of depriving someone of an organ or a physical faculty - except for the sake of the health of that person, or using the genital, sexual, faculty for purposes which are contrary to its innate structure. There are some who question the adequacy of this uncompromising approach where it seems to rest only on physicality rather than on the whole human being, or does not give full weight to the complexity of a human act.

The second, and much commoner, category requires the application of judgment. For example, we accept the principle that we are bound to keep our promises. Yet were we to discover that some money we had promised was to be used in the furtherance of terrorism, we would not regard it as binding. Clearly consequences can be a factor here. Into this category would come questions like torture or slavery. We find it hard to conceive of circumstances in which these would be justified, yet we can so conceive if we take sufficiently extreme examples.

However, the law is not legalistic since its purpose is only to define the boundaries of the territory within which the love of God is to be found. It is love which saves, and not the law as such. The meaning of the law is ultimately to be found, and comprehended, in love of God and love of neighbour.

But a deontological, or rule-based, approach is not confined to religion. The great philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that it could be discovered by practical reason alone. Kant believed in God, but did not attribute his moral principles to this. His “categorical imperative” was: “Act only according to the maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”

Taking again the example of promises, Kant argues that we cannot wish that disregarding promises should be a universal law since we cannot rationally wish that people should not keep promises made to us. (And, incidentally, if there were no obligation to keep promises, the concept of “promise” would be meaningless.) And, as another example, he argues that we are obliged to assist another who is in dire straits, since we cannot rationally wish that others should not help us similarly.

He sums up his moral principle as “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.” This summary, which I hope we would all applaud, brings Kant’s system to conclusions which are very similar to those to which Catholics would subscribe. But it is important to notice that love itself has no place in the system, only the claimed objectivity of reason. So moral motive or obligation, as we understand it, does not apply. 

Yet, as Elizabeth Anscombe pointed out in an influential 1958 paper, modern moral philosophy, in which Kant was a pioneer, assumes the idea of moral obligation, and thus - unconsciously perhaps - maintains a law while omitting a lawgiver. Indeed Kant, in his notes published after his death, accepted that his system required the concept of God to be complete. We would, to borrow Fr Copleston’s example, wish to condemn the Commandant of Belsen because he was wicked and not merely because he was irrational.

I am conscious that I have only given the barest outline of deontology, and I am sure that many readers would want to criticise or elaborate on what I have been able to fit into such short compass. Indeed, I would have wanted to do so myself. But that is what Secondsight Blog is for. We can continue the discussion here.

This dialogue was originally written with the intention that all CH readers, with or without computers, could give their feedback. So your reactions to Professor Singer’s views on this blog are particularly needed. They will provide me with ammunition to respond in the paper to his views in due course. Thanks for you co-operation. Quentin

So the Spanish government is almost certain to grant allegedly human rights to the great apes (as reported in The Catholic Herald on August 8). I read this with mixed feelings; like many readers, I am strongly opposed to cruelty towards animals but that is a long distance from suggesting that we should recognise that they have rights. So I went to the fountainhead: Peter Singer, who - among other academic appointments - is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He is regarded as the intellectual champion of the cause.

Professor Singer is a distinguished philosopher with a particular interest in ethics. But his views are seen by many as extreme. He has been nicknamed Professor Death; he has been attacked in Germany as having eugenic views akin to Nazism; Simon Wiesenthal the Nazi-hunter has been strongly critical; a prominent economist suspended his donations to Princeton when Singer was appointed; there have been loud outcries from organisations devoted to the care of the disabled.

A little imp in me suggests that such a chorus of indignation only musters when their target has something of threatening substance to say. And Singer wrote in 1995: “I sometimes think that (the Pope) and I at least share the virtue of seeing clearly what is at stake.”

The Catholic Herald prefers to reserve its indignation until it has listened to what a philosopher actually has to say, and then to make a reflective judgment of the points with which we, or more particularly our readers, agree or disagree. I must thank him for his cooperation in entering into dialogue with us.

Professor Singer described himself to me as a preference utilitarian. That is, he holds that the criterion for a moral choice is the best way of balancing the needs, or interests, of the parties affected by a decision. But the parties, he insisted, include all sentient beings. Singer argued that suffering is suffering no matter what sentient creature is involved. To think otherwise, he claimed, is to discriminate on the grounds of species - a characteristic which is no more relevant to moral decision than, for instance, colour or sexual orientation.

I asked how he could hold that all species should be treated identically. “To be sure, the species differ in their characteristics and therefore in the degree of suffering they may endure. The rights, which is a popular but potentially misleading term, of non-human animals can’t by definition be human rights; so moral judgments will vary from species to species according to their natures, and the circumstances of the decision.” He clarified this for me with an example. “Should we have to choose between rescuing a mouse or a human being from death, we would - other things being equal - give preference to a human being. When it comes to a question of taking life, or allowing life to end, it matters whether a being is one who can see that he or she actually has a life - that is, can see that he or she is the same being who exists now, who existed in the past, and who will exist in the future. Such a being has more to lose than a being incapable of understanding this.”

But, and it was a significant point: “If, for example, the human being had suffered brain damage so severe as to be in an irreversible state of unconsciousness, then it might not be better to save the human.”

The uncompromising application of the criterion of suffering had already led us into controversial territory. I felt this took us further. His principle, it seemed, must lead to the human foetus, before the stage when it is capable of feeling, having no special status. He concurred firmly. “And even when its capacity for suffering is developed, this will be long before it has a sense of its continuance of existence, and so no claim can be made on the basis of that either. The mature ape will have greater awareness than the new-born baby and so merits preferable consideration. Though the pain that may be caused to relatives should be taken into account, of course. The same could be said of any human being who lacks awareness through mental defect.” I instanced the objections made about this view by so many people of substance and concern. But he did not resile.

“I think that every sentient being is entitled to equal consideration of his or her interests. The joys and the pains of intellectually disabled people should be given equal weight with the similar joys and pains of everyone else - and here ‘everyone’ includes both you and me, and non-human animals. I don’t think that is devaluing the intellectually disabled.

“On the other hand, just as I think it is less wrong to kill a dog, say, than a normal human being (because the dog has less awareness of its existence over time, and so has less of an interest in continuing to live) so I think humans who don’t have awareness of their interest over time have less of an interest in continuing to live. I’m open to other arguments, but it isn’t easy to see what can justify us in granting a more serious right to life to a severely intellectually disabled human than we give to a non-human animal at a similar, or even superior, mental level.”

How about the use of non-human animals for medical research? He thinks that much more effort should be put into other methods which involve less or no suffering but he would not necessarily exclude this if the balance were right. “A good test would be whether experimenters who use animals would be prepared to carry out their experiments on human beings at a similar mental level - say, those born with irreversible brain damage.”

I put it to him that he is often quoted by militant animal liberationists. But he told me that he had no sympathy with this. “They do harm to the cause. Animal Liberation can only achieve its objectives by winning the moral argument and persuading the public at large that it is right. Harassing people is not the way to do that.”

The concept of the sacrosanctity of human life, as Catholics would see it, is derived from a belief system which Singer rejects. It can only be translated as a special status given to the human being, at any stage in its life or mental competence, because it belongs to a particular species. So I asked him how he saw the Catholic view that humans have an obligation towards animals as God’s creatures, and that cruelty is not only a defiance of God but a corruption of the individual who chooses to inflict pain. It comes, he told me, very close to his objectives - although the basis differs.

So what are we to make of Professor Singer? At the very least we cannot question his sincerity. His views have been well and consistently worked out and he has maintained them against manifold attacks over the years. And even if we disagree, perhaps strongly, with his basic criterion and where it can lead, I think that many of us would share some of his key objectives. I am left with a comment from my daughter, a zoologist who has written much about the great apes: “I’m not worried about the philosophy, but if giving them formal rights means that they are protected from cruelty and enabled to prosper, then I am all for them.”

When St Paul speaks of filling up “those things that are wanting in the sufferings of Christ” he is saying that our own sufferings, patiently dedicated, become part of the Passion itself. I attended a Mass which was being offered for a mother of young children who had just been diagnosed with a fatal cancer. At the Elevation I suddenly saw the truth of Paul’s words, and I wrote this poem. The sufferer and Christ had become one.

This is my body, the high priest said,
And my blood, as he proffered the wine;
And I trembled in front of the chalice
For I saw the body was mine.
I had thought the price of my passion
Had satisfied sin and had won,
But the bread on the table was broken
With suffering yet to be done.
I had known the scourge and the nailing
I had known the rack of the tree;
And I saw them again in the chalice
That the high priest offered to me.

As we approach the final stages of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, and inevitably find ourselves in conversation with friends who oppose our views, we should prepare ourselves by looking at some of the issues which could be raised.

Several different questions might arise. The first is the claim that the conceptus (the product of conception) consists of no more than a cluster of undifferentiated cells, and so has no basis for special treatment. Another is that it is possible, at least before the formation of the primitive streak (about 14 days), for the conceptus to split into two identical twins, so that one cannot speak of an individual before that point. The third is that to speak of this conceptus as a person, and thus having the rights of a person before it is sufficiently formed to have a nervous system, let alone a brain capable of processing a person’s functions such as intelligence and free will, is plain nonsense.

Unsurprisingly, it is not helpful to respond merely by saying that the Church has held since earliest times that abortion is gravely wrong, and that the Catechism teaches that the human being has the right of a person from the time of conception, and also quote biblical passages to support this. Why should such an authority hold any weight with an unbeliever? It is necessary to answer with a little science and a little philosophy, expressed very simply of course, to show that our belief has a sound basis. And that is what I propose to do here.

The first moment for consideration is when a sperm enters the egg, shutting out its competing brothers. Quite recent research (of which many scientists seem to be unaware) demonstrates that the point of entry is related to the eventual axis of the baby. So we know that a rudimentary unity of organisation is present from the very beginning.

This is followed by a process in which the sperm and the egg, which each carry one of the original two sets of chromosomes, fuse these two sets resulting in daughter cells which carry the chromosomes of both father and mother, so creating unique instructions which form the blueprint for individual development until the day we die.

The conceptus then implants into the womb, using one part to form the placenta, and the other to develop as a human being. (Terms like foetus and embryo are useful for scientific discussion but don’t change the identity of the new individual.)
This human being is dependent on, and interacts with, the environment of the mother just as we continue to interact with different environments throughout our lives. It is in the mother, but not part of her; indeed it is even necessary for substances to be produced in order to control the mother’s immune system to stop the conceptus being rejected as a foreign body. Deliberately ejecting this individual from the only environment in which it can survive is not morally different from refusing it the necessities of life after it is born. However it may be emotionally different – which is why we have to keep clear, rational heads.

We all know that the major characteristics of a person are consciousness of self, intellectual understanding and freedom of will. And it is clear that at the early stages of development these faculties are not present. But they are still not fully present at much later stages. For example, moral responsibility – or the perception that we ought to do the good and avoid the evil – only develops in childhood. The severely mentally disabled may never develop them, and those who have developed them may lose them at some later stage. But we do not deny that a young child or someone who has lost his reason have rights as persons.

Following conception, the child holds these faculties in potential. I mean by this that it is ordered in such a way as to develop these faculties. No outside agent injects them, so they are inherent from the first stage, awaiting the time when gradual biological development gives them the means through which to work. No microscope, however powerful, can detect them because they are essentially spiritual: we only come to know them through their effects. In many hours of debate I have never met anyone who could explain how they could come about through biological evolution or even what form such an explanation could take.

I like to look at this from the other end too. Some 74 years ago I was no more than a conceptus. The cells of my body and brain have replicated over and over again. And yet I am the same person with the same continuing identity. I know that because if someone had snuffed me out at that stage I would have been deprived of a full life (and so would my children and grandchildren). Nor would I be writing this column.

The comparatively rare event of the conceptus splitting into identical twins, at least in the first few days of development, need not delay us long. In the days of Dolly the Sheep we are all familiar with the idea of cloning which can produce two separate individuals with identical DNA. There was one individual before, and two after. End of story.

I promised you a simple explanation, and I hope that I have provided one that could be understood by a child with little adult help. Of course those who are well-read in such matters might want to raise a number of points. But in the end I would claim it comes down to these simple ideas. But I am sure that users of this blog will want to comment, and so fill out some of the points I have not had space to make.

1 Words are like carpenter’s tools. Keep them sharp and use them precisely.

2 Words are like carpenter’s tools. You do not need many of them, but you must have enough to suit them to the job in hand.

3 Those who use the phrase ‘each and every..’ to magnify their statements only succeed in showing their unfamiliarity with the English language.

4 Even apparently educated people do not know the difference between ‘uninterested’ and ‘disinterested’. No American knows the difference, but then they lack a concept of disinterest.

5 Even apparently educated people do not know the difference between ‘refute’ and ‘rebut’.

6 If what you have written cannot be understood by a bright ten-year-old you have some re-writing to do.

7 Welcome criticism of your words or the clarity of your expressions. No man lives long enough to be a complete master of his own language