Moral and Social Philosophy (2)(MSP2)

Wednesday Lectures.

Tutor: Howard Taylor.x4508

H.G.Taylor@hw.ac.ukWeb page:FAITH AND THE MODERN WORLD

http://www.howardtaylor.net

MSP 2 Wednesday Classes.Tutor: Rev Howard Taylor(University Chaplain)Also teaches here:

– 1/3 of MSP 1, 1/3 of MSP 3.– ‘Philosophy of Science and Religion’ - (School of Management and Languages). – Takes Sunday Campus service. 11.30am Chaplaincy. Term time only.

Previously:– Parish Minister in West of Scotland - 17 years.– Visiting lecturer `International Christian College’ a University in

Shanghai.– Author of several small books/booklets.– 16 years in Malawi, Africa.

• Minister.• Theology lecturer• African Language teacher.• Maths and Physics lecturer: University of Malawi.

– Degrees from: Nottingham, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. • Married with three grown up sons and four grandsons and two

granddaughters.

MSP2 (Wednesday Classes) Three main subjects:

1. Introduction to Human Bioethics.

2. Challenges to Morality:

– Genetic Determinism and Sociobiology.

– Logical Positivism

3. Can the concepts of `Human Rights and Equality’ be a basis for moral decisions?

• The tutor does his best to be fair to all views - religious and non-religious.

• However in the interests of honesty he will explain what he believes.

• Although the tutor has his own religious convictions, the assessment of essays and tutorials will not be affected by a student's own different convictions.

• Knowledge of the subject and good argument are all important for assessment.

• Holding the same beliefs as, or different beliefs from, the tutor will not be relevant for module assessment.

An Introduction to some issues in Human Bioethics.

Relevant to this discussion is the nature of the ‘soul’ or ‘self’.

I discuss the self or soul’s nature and mystery in other modules - also in Power Point format.

Briefly, those who favour giving science freedom to advance in genetic technology emphasise the potential huge medical benefits, and those opposed emphasise the sanctity of life at its earliest stage and fear the ‘slippery slope’ into eugenics (attempts to produce the perfect ‘race’ and the dangers of discrimination against the ‘imperfect’.) practised by the Nazis.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research.

Abortion is not used to obtain these embryos.

Only ‘no-use’ In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) embryos are used for research. (They would otherwise be discarded.)

Many ova are removed from the womb and fertilised. Only one or two are returned to the womb.

The remainder are either discarded or available for experiments.

However in October 2005 ways were found to change the embryo so it would not be viable and therefore could not grow into a human and so be another self. It would then be harvested for stem cells. Or secondly the one harvested could still be re-implanted - even though one stem cell had been removed and stored for future use.

See article: Technical fixes may not solve Embryo Stem Cell ethical problems. By Donald Bruce.

What is IVF?

Use of artificial techniques to join an ovum with sperm outside (in vitro) woman's body to help infertile couples to have a children of their own. The basic technique of IVF involves removing ova from a woman's ovaries, fertilising them in the laboratory, and then inserting them into her uterus.

The first ‘test-tube baby’, Mary Louise Brown, was born in England in 1978.

Human Reproduction and differentiation.

Male sperm and female ovum combine to form new embryo.

The nucleus of this new embryo is a new DNA code which is derived from both mother and father.

For the first 14 days this embryo divides and multiplies but is not a miniature human being. It is more like a ‘recipe’. Each cell has the same DNA code.

Each cell has the potential to form any part of the body.

At 14 days, the cells ‘differentiate’.

Different parts of the code in each cell are switched off and so each cell now ‘knows’ what part of the body it is to form.

What differentiates a skin cell (say) from a heart cell (say) is the parts of the code that are switched off.

At this stage of ‘differentiation’ (a great mystery) we have the beginnings of a human being in miniature.

Reproductive Cloning - not used for humans yet.

A cell is removed from the skin (say) of a mature person and its DNA is put in the nucleus of a new cell (the cell’s own DNA nucleus having been removed.)

An electric current or chemical is used to fuse the new nucleus with the egg which is ‘tricked’ into accepting it.

This mature differentiated skin DNA then undifferentiates (how this happens is a mystery). New egg is put in the womb.

So now we have an egg with a DNA derived not from a loving relation between male and female but from one person’s skin (say). This is the ethical problem of reproductive cloning.

Baby will be a clone or twin of the life that gave cells of skin.

This process was used to produce ‘Dolly’ the sheep - which died early of old age related illnesses.

Reproductive cloning of humans is dangerous and illegal.

Therapeutic Cloning.

(Legal in UK but each case needs special permission)

Same procedure as above - but the new cell is only allowed to divide and grow up to 14 days - ie still in a pre-differentiated state.

In the 14 days stem cells are ‘harvested’ and cultured. Being undifferentiated, they can be used indefinitely as (1) a source of tissue for any part of the donor’s body or (2) for researching causes of, and cures for, diseases.

The stem cells have the same DNA code as the donor and therefore there is no danger of rejection of the implanted tissue.

These stem cells are not embryos - detached from the embryo’s outer layer, they have no potential to grow into babies.

For 14 days the embryo, before being killed, is a source of stem cells.

Hybrid Embryos (Animal and human) are in more use animal cells implanted with human DNA. These are in potentially more plentiful supply than human cells.

•See handout: Hybrid.doc

Ethical issues with therapeutic cloning involve:

(1) enormous health benefits to be gained.

(2) the status of this undifferentiated embryo - soon to be discarded.

Is it human?; deserving of some respect but not as a ‘human’?; deserving no respect?

Those who deny that it is human say that the pre-differentiated embryo can still be induced to form twins - so it is not one ‘self’.

Opponents say there is no need to use an artificially produced embryos to get stem cells. They are present in the blood and bone marrow of an adult.

Response: ‘yes’ but the embryonic stem cells are more flexible and easier to work with. Potential results from embryonic stem cells are greater than stem cells taken from mature bone marrow.

Embryo and Genetic Screening.

Should parents know in advance of any potential or certain genetic disease in their unborn baby?

A childhood disease, or for example, late onset Huntingdon's or Alzheimer's.

Would you like to know about your future?

If you were told you had a genetic disease should you have children?

If you already have children should you tell them?

Should your insurance company have the right to know?

What about information on government data bases and identity cards?

Embryo Screening and Abortion.

At present abortion for a diagnosed serious disease is allowed up to birth.

What counts as serious?

Slippery slope. Cleft pallet.

What about people with genetic defects we know? Should they have been killed in the womb?

Jessica.

PGD: Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis.

Diagnosis of genetic diseases in the embryo before it is implanted back into the womb.

PND: Pre Natal Diagnosis.

Diagnosis of potential genetic diseases before birth through extracting fluid from the mother’s womb.

This may lead to advice re possible abortion.

PGD is a technique that has been used in the UK for a number of years. Since the introduction of PGD thousands of children world wide have been born free from life-threatening conditions, such as cystic fibrosis or haemophilia, which otherwise would have severely threatened the quality of life. (Suzi Leather, Chair, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority - HFEA. November 2005)

My comment. Actually the embryos showing signs of disease have not been cured but killed. Then a new one (another physical being) has been born free from that disease.

Saviour Siblings.

(28th April 2005 - Law Lord’s back couple’s plea to create designer baby to cure son.)

Parents have a sick or dying child. A tissue match from a compatible child might cure him/her.

Several eggs taken from mother’s womb (some may have been left over from previous IVF) and a match is sought and found.

The match must be compatible but not contain the defective gene of the sick child. The other eggs are discarded.

Will the new child feel it was chosen just for its ‘spare parts’? Will it be happy or unhappy that it was born to save another, rather than born only for the normal reasons? Is the new child there as a commodity?

Surely its own attitude of self-giving or resentment will determine the answer as to how it develops as a human being.

Designer babies - a Post-Human Future?

If embryos can be selected for qualities that could help a sibling, what about other qualities such as: Gender, intelligence, height, athletic ability?

What about future science removing some of our feelings, e.g.: phobias, guilt feelings, feelings of horror at genetic engineering, revulsion that we are no longer human?

The powerful could engineer happy and content slaves who do not regret the loss of an earlier humanity.

Possibilities like these are taken very seriously by some academics especially Dr. Nick Bostrom of Oxford Uni who favours a post human future as long as the science is guided morally. (I asked him: Who guides the morality?) Other big names in this ‘transhumanism’ are Lee Silver, Joseph Fletcher, Linus Pauling, and James Rachels). See also: Couples may get chance to design the 'ideal' IVF baby.

A Christian Perspective.

Should humans play God?

All medical techniques involve interference with the course of a decaying physical nature. Maybe (being in the image of God) we are meant to be creative?

However God, in creating creatures in His image for love and fellowship did not clone Himself!

Christian theology cannot give all the answers to the difficult ethical questions. However we can say certain things about our humanity.

Image of God.

Relationship.

Reproduction should be from a loving committed relationship between a man and woman.

A Christian Perspective continued.

Our humanity is not an accident.

It is God’s purpose that we be human not post-human.

The image of God is best seen in Christ who is ‘the Image of the Invisible God’.(Colossians 1:15)

Christ’s identity with us goes back to his conception in the womb of Mary.

John the Baptist was ‘filled with the Spirit, even from his mother's womb.’ (Luke 1:15).

A Christian Perspective Continued.A few verses from Psalm 139.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance.

It is the exposition of these great facts of theology that should enable doctors and geneticists to have the perspective they need to make the ethical judgements they face.

Christian theology cannot determine all that is right and wrong in biotechnology but it can give the basis needed to make difficult decisions.

What about Genetic engineering and human identity?

See handouts:

• A Godless world finds identity in biology. (Times 20th January 2004).

• We should fear the disturbing future where man becomes superman. (Times 12th October 2004)

We briefly refer to the book:

‘Our Posthuman Future’ by Francis Fukuyama.

The book’s subject is the biotechnology revolution - its promises and dangers.

With developing techniques for genetic engineering and perhaps designer babies, we face the questions:

•What is it to be human?

•How do we differentiate between right and wrong?

Fukuyama considers the following approaches to the answers:

a. religion (we learn from God our true nature),

b. natural law (what we discern from nature),

c. positivism (customs and rules of society - made by us).

He dismisses positivism, skirts round religion and so chooses natural law.

Francis Fukuyama’s ‘Our Posthuman Future’ continued.

From nature Fukuyama believes we can discern a ‘factor X’ that uniquely is the essence of humanity:

It consists of a combination of: language, emotions, and the ability for abstract reasoning.

He concludes that any biotechnology must not interfere with these characteristics of our species. If they do they will have produced a ‘non-human’ being.

Even if he is right that these qualities do constitute true humanity, he does not say why they should be valued. Why should humanity be valued?

As philosophers since Hume realised one cannot get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ or ‘are’.

The statement: ‘This is what people ought to be’ does not follow from the statement: ‘this is what people are’.

Watch DVD on Biotechnology.

Challenges to Morality.1. Scientism and Genetic Determinism.

• Read Handout entitled: `What is Scientism?’

• Especially note the consequences for moral thinking which come from the quotations from Bertrand Russell and the Los Angeles judge.

• Our question is not: `Do Genes affect our behaviour?’ - Of course they do! The question is rather: `Could genes and other physical factors provide the complete explanation of why we behave as we do or is there, in addition, genuine free will?

Read Handout: `Moral credit where it is due’ by Janet Daley in the Daily Telegraph.– If genes entirely determine our bad behaviour,

do they also determine:

• our good behaviour?

• our opinions about the difference between good & bad?

• (How could we tell that my genes produce better behaviour than your genes? What standard could we use to determine what `better’ means?)

• the decisions that law makers make?

• the decisions law enforcers make about other people?

Sociobiology.• A fairly new theory, defined by Edward O. Wilson (one of its

main proponents) as the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behaviour. (Sociobiology: the New Synthesis,

1975 page 3.) It states that genetics and evolution are the main factors responsible, not only our existence, but also for our behaviour and sense of right and wrong.

– In his book Consilience Wilson expounds this.• See my critical review (published in the journal: Philosophia

Christi). The review is also on my web pages.

• Sometimes supporters of Sociobiology say we actually exist for the benefit and propagation of our genes. – (E.g.: Richard Dawkins’ book: The Selfish Gene and quotations

from Dawkins and Wilson - next slide.)

We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA … Flowers are for the same thing as everything else in the living kingdoms, for spreading ‘copy me’ programmes about, written in DNA language. This is EXACTLY what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self sustaining process. It is every living objects’ sole reason for living. (Richard Dawkins: ‘The Ultraviolet Garden’, Royal Institution Christmas Lecture No. 4, 1991)

The individual organism is only the vehicle (of genes), part of an elaborate device to preserve and spread them with the least possible biochemical perturbation .. The organism is only DNA’s way of making more DNA. (E. O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Harvard University Press, 1975, p. 3.)

(I owe these quotations to Denis Alexander’s ‘Rebuilding the Matrix’ p. 274)

See handout ‘A New Religion’ by David Stove.

• Critics say Sociobiology:– threatens our motivation to change the

world for the better.

– turns genes into new kinds of ‘gods’ for whose purpose we live!

• A long article, available on request, is:– Against Sociobiology - by Tom Bethell

(Senior Editor of the American Spectator)

Read handout: ALL IN THE GENES ? by physics professor Russell Stannard.

• The theory of evolution and survival of the fittest possibly could be used to explain some forms of altruism - in humans and animals.

• However there are other kinds of altruism that could not have come from `survival of the fittest.’

• How can the altruism, that has no physical survival value, be explained?

• My question:• Suppose our sense of morality could, one day, be

explained completely by our biological make up, does that mean that there is no such thing as intrinsic good and intrinsic evil, so that cruelty (say) is not in itself evil - its just that we don’t like it?

Before we move on to consider Positivism we consider some words of Bertrand Russell in his Introduction to his History of Western Philosophy.

All definite knowledge belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man's Land, .. this No Man's Land is philosophy. Almost all the questions of most interest to speculative minds are such as science cannot answer, and the confident answers of theologians no longer seem convincing .... …(The questions are:) Is the world divided into mind and matter, and, if so what is mind and what is matter? Is mind subject to matter, or is it possessed of independent powers? Has the universe any unity or purpose? Is it evolving towards some goal? Are there really laws of nature, or do we believe in them only because of our innate love of order? Is man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water impotently crawling on a small unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is he perhaps both at once? Is there a way of living that is noble and another that is base, or are all ways of living merely futile? If there is a way of living that is noble. In what does it consist, and how shall we achieve it? Must the good be eternal in order to deserve to be valued, or is it worth seeking even if the universe is inexorably moving towards death? … To such questions no answer can be found in the laboratory. …. The studying of these questions, if not the answering of them, is the business of philosophy.

A further look at Bertrand Russell’s questions that he says cannot be answered from science.

(1) Questions in blue raise fundamental mysteries.

• Is the world divided into mind and matter, or are mind and physical brain identical?– If the mind is not merely physical matter,

what is it?

– And what is physical matter? (Quantum mechanics and String theory expose the inherent mystery)

A further look at Bertrand Russell’s questions that he says cannot be answered from science. (2)

• Does nature have a purpose?– If there is a purpose, can this purpose be

understood from within nature or does it imply a transcendent reality for which it exists?

– Do good and evil exist as objective realities or are they just the product of the way we, as individuals or societies, have developed?

– For example: • Is cruelty to children evil in itself (intrinsically evil) or

is it just that we don’t like it?• Are courage and kindness good in themselves

(intrinsically good), or is it just that we like them?

Here is a statement attributed to Russell:– "Whatever knowledge is attainable must be

obtainable by scientific method. What science cannot discover mankind cannot know".

– Think about that statement. – Why is it illegitimate to make such a

statement?– Here is the answer:– The statement itself cannot be proved from

science. • Therefore, if it is true we can't know that it is true!

– In other words it refutes itself.

Challenges to Morality.2. Logical Positivism

First what is meant by ‘Positivism’?

Francis Bacon (17th C) and Comte (19th C)• We should not ask metaphysical questions re First

Causes, etc– The original `matter’ from which the universe is formed is

inexplicable.

– We will never find an explanation for its existence.

• We should assume that the ultimate matter of the universe is `positive’ ie:– Its origin and purpose are not susceptible to philosophy and

reason so the universe must simply be accepted and scientifically examined as it is.

The mystery of existence and Positivism.

• Metaphysical enquiries asking such questions as `Why is there matter and energy? or What is the purpose of it all? are beyond us, – Therefore we should only think about what

science can reveal by experiment..

• If God exists why does He exist? Was He created?– Whether or not God exists we are face to face

with the mystery:Why does anything exist at all?

Positivism says: Don’t Even bother to ask. These things are beyond us. Just accept things as they are and let science get on with its job.

However can we really avoid these questions that science cannot answer? Scientists and philosophers can’t help thinking about these things:Stephen Hawking:`Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?’JJC Smart (atheist philosopher): Why should anything exist at all? - it is for me a matter of the deepest awe.

The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as of all serious endeavour in art and in science.... He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind.

The sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is.

Albert Einstein (Speech to the German League of Human Rights (Berlin 1932).

Also in our lead up to Logical Positivism we mention David Hume. (18th Century)

• Only two forms of knowledge: •Knowledge from Logic/Mathematics

•Knowledge from Sense Experience eg scientific experiment.

–Everything else meaningless.

Early 20th Century: Vienna Circle and British Atheist philosopher A.J. Ayer (author of the book Language Truth and Logic).

revived and developed Hume’s views. Logical Positivism (a form of atheism) was the result. It is based on its Verification Principle which says that:

If we cannot imagine an experiment to verify or falsify a statement then that statement is meaningless.

Logical Positivism continued• From the Verification Principle it

follows that:–Statements about morality are not

false they are meaningless.

•The statement: ‘Stealing is morally wrong’ has no objective meaning - it is just an expression of how I feel.

•This leads to:

Emotivism: Moral propositions are really expressions of one's own likes and dislikes.

`X is right' only reveals something about the person who utters the statement - the state of his emotions - he approves of X. ‘X is right’ is a claim about the psychology of the speaker not about the real moral value of X.

Logical Positivism continued

• `The jug is red', or `The door squeaks or `the pig is smelly' or `the man is clever', - all these statements can be verified or falsified by experiment and therefore have meaning.

• `The painting is good' cannot be verified or falsified by experiment, neither can `Stealing is evil' – Therefore both are meaningless statements.

• Problems with Logical Positivism.– Does this verification principle make

sense?• If an insane person feels right about

committing a murder does that mean that there was nothing wrong with it?

• Or if someone committed a murder so that no one knew there had been a murder so that the only person to have any feeling about the murder was the murderer himself - does that mean that there was nothing wrong with the murder?

Logical Positivism concluded.

• The main problem with Logical Positivism:– It refutes itself.

• The Verification Principle itself cannot be verified or falsified by scientific experiment.

• Therefore if it is true it is meaningless - which is nonsense.

– Thus almost all philosophers now recognise that Logical Positivism (which had a major influence on 20th C philosophy) cannot be right.

– Even A. J. Ayer himself came to realise that.

Can the concepts of –Human Rights

–and Equality

be the foundations upon which a just and moral society is built?

===============But first we consider the traditional view of

the ultimate source of justice and morality and how it relates to a nation’s laws.

Traditional view of a nation’s source of its sense of justice and the right ordering of

society:

Goodness is the character of God shown, not primarily in a list of rules, but in His deeply personal dealings with us.

–For a Christian the Bible is the account of this.

–For a Christian this goodness is focussed in the Person of Christ in whom God comes face to face with us.

At the heart of that goodness is the self-giving love of God.

We are called to love as He loves us. From this comes our duties of respect for justice and the dignity of our fellow human beings and all creation.

In our yet imperfect world God knows we still need laws so, He gives them to us.(E.g..10 Commandments)

The Source of Goodness - Old and New.God - His goodness and

laws.• Laws of the State as far as

possible are in harmony with that goodness and Law of God– State legislation gives

certain rights in certain contexts.

• E.g. the ‘right’ of way at a crossroads.

• But such a ‘right’ is not a fundamental human right.

The Concept of Human Rights replaces God.

• As in a religion people are reluctant to challenge this new ‘god’.– Government legislation is

subject to ‘Human Rights’ legislation. (European Court of Justice in Luxembourg).

– Where there is conflict between this Court and UK Government, ‘Human Rights’ has the final say.

Background to the modern revival of the concept of Human Rights.

– Some governments treat their citizens terribly:

– Dictatorships - fear of losing control • Imprisonment without trial, torture, killings,

disappearances, genocide.

– 1961 ‘Amnesty International’ was founded to campaign for the release of prisoners of conscience.

• I.e. prisoners who had committed no crime, nor advocated violence but were in prison for their political or religious beliefs.

• it was not until the rise and fall of Nazi Germany that the idea of rights--human rights--came truly into its own. – The laws authorising the dispossession and

extermination of Jews and other minorities, the laws permitting arbitrary police search and seizure, the laws condoning imprisonment, torture, and execution without public trial--these and similar obscenities brought home the realisation that certain actions are wrong, no matter what; human beings are entitled to simple respect at least.

(Taken from an Encyclopaedia Britannica article)

Some milestones in the recent history of Human Rights:• The Charter of the United Nations (1945) begins by

reaffirming a "faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small."

• In 1950, the Council of Europe agreed to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. This led to the creation of the European Commission of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights.

• Later the European Court of Justice was set up. It has authority over national governments if it believes their actions or legislation contravenes Human Rights.

NB MSP students will not be examined on their knowledge of the history or detailed contents of these conventions, charters - etc. The above is for background information only. What matters for the exam is an understanding of the philosophical questions that arise from the concept of ‘Rights’

Narrow & Broad Interpretations of Human Rights.(1)

• Narrow: Human Rights are relevant only to such things as `imprisonment without trial’, a ‘fair trial’, government sponsored torture, persecution on the grounds of beliefs etc.

Narrow & Broad Interpretations of Human Rights.(2)

• An example of a Broad Interpretation of ‘Rights’: Christmas period 2000. Some Perthshire parents demanded their children’s ‘right’ to privacy and successfully asked the Council to forbid the taking of photos during school nativity plays. Other parents who wanted the ‘right’ to photograph a significant event in their child’s life were disappointed.– Does the concept of human rights give any help in

settling disputes such as this?– Does Human Rights mean ‘human desires’?

• No, but people will try to say that their desires are their rights!

• How will the courts decide?– This is one of the main problems of the concept.

Further back in history (in America):Thomas Jefferson (3rd President of USA) said Americans

are a "free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature and not as the gift of their Chief Magistrate."

This gave poetic eloquence to the plain prose of the 17th century in the Declaration of Independence proclaimed by the 13 American Colonies on July 4, 1776: "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.”

In the first quotation above ‘rights’ derive from nature itself. (By the way what does that mean?)

The second quotation says that our rights derive from God.

Neither says ‘rights’ derive from a government or nation state.

The idea of human rights as natural rights was not without its detractors.

Because they were conceived in essentially absolutist terms --"inalienable," "unalterable," "eternal"--, natural rights were found increasingly to come into conflict with one another.

(what if my ‘right’ to do something impinges on your ‘rights’?)

Also the doctrine of natural rights came under powerful philosophical attack.

For example, David Hume (18th C sceptical philosopher) said the concept belonged to metaphysics - ie could not be verified by science and therefore was invalid.

(Taken from an Encyclopaedia Britannica article)

• Some of the most basic questions have yet to receive conclusive answers.

• Whether human rights are to be validated by intuition, or custom, or a particular sociological theory.

• whether they are to be understood as irrevocable or partially revocable;

• whether they are to be broad or limited in number and content

– Issues such as these are matters of ongoing debate.

– Most assertions of human rights are qualified by the limitation that the rights of any particular individual or group are restricted as much as is necessary to secure the comparable rights of others. (Taken from an Encyclopaedia Britannica article)

Some Complications and difficulties:• What is the difference between a desire and a right?

• Is there a right to do as we wish with our bodies in private?

– Does what I do in private affect society at large - now or in the future? Some theories of human society say it may do.

• Abortion - whose right - mother's or the unborn?

• When does the right to freedom of speech:

– breach the right of someone to be protected from what he regards as offensive?

– propagate evil and harm society.• Does not a mere list of rights, trying to describe the dignity

of a person in terms of needs/wants depersonalise him/her?

These dilemmas are faced in the following articles from the Times and Sunday Times:

• Handout `Fundamentalism and Human Rights.

• Handout: Cleaning up in court: the flood of legal action set to engulf Britain.

• Handout: Human rights - by Cardinal Basil Hume

Criticism of the concept of Human Rights by Lesslie Newbigin in his book: ‘Foolishness to

the Greeks’ especially:The Right to … the pursuit of happiness.

• But what is true happiness ?– If we can’t ask the Question:

• “What is the purpose of man’s existence?”

• then happiness is whatever each person defines it as.

– Without belief in heaven or hell the pursuit of happiness is carried out in the few short uncertain years before death.

– Often leading to a hectic search for happiness leading to great anxiety

Criticism, (continued) of the concept of Human Rights by Leslie Newbigin especially:

The Right to … the pursuit of happiness.

• If everyone claims the right to life, liberty & happiness– who is under obligation to honour this

claim ?

• Middle Ages - there were reciprocal rights & duties. – Rights & duties went hand in hand and

both were finite.

Criticism, (continued) of the concept of Human Rights by Leslie Newbigin especially:

The Right to … the pursuit of happiness.• But quest for happiness is infinite (we are

always wanting more from life)

- who has the infinite duty to honour the infinite claims?

- The answer is perceived to be the nation state.

- Demands on the state are without limit.

- Nation state has taken the place of God as the source to which many look for happiness.

Criticism (continued) of the concept of Human Rights by Leslie Newbigin especially:

The Right to … the pursuit of happiness. Should I claim my ‘wants’ as ‘rights’? Or

should it be my ‘needs’ that are my `rights’? My wants may be (and often are)

irrational; I can (and often do) want things that

would not in the end bring me lasting happiness.

My real needs - what I need to reach my true end - may be different from the wants I feel.

Criticism (continued) of the concept of Human Rights by Leslie Newbigin especially:

The Right to … the pursuit of happiness.

The political left usually desire to provide for our needs, whereas the political right want to allow us to make up our own minds and therefore be governed by our wants.

The argument of the political left assumes that need creates a right that has priority over the wants of those who wish to pursue personal happiness in the way they choose.

Criticism continued of the concept of Human Rights by Leslie Newbigin especially:

The Right to … the pursuit of happiness.

• Difficulties immediately appear:

– ‘Needs’ can be accorded priority over ‘wants’ only if there is some socially accepted view of the goal of human existence. in other words, a socially accepted

doctrine of the nature and destiny of the human being.

Such a socially accepted doctrine is excluded by the dogma of pluralism that controls post-Enlightenment society.

Lesslie Newbigin on Equality We are all equal in our basic need for survival; this is the

need we share with the animals. But to be human means to need other things -respect,

honour, love. These needs, social rather than merely biological, call

precisely for differentiation rather than for equality. There are different kinds of respect, honour, and love we

owe to teachers, colleagues, parents, friends, wife, husband, children.

It is this kind of differentiated respect, honour, and love that makes life human.

An undifferentiated acknowledgement of the basic biological needs of a human being does not.

And these things - respect, honour, and love - cannot be claimed as rights.

Is the word `rights' the right word? If `yes' address the problems and answer

them. If `no' provide another way of expressing

the belief in correct treatment of one-another.

• Alternative way of expressing the belief in correct treatment of one-anotherDuty. We have duties to one another:

What God values and loves I must value and love.

Whereas each person demanding ‘rights’ tends to separate us into rival isolated individuals; each person having a ‘duty’ to others unites us in relationships.

The previous question continued:

Is the word `rights' the right word? If `yes' address the problems and answer

them. If `no' provide another way of expressing

the belief in correct treatment of one-another.

The concept of human rights has been useful in challenging cruel governments about their behaviour but can it really be the basis of:moral decision making?Government policy making?

A Message from the Bible:

For our sake God Himself surrendered His rights and entered our suffering and death so as to forgive us and lift us up to Him.

Christ did not count His equality with God something to hold on to but He surrendered it for us:

(An actual text is in the next slide):

The Text from the Bible:Phil 2:3-11 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain

conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name …

Now to some quotations:

The modern cultivation of human rights in the West began in earnest in the 1940's when both Christianity and the Enlightenment seemed incapable of delivering on their promises. In the middle of the twentieth century, there was no second coming of Christ promised by Christians, no heavenly city of reason promised by enlightened libertarians, no withering away of the state promised by enlightened socialists. Instead, there was world war, gulags, and the Holocaust - a vile and evil fascism and irrationalism to which Christianity and the Enlightenment seemed to have no cogent response or effective deterrent.•The modern human rights movement was thus born out of desperation in the aftermath of World War II. It was an attempt to find a world faith to fill a spiritual void. It was an attempt to harvest from the traditions of Christianity and the Enlightenment the rudimentary elements of a new faith and a new law that would unite a badly broken world order.

•John Witte, Jr*, The Spirit of the Laws, the Laws of the Spirit, in Stackhouse & Browning (eds), God and Globalization, Vol.2

John Witte Jnr is Director, Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion at Emory University (2000- )

John Witte Jnr is Director, Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion at Emory University (2000- )

'What effect does this … have upon the conception of justice? It dissolves its unity and coherence by replacing it with a plurality of 'rights'. The language of subjective rights (i.e. rights which adhere to a particular subject) has, of course, a perfectly appropriate and necessary place within a discourse founded on law… What is distinctive about the modern conception of rights, however, is that subjective rights are taken to be original, not derived. The fundamental reality is a plurality of competing, unreconciled rights, and the task of law is to harmonise them… The right is a primitive endowment of power with which the subject first engages in society, not an enhancement which accrues to the subject from an ordered and politically formed society.'

•Oliver O'Donovan, The Desire of the Nations

Oliver O'Donovan is Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology, Oxford

Oliver O'Donovan is Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology, Oxford

Summary of a Christian Judge’s view*: • Our sense of morality should give rise to legislation

enacted by governments. E.g. our sense that it is wrong to steal will give rise to laws forbidding stealing.

• Laws also regulate how we should behave in certain contexts so as to preserve an ordered society. Such legislation will give certain people rights in certain contexts. – For example at a crossroads law gives some the right of way.

– However this is not a fundamental human right which gives rise to a law. It is the result of a law for a particular situation.

• Rights should occur in the context of the law of the land but not be considered as the source of morality itself.

• However some European governments (eg UK) have reversed this and given the European Human Rights Convention preference over the legislation of parliaments.

The Judge was Jeremy Cooke at the Sept 2002 Oxford Conference on Human Rights.

The Judge was Jeremy Cooke at the Sept 2002 Oxford Conference on Human Rights.

The world found nothing sacred in the abstract nakedness of being human. And in view of objective political conditions, it is hard to say how the concepts of man upon which human rights are based - that he is created in the image of God (in the American formula), or that he is the representative of mankind, or that he harbours within himself the sacred demands of natural law (in the French formula) - could have helped to find a solution to the problem. The survivors of the extermination camps …. could see… that the abstract nakedness of being nothing but human was their greatest danger.

• Hannah Arendt*, The Origins of Totalitarianism

• Human dignity is the foundation for nurturing and protecting human rights. It is rooted in the vision of the 'fullness of life' promised in the incarnation of Jesus Christ and his identification with all humankind. We must be reminded that human dignity is something persons have, not something they must earn or be granted. Dignity is not a quality bestowed on others by the family, by society, or by a government. Rather, dignity is a reality as a consequence of God's good creation and never-ending love. This reality requires acknowledgement and respect.

• Robert A. Evans, Human Rights in a Global Context

Contemporary moral experience …. has a paradoxical character. For each of us is taught to see himself or herself as an autonomous moral agent; but each of us also becomes engaged by … manipulative relationships with others. Seeking to protect the autonomy that we have learned to prize, we aspire ourselves not to be manipulated by others; ... we find no way open to us to do so except by directing towards others those very manipulative modes of relationship which each of us aspires to resist in our own case. The incoherence of our attitudes arises from the incoherent conceptual scheme which we have inherited. Once we have understood this, it is possible to understand also the key place that the concept of rights has in the distinctively modern moral scheme……the culture of bureaucratic individualism results in ... political debates being between individualism which makes its claims in terms of rights and forms of bureaucratic organisation which make their claims in terms of utility. But if the concept of rights and that of utility are a matching pair of incommensurable fictions, it will be the case that the moral idiom employed can at best provide a semblance of rationality for the modern political process, but not its reality. The mock rationality of the debate conceals the arbitrariness of the will and power at work in its resolution. (Alister MacIntyre, After Virtue)

What would it mean to come to a genuine, unforced international consensus on human rights? I suppose it would be something like what Rawls describes in his Political Liberalism as an 'overlapping consensus'. That is, different groups, countries, religious communities, civilizations, while holding incompatible fundamental views on theology, metaphysics, human nature, etc., would come to an agreement on certain norms that ought to govern human behaviour. Each would have its own way of justifying this from out of its profound background conception. We would agree on the norms, while disagreeing on why they were the right norms. And we would be content to live in this consensus, undisturbed by the differences of profound underlying belief….

Is this kind of consensus possible? Perhaps because of my optimistic nature, I believe that it is. But we have to confess at the outset that it is not entirely clear around what the consensus would form, and we are only beginning to discern the obstacles we would have to overcome on the way there.

Charles Taylor, Conditions of an Unforced Consensus on Human Rights

Handout: Human Rights and Justice - Roger Scruton.

Rights and Equality - a Christian alternative: Sometimes we are called to

surrender our rights and make sacrifices in order that we might help others.

The Biblical injunction to me is not to claim equality but to count others as deserving of greater honour.

However the kind of honour and love we give and receive is different for different people.

Rights and Equality - a Christian alternative - concluded:

A good society is one where we honour one another in ways appropriate to our relationships of being. I give a different love and a different honour

to different persons depending on whether the person is my parent, child, grandparent, teacher, pupil, colleague, employer, employee, spouse, or friend.

In these relationships we find our true human destiny and happiness.