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moral source motivating me to an ethical stance toward others? In this chapter I will explore what the relation might be between being a person and having a right to life. And I will add that being a person implies having responsibilities. But 1 will not use the terminology typical of the bioethics
Five LIFE AS A MORAL SOURCE The basic principle of ethics, that principle which is a necessity of thought, which has a definite content, which is engaged in constant living, and practical dispute with reality, is: Devotion to life resulting from reverence for life. Albert Schweitzer1 The
meaningful and worthwhile lives. Hitler, for example, would have a meaningful and, possibly, subjectively worthwhil e life, but not an objectively worthwhile life. The thresh- old for meaningfulness is set by considering what a life not worth living might be: a life with no or unachievable goals . But
attitude to life and our sense of the obligations to which it might give rise will be a function of the metaphysical views that we hold about it. The mere fact that there is life on this planet is a ''moral source" for us, in the sense that it can inspire ethical attitudes toward living things. It is
. For the ancient Greeks, the concept of the soul referred to the principle of life that every living body contained. It was the basis of those vital functions that mark off a living thing from a dead or inert one. Being a principle of life, it was inconceivable for Socrates that such a principle
. There is no object in the world that answers to the nominative description "life." The concrete object that would be in question in any particular case of "life" is a living organism. The science of biology, even as it describes itself as studying "life,'' is actually studying living organisms and
though this points towards a very important aspect, the badness of death cannot be explained solely via the desire to continue living. For one thing, one does not always have to explicitly express a desire for x for x to be in one’s interest and, accordingly, to be harmed by x’s non-occurrence. In
occurred are important for defining when those actions should or should not take place, the deeper concept of death is important for elucidating why these actions and their 144 LIFE, DEATH, AND SUBJECTIVITY guidelines matter. Death is a moral source in the sense that it motivates our ethical stances
and the world, I choose life and the world over nothingness. I can also choose eternally my life and the world rather than nothingness. My choice is hardly idiosyncratic, most people living in reasonably decent circumstances would agree . My choice does not dis- tinguish me as a higher type, nor does
attainment of this good or from the extent to which it contrib- utes to its attainment.19 Thus since it is supreme in this sense, we can say it is self-sufficient. By “self-sufficient” Aristotle does not mean “what is sufficient for oneself alone living a solitary life, but something that includes parents