Choose one of the following four questions for discussion:
1. Is life itself valuable, or is life merely a necessary condition for other values?
2. If life itself is valuable, why? What kind of value does life have?
3. If it is precisely life itself that is valuable, does that mean all living beings possess value equally?
4. If only certain beings have value, what is the basis for drawing such a limit?
Is life itself valuable, or is life merely a necessary condition for other values?
It is worth noting that these four questions are arranged in a progressive sequence: if one does not accept the previous position, then the later questions cannot be answered; and if one is doubtful that life itself has value, then the last three questions all become invalid.
What is worse, I not only doubt the claim that life itself has value; I even have reservations about some of the presuppositions that make the first question possible in the first place. This question presupposes that certain “things” are valuable—either life or something else—and that “value” is the core concept of ethics, almost treated as a synonym for “the good”……
I am reminded of Scheler’s famous book Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values. In two massive volumes, he constructed a phenomenological “non-formal ethics of values.” The very existence of this book at least shows that the transition from a formalist, imperative ethics to a material, value-based ethics is by no means an easy matter. And now, without following the phenomenological path, we still want to make “value” the theme of ethics, while regarding certain entities (rather than certain actions or states) as the bearers of value, and at the same time dividing value into intrinsic value and instrumental value…… There are simply too many presuppositions that must be accepted in order to discuss this issue, and they are by no means uncontroversial.
The word “value” probably comes from something like the meaning of “…… is worth it…….” But replacing “is worth it” with “contains value” is by no means merely a change in wording or tone; rather, it turns “value” into some kind of objective thing (a substance or common property, and the like), thereby separating it from concrete things and situations—moving from saying that something “is burning” to saying that a certain kind of substance “is combustible” to saying that it “contains phlogiston” is obviously a very different matter. Each step in the extension from “is” to “is” to “has” is by no means easy, and such extensions are often mistaken (as in the phlogiston theory). Similarly, talking about some act or thing as “worth it” does not mean that one must acknowledge that these things contain some general “value.”
The word “value” is first and foremost an economic term; its use in ethics is a very recent development. The introduction of the concept of “value” actually accompanied the establishment of a certain new paradigm in ethics. For MacIntyre, the entire path of this ethical approach is a project doomed to failure—an attempt to show that “any rational agent, through his rationality, logically keeps moral rules.” And the attention given to “value” is also closely related to this ethical approach of seeking and establishing rules.
Ethics is not incapable of speaking about “value,” but using value to replace the good or virtue, and thereby making it the core concern of ethics, is another matter. Such an ethical approach has carried out many “inversions” of the traditional way of asking ethical questions. In the economic sphere, “price” can serve as a marker of a commodity’s value, but modern people have elevated this measure, which comes from the market rather than belonging to the thing itself, to a superior status, so that the value of any thing in turn needs to be determined by its price; “how much is it worth?” has become the ultimate standard of measurement. Furthermore, many people have forgotten that money is originally only a medium of exchange, and have instead regarded it as the final object of pursuit. Means and ends have been inverted.
In ethics as well, there is a similar phenomenon of means and ends being inverted. This is especially reflected in the transformation of “the good” from “the highest pursuit” into “the minimum requirement”: questions such as “how should one seek the good?” and “what is the good?” become “why should one do good?” and “what norms are there?” People have even begun to construct reasons for questions such as “why should one pursue the good?”, “why should one become a virtuous person?”, or “why should one do good deeds?” For example, they say that doing good is for the realization of happiness, that good deeds are those that promote pleasure, that observing ethics is for social order, and so on—in this case, “the good” instead becomes a means to the realization of something else. Or one could say that “the good,” like “the true” and “the beautiful,” has been deconstructed by modern people.
But however it may be deconstructed, if we are still speaking of concepts such as truth, goodness, and beauty, they should always remain as some kind of ultimate concern. The pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty does not require conditions—there may be many arguments about what truth is, what beauty is, whether they are eternal or historical, and so on, but one cannot say “I do not pursue truth; I insist on pursuing falsehood!” or “I do not like beauty; I just like ugliness!” Such claims are utterly meaningless, not worth further discussion at all (and in any case there is no way to discuss them further). Likewise, the ethical question should be “For the sake of the good, what kind of person should I be / what kind of things should I do?” rather than “For the sake of what should I conform to the good / obey ethical norms?”
Of course, this does not mean that one cannot “formulate norms.” It is necessary to discuss ethical and legal norms, just as markets and “prices” are certainly necessary for the exchange of commodities. But one should not invert the fundamental and the secondary, and turn “value,” which serves as an auxiliary measuring marker, into some substantial thing.
The above discussion seems to have strayed from the original intention of the question. Let us now discuss it according to the question’s line of thought: we affirm that life is “worth it.” The question is, is life worth pursuing, protecting, or promoting because life itself is the good, or because life is the condition for realizing some other good?
First, in many contexts, affirming that the pursuit of life is unconditional accords with intuition. Moreover, the beauty and wonder of life compel people to hold it in awe. If life had no intrinsic good, why would we revere it so much?
But Schweitzer’s ethics of reverence for life, as Jardins evaluates it in Environmental Ethics, “the ethics of reverence for life is not a normative ethical law, but rather a return to a more ancient philosophical tradition.” What Schweitzer advocates is precisely the virtue ethics that I appreciate. He “did not take reverence for life as an ethical law. Reverence for life is an attitude we take toward this world. In this sense, Schweitzer’s ethics is not focused on answering the question ‘How should I act?’ but rather ‘What kind of person should I become?’” (Chinese translation, p. 155)
I support an “ethics of reverence for life,” and even support Schweitzer’s ethical “principle” itself—“The good is to preserve life, to promote life, to bring the life that is capable of development to its highest value. Evil is to destroy life, to injure life, to suppress the development of life. This is the necessary, universal, and absolute ethical principle.” (Reverence for Life—Basic Statements over Fifty Years, p. 9) But this is a “principle” of virtue ethics—promoting life itself is the “good” does not mean the same thing as saying that life has intrinsic value or the like. I have my doubts about this latter kind of claim, which comes from the context of normative ethics.
I believe that the pursuit of life is conditional. Note that in Schweitzer’s view, he has already unconditionally ascribed “the good” to life, and yet he still says “to bring the life that is capable of development to its highest value.” In other words, in his view, the mere existence of life does not mean the realization of its value. This “value,” while certainly not something external to life, is also not some fixed thing possessed by “life itself.” Rather than saying that “life itself” is valuable, it is better to say that the “development” and “realization” of life are themselves valuable.
Thus, the key to “promoting life” lies in allowing the “value” contained within some life to be realized, rather than in merely maintaining the phenomenon of life itself. Compared with a person who has sacrificed his life for a lofty ideal, dignity, or belief, and with someone who is no longer a “life capable of development” but rather a vegetative patient who has lost all vitality and hope and merely has breathing and heartbeat maintained by machines and drugs, perhaps one can say that the former has more fully realized the value of his life. Is that not so?
If life contains certain “values” that await development and realization, then, as the second question asks—why? What kind of value?—I shall not continue the discussion due to space constraints. In simple terms, I think it is necessary to revive, in some form, the “teleology” that has been rejected by modern philosophers.
23:13, April 8, 2007
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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