The Utilitarian Road to Hell, or, Auschwitz with a Happy Face: The Value of a Person

In the New York Sunday Times Magazine this past Sunday (July 19, 2009) there was an article by the famous (or, infamous) ethicist, Peter Singer. Singer is a professor at Princeton University and is well known for his stand on "animal rights". Dr. Singer has stated on numerous occasions that there are times when an animal's rights outweigh those of human beings--for instance in a fire it might be more ethical to save the life of a well trained seeing eye dog and leave a new born infant, retarded adult, or Alzheimer's patient in the inferno to die. The dog, in this case, would have greater "utility" to society than any of the aforementioned human beings.

In his article this past Sunday Singer actually comes off sounding considerably less controversial--at first glance. He does not vent against human "speciesism" and does not mention animals at all. His whole point is to advocate for the rationing of health care (the article is titled, "Why We Must Ration Healthcare". Before I go on to explain why I believe that Singer's rationale is an example of the diabolical nature of utilitarian ethics, I will let him speak for himself. The following quote is taken from the article:

“As a first take, we might say that the good achieved by health care is the number of lives saved. But that is too crude. The death of a teenager is a greater tragedy than the death of an 85-year-old, and this should be reflected in our priorities. We can accommodate that difference by calculating the number of life-years saved, rather than simply the number of lives saved. If a teenager can be expected to live another 70 years, saving her life counts as a gain of 70 life-years, whereas if a person of 85 can be expected to live another 5 years, then saving the 85-year-old will count as a gain of only 5 life-years. That suggests that saving one teenager is equivalent to saving 14 85-year-olds.”

Thus, the value of a human life can be calculated quite precisely in terms of "the value of life years saved". The math makes sense and many people would (are) tempted to accept it as a reasonable basis for making medical decisions.

But, wait, the mathematical value of a human life is not just measured in the number of years lived, it has a quality value, too--which can also be quantitatively measured:

“Health care does more than save lives: it also reduces pain and suffering. How can we compare saving a person’s life with, say, making it possible for someone who was confined to bed to return to an active life? We can elicit people’s values on that too. One common method is to describe medical conditions to people — let’s say being a quadriplegic — and tell them that they can choose between 10 years in that condition or some smaller number of years without it. If most would prefer, say, 10 years as a quadriplegic to 4 years of nondisabled life, but would choose 6 years of nondisabled life over 10 with quadriplegia, but have difficulty deciding between 5 years of nondisabled life or 10 years with quadriplegia, then they are, in effect, assessing life with quadriplegia as half as good as nondisabled life. (These are hypothetical figures, chosen to keep the math simple, and not based on any actual surveys.) If that judgment represents a rough average across the population, we might conclude that restoring to nondisabled life two people who would otherwise be quadriplegics is equivalent in value to saving the life of one person, provided the life expectancies of all involved are similar” (emphasis mine)

Once again, the math makes sense and a lot of people will--perhaps with some discomfort--accept it as a reasonable demonstration of rational rationing of health care. In a few sentences, it seems, Dr. Singer has dismissed two millennia of Christian ethics. He writes off the "infinite value of each human life" as being mere "feel good" rhetoric that has, at best, symbolic value and, at worst, can be "deeply unethical".

To be fair, Singer would be one of the first to admit that the core value of utilitarian ethics--the greatest good for the greatest number with the least amount of suffering--might still cause immense suffering for the few (how ever they are defined). He does not attempt to hide the full impact of his belief system from anyone--himself included. And President Obama, when he suggested that it might be better for an 85 year old in need of surgery to be given pain-killers, seems to have been taking a very similar stand. Of course, we can be sure that such extreme honesty will be tempered in the future with all sorts of qualifications--mostly to pacify the sort of politician who needs to affirm his or her personal value for all human beings while affirming that for budgetary purposes lines have to be drawn to save the tax payer's money. (They are the same politicians who oppose abortion personally, but will vote for appropriations to pay for abortions because they respect a woman's "right" to choose.)

It goes without saying that utilitarian ethics are a great evil from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Our Lord Jesus Christ clearly stated that we will be judged according to how we treat "the least of our brothers and sisters"--not as a class of people, but as unique human persons. On the Day of Judgment we will not be asked questions about "life years" and "quality years"--we will simply be asked how we treated Martha, Kwasi, Timothy, and Maria; in others words, how we treated unique human beings with names and faces.

For Christians, ethics is never about numbers but about people. Human beings can never be reduced to classes and quantities--one would have thought that the monstrous regimes of the twentieth century would have taught us that much. Yes, each and every person is of infinite value which is why every system that attempts to quantify the value of anyone according to his or her age, condition, social status, intelligence, or "utility" (not to mention, race, gender, religion, 'orientation', or anything else) is ultimately profoundly evil.

The sad thing is that this world view is rapidly being eroded even among those who say that they are believers. Decades of indoctrination in the public and private schools of this country, the two faced deceitfulness of our political leaders, and the paradoxical destruction of the value of the person even as we uphold the "rights" of the "individual" has left most Americans very poorly equipped to argue against the rationalizations of men like Peter Singer. And, perhaps the bottom line is few of us really want to when we look at the cost--the price of resistance. For most of us it really is about the money--even if we are too squeamish to say so. That's why Singer's theories will probably win the day and well will continue on our (not so long) march to charnel house.

But...what if we were to just say No? This might all be turned around if one of the biggest voices in our society was to speak up loudly and clearly...and really, just say "NO!"

Stay tuned.

The Utilitarian Road to Hell, or, Auschwitz with a Happy Face: Introduction

This is the first in what will be a series of meditations from a theological, polemical (defense of the faith against hostile opponents), and political perspective on the proposed new National Health Care system and its philosophical roots in a system of ethics called "utilitarianism".

An 18th century philosopher named Jeremy Benthen stated, “It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.” Others have him stating, "the greatest good to the greatest number with the least amount of suffering". This worldview has essentially become the dominant world view in the United States and Western Europe since the end of World War II (at the latest). And it is a world view that is leading us quickly down the road to a living hell for millions of people (who do not have the good fortune of being in the majority). Why is this? Stay tuned and you'll find out!

Church & State

The Orthodox Church has a very long history of engaging the state. In the Byzantine period there was a symphony between the secular power and the Church. In fact, there was no such thing as the "secular" as we understand it today--the entire society was "religious"--but there was a definite balance between the political power of the state and the spiritual power of the Church. This symphony continued into the Russian imperial period until the Church was forcibly submitted to secular power under Peter I ("the Great"). After this the spiritual power of the Church was increasingly marginalized. The situation became infinitely worse after the Communist Revolution.

Now, no one in the 21st century United States would ever imagine a "symphony" between the secular political power and the Orthodox Church. We are virtually invisible to the government (and, unfortunately to the majority of the citizenry). Yet, we have the unique freedom to address the state in open and uncensored criticism. In a real sense, it is our duty to do so.

Does this mean that we are always a voice in opposition? No, not always. But I submit that most of the time we will be. And this is the way it should be. Even in the so called "Golden Age" of the Orthodox polity--in Byzantium and Pre-Petrine Russia--the Church was most often a voice "calling in the wilderness". What was it calling the state/society to do? To repent, of course!

The Church always has a political message--but it is not one "of this world". The Kingdom we proclaim is the Kingdom of God, not of any human being or any political party, per se.

That being said, given the position taken by various political parties and leaders, it can be fairly admitted that some parties and leaders are more closely aligned with Orthodox values (family, sanctity of life, etc.) than others. But NO political party or leader represents the Church in its entirety.

In this country, in recent decades, the Republican Party has stood for moral values that are more closely aligned with the Church's values in the areas of sanctity of life and family. That could change in a moment, so it could never be said that the Republican Party is the Church's party. On the other hand, the Democrat Party could one day return its roots as the supporter of the weak and upholder of the common people (weak as in infants and pre-born babies, common people as in the family men and women who make up the back bone of any healthy society). One never knows.

In the meantime, the last thing we can afford to do is to retreat into a "safe" corner and refrain from political engagement. Whenever the Church has become disengaged from politics, either due to laziness or by force, the result has been disaster both for society and for believers.

A Disengaged Church?

Sensible Joe has published a response to my latest political 'rant'. While his lesson on state versus federal constitutional law is correct, it misses the point. We are facing a sudden tidal wave of state and federal legislation and juridical decisions that are very much in sync with the new regime.

Can President Obama be personally blamed? Of course not! No matter how ubiquitous his presence and opinions he can't be blamed or praised for everything that happens. But he, like George Bush before him, is both a symbol and symptom of the times.

As for withdrawing into the "acceptable" Church corner of social welfare, I think not! The Church is called to be present in both the social and political spheres. After all, Jesus was.

Thanks for writing, Joe. I've been away from the blog for awhile and neglected to publish your response.

Dissenting opinions are always welcome!

"Put not your trust in princes, the sons of men"

We have been bombarded lately with the liberal press's "100 days" propaganda, "celebrating" the first 100 days of our "historic" president. It all feels very un-American and the president's own press conference on the occasion was just another reminder that the "campaign" to convert America continues.

What are we celebrating and to what do we need to be converted?

Well, over the last one hundred days the harvesting of human beings for body parts has been once again made legal (fetal stem cell research), several states have legalized 'gay-marriage', euthanasia has been legalized in Washington state, incredibly vast sums of money has been poured into the "Economic Stimulus Bill"--while the regime still pretends that there will be no middle class tax increases, and the list continues.

Oh yes, and there is the swine flu scare--which no one can blame on the President, though one suspects that a lot of his groupies expect that he can fix it, too.

The good news is that men like Arlan Spector (and we can hope women like Olympia Snowe) are removing themselves from the Republican Party and becoming the Democrats they really are. Those are exactly the kind of "converts" that we on the right can rejoice to see join the fold of the Party of "Choice" and Profligate Spending.

The liberal/socialists are making quite a bit of hay over what they see as angst in the Republican Party over its sudden demise. Perhaps they have never read the Mark Twain's response to his own obituary--"The reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated". Ditto. We are not dead, yet--far from it. It is only a matter of time before the 52% (not 82% as the left seems to think) who voted for "change" wake up to what that really translates into--death and taxes, and a lot of both.

Oh well, that's just my opinion.

Personality Cults

As an unreformed and unrepentant conservative Republican, I don't find it hard to fault the new president's politics. As an Orthodox Christian I am appalled by his stands on virtually all moral issues. That isn't surprising. I expected as much.

But I'm becoming increasingly disturbed by the personality cult that seems to be growing around him. I've lost count of the books and magazines at Barnes and Noble that bear his image. No, not Newsweek and Time (one would hardly expect otherwise from those bastions of the left). Its that he is staring at us from everything else--from gourmet cooking to dog-grooming magazines. And it doesn't seem to be slowing down at all. ESPN fawns over his opinion about basketball, and late night TV talk show hosts vie to have him share his words of wisdom with them.

Granted, the man loves to talk and he can be as eloquent as he is loquacious--even if there really isn't much content to what he is saying.

But this national obsession over him is beginning to worry me. Maybe it goes back to the open air rally at the Denver Stadium at the end of the Democrat Convention--complete with fireworks and a semi-presidential seal. It just doesn't feel American. Mass rallies and post election campaigns to organize the masses remind me of darker times and places where the "leader" became a cult in and of himself.

I hope I'm wrong and it all ends soon. If nothing else Americans have notoriously short attention spans and we can merciless to those in power--witness poor "W". Still, it is all very disconcerting.