the salt makers

Here's the dirty little secret that societies tend not to talk about: the question of what is alive (in a moral sense) is something that we define, not something objective that we discover.

Further, even if we agree that something is alive, we still must answer the question of whether it is immoral to kill it. This too, is moulded by social convention. It is not a concept that is forever unchanging. It must be applied selectively depending on our culture, our situation, and so on. I will expand on this claim at the end. For now, consider these test cases.

1 In nomadic tribes, a man becomes too injured to keep up with his tribe. Such a man will sometimes be left to die. Various cultures (our own) find this reprehensible.

2 A man in our society is mentally handicapped. Regardless of his level of mental retardation, we say that he is alive and we are obligated to support him. Is this attitude universal? Assuredly not.

3 A baby is born with a serious defect. In our society, we will raise and care for the baby. In all parts of the ancient world, the baby would often be left to die of exposure.

4 A man in an ancient army flees from battle. His generals consider him dead. Upon finding the man, they kill him without a second thought, or perhaps torture him so he may serve some use.

5 A boy in ancient Persia is homeless and destitute. He steals food from a farmer. Will the farmer consider the boy to be morally alive? Will he think that the boy deserves life?

6 Some years ago a man in our own country beat his dog with a bat then buried it alive in wet cement. (meanwhile, my friend Kathy will not eat meat, dairy, or honey)

In which of these scenarios is the subject morally alive? In which scenario does the subject deserve life? I read on facebook the other day that, "life probably doesn't begin until age 4 or 5, because who can remember being a baby?" Suffice to say, people have different definitions of life. This has nothing to do with one group of people "erring on the side of life." It has everything to do with differing definitions.

You, my friend, do this yourself. You eat meat. You support capital punishment. Why do you fall on that side of the spectrum? Perhaps it is convenient. You can eat a hamburger for lunch. You can see bad people being killed and feel good, like the world is neat and orderly.

Of course, I'm fucking with you. I know that you don't believe these things out of convenience.

You eat meat because you have made the (correct) judgment that animals are not morally alive. Keep in mind that living a vegan life is not really that hard. The convenience of being an omnivore is somewhat trivial. So if you truly wanted to "err on the side of life" then you should logically be a vegan, because can you really be sure that animals aren't alive? You can claim that you are sure, but then, a pro-choice feminist can claim that she is sure that fetuses aren't alive, and with equal validity.

You support capital punishment because it does good. It removes the cancer from our society and inhibits other citizens from turning cancerous. Ultimately, we believe that it saves life, and serves the greater good. As you know quite well, I am tolerant of abortion for the exact same reason.

So that's all the preliminary stuff. Now I can attack the three scenarios without wasting much space.

Example 1: Free yourself and possibly kill an innocent.
I would most certainly not free myself, because I would be afraid of killing someone. But who am I afraid of killing? Let me alter your scenario a little bit.

New Example 1: Ethan captures me and presents me with a red button. If I press it, someone might die. If not, I'm trapped for six months. I ask him "Who will be killed?" Ethan answers "Someone chosen from a random sampling of rappers, terrorists, criminals, wifebeaters, meatheads who hang out at the Bulldog, drug addicts, socialist authors, unwanted fetuses in the first trimester, cancer patients with less than a day to live, and hard-line Iranian nationalists."

I think to myself, "Hmm... I don't really want to kill the cancer patient, and I'm somewhat taken aback by the fetuses. But the reward is surely worth the risk." And I slam that mother fucker all day long.

Example 2: Demolish a building and possibly kill a person.
I would most certainly not demolish the building, because we can oust the schmuck who's in there and then take care of business. But terminating a pregnancy is not like that. We can't decide not to abort temporarily. It's a final decision. So what if your example was scructured this way...

New Example 2: If I do not demolish the building, then the new construction project will never be built. The new construction project is a much-needed hospital, funded by the selfish prick Google owners.

I think to myself, "Who is that dumb shit in that building. Well, whoever he is, he's fucked." Kaboom.

Example 3: Kill myself to avoid music-induced insanity.
I would kill myself.


Now for my claim that "morally alive" is not an unchanging concept.

As we have seen, deciding if something "morally alive" is not the same as deciding whether or not the thing is alive, or whether or not the thing is human. If we took that stance, then we could not dish out corporal punishment or fight in a war. So we can throw out that criteria.

The next criteria is whether or not it is good for the subject to be alive. This is synonymous with saying, "will extinguishing the life of the subject serve the greater good." And this question, of course, depends on our culture, our situation, and so on.