It’s our only real possession, yet we rarely reflect on the true value of our life. But more importantly, finding out what is that makes a life valuable.
In your wanderings on the internet, you might have come across the “trolley problem”, which is a series of thought experiments to confront ethical dilemmas, using the hypothetical case of the sacrifice of a person to save a larger number. And the scenario goes something like this:
“A runaway trolly is on course to collide and kill five people down the track, but a bystander can intervene and divert the trolley to just kill one person on a different track.”
This might look like an implausible scenario, but there are multiple analogous situations in real life about these life-and-death dilemmas, like in the judicial system, medical, or even politics and war, to mention a few.
But all scenarios pose an ethical conundrum on the bystander, either by making him responsible of death of an innocent person to save many or being “indifferent” to intervene, condemning people who “would have died, anyway.”
This is referred as the principle of double effect, and the exploration of this reasoning comes from Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, when he debates about an act that has foreseeable harmful effects which are inseparable from the good effect, like killing in self-defense, and he states that is justifiable if the following are true:
- The nature of the act is itself good, or at least morally neutral.
- The agent intends the good effect and does not intend the bad effect.
- The good effect outweighs the bad effect in circumstances sufficiently grave to justify causing the bad effect.
And this boils down to the principle of “the lesser of two evils” which most of you should be very familiar with and has been a maxim existing in Platonic Philosophy.
In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote:
“For the lesser evil can be seen in comparison with the greater evil as a good, since this lesser evil is preferable to the greater one, and whatever preferable is good.”
And which was reaffirmed later, by Portuguese philosopher Baruch Spinoza, in his book “Ethics”, he proposed that:
“According to the guidance of reason, of two things which are good, we shall follow the greater good, and of two evils, follow the less.”
And from this perspective, it seems there is not a problem at all, considering all lives are worth equally. Five lives would always matter more than one, right?
Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case, and the perception of the value of a life change based on the circumstances, culture and norms of society. For example, considering the relevance in our society, the wellbeing of a president outweighs the lives of the compatriots. Culturally speaking, the life of children or women outweigh the lives of men. Or from a utilitarian perspective, the life of a CEO or company owner outweighs the lives of the employees, simply because of the perception of value generated by that person to society.
And the skewed perception of the worth of lives is prevalent in our society, and has been prevalent across history, regardless of the notion that “all men are created equal” and social movements to create consciousness about unprivileged groups in society. But we keep hearing how the passing of certain individuals is regarded as a “tragedy” while society usually disregards the death of a commoner, echoing the quote often attributed to Stalin:
“The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.”
And moving away from the collective sphere, a “tragedy” is a value judgement given by the individual, sometimes because of proximity bias, about something we care. And that’s why for this conversation, to understand the value of a life, I would like to move into the subjective perception of the individual, and not for any other life, but our own.
So, for this thought exercise, I would like to implement a few changes to the trolley problem.
First, to substitute the five people with a baby, and not any baby, but an infant version of ourselves.
Second, the bystander and the person sacrificed on the alternate track will be the same, an adult version of ourselves.
And the purpose of this exercise is not to delve into the topic of abortion, but to inquire about how, as we grow up, the value of our life changes through time.
Is our soul what gives value to our life?
We all come into this world the same way: naked and crying. And from there, our lives will certainly take different turns and twists, based on the family we were born into, the place we grew up in, the culture we were exposed to, the people we relate with, and even the random events in which we take part during our lives.
But if I asked you, what is what makes your life different, what it’s what makes your life special, besides the obvious reason that it’s because it’s your own, most probably you’ll respond something that we can generalize as “your experiences.”
You can believe your family and friends are the most important thing in your life, but it is not the people themselves, but your “experiences” with them, your memories, what make special those relationships. Because you’ll never remember the time you sat with your family and did nothing. Equally with work and passions, all those challenges and accomplishments can be translated into experiences. And what can I say about travel and leisure, when these experiences are the fondest memories we will carry through our lives? Because our memories are driven by emotions, either good or bad.
And through these experiences, it is how we establish our identity, how we realize who we are, of what our purpose in this life is. This process is called individuation, and it’s how we become distinct from everyone else.
Our personality, distilled into the essence that makes us unique, is often regarded as a “soul.” This is even beyond religious beliefs, as we consider intelligent robots or AIs as “soulless” machines while attributing a “soul” to animals or plants. As if having a soul was a consequence of being alive.
But are we coming to this life with a predetermined essence, or do we develop it through time?
Biologically speaking, we come with a set of predefined characteristics passed by our forebears in our genes, but besides the physical aspect, these traits can extend to our behavior, often regarded as “character,” and we can define as a series of patterns detailing how we’ll react to different stimuli. That is the reason a son who never interacted with his father can behave similarly, despite never observing his father behaving that way. And our experiences and environment shape the other half of our personality.
Psychologically speaking, in Freud’s theory of personality, our personality forms progressively as we grow up:
From the “ID”, considered mostly subconscious and primitive, which drives our basic desires and needs,
Followed by the “ego” which is the conscious aspect of our personality which governs our reality and takes decisions,
And finally, the “super-ego,” which creates our consciousness after we internalize our experiences, and drive our beliefs and ideals.
For the Religious belief, I will take the example of the Buddhist tradition, where they believe in reincarnation, but more specifically, Buddhists believe in the “transmigration” of the soul, a process in which the soul migrates from one being to another during seven years. And they consider that until that age, the soul of a child is fully complete.
And this seven-year period has always puzzled me, because it’s the same span of time considered by Sigmund Freud for the formation of the Super Ego I just mentioned, which is the most complex aspect of our personality.
But even if you don’t have religious beliefs or studies in psychology, deep inside us, something tells us that a child is not fully conscious about his existence and the complexities of life, until he is older than seven years. You could argue it’s just a biological response for the conservation of the species, like the mothers’ instinct, but when you interact with an unrelated infant, you can identify that something is still missing. That is still an incomplete personality. A personality that is still in development.
But how do we know, if that missing part, it’s our soul?
Do we get or build our soul?
Most religions believe in the notion that we receive an immutable soul, crafted by our creator especially for us, and even if we include those believing in reincarnation, the conception of the transmission of this soul, either directly from the creator or a previous existence, it will suppose that there should be memories, from before our incarnation.
Psychologist Carl Jung considered that “rebirth necessarily implies the continuity of personality.” But despite the reported cases of people remembering past incarnations, there has not been conclusive scientific evidence to validate the transmission of memories that take place, or that we had a previous existence prior to our corporeal beings.
You might wonder if something like reincarnation, or soul formation, can even be tested with common scientific studies? And the sad part of this story is that studies that can offer a glimpse of understanding the formation, or lack of formation of our personality and soul like in this case, unfortunately have been conducted, not out of scientific curiosity, but because of human cruelty.
It’s time to dive into the heartbreaking stories of the “feral kids.”
The story of “Genie” Wiley is probably the worst story of child abuse and neglect in history. Born in 1957 into a violent household in California, Genie was a normal baby, but a congenital hip dislocation required her to wear a splint, causing her to be late to walk, what made his abusive father believe she was mentally disabled, and he stopped paying attention to her, and forced her mother and brother to do the same.
At twenty months old, her abusive father confined her in a bedroom, and it was when Genie’s torture started. Genie spent her days tied to a child’s toilet in a makeshift harness, working as a straitjacket, and her nights were not much different, being tied into a sleeping bag, with arms and legs immobilized, inside a crib covered with a metal screen.
For years, Genie knew nothing beyond the crib, the toilet and a few pieces of furniture inside her dark room, and the thick curtains covering the windows secluded her entirely from the outside world.
Genie’s father believed she would die at a young age, so her diet mainly comprised baby food and cereal and was spoon-feed as quickly as possible, causing her to choke.
Genie was forbidden to vocalize or make any noise. If disobeyed, her father would beat her with a plank and constantly frighten her by baring his teeth, growling like a dog and scratching her, instilling an intense fear of cats and dogs on Genie.
And if this was not torture enough, it’s believed her father had sexually abused her or even forced her brother to do so.
Genie’s torture continued for more than a decade, until finally, in October 1970, when she was 13 years old, her mother applied for disability benefits and the social worker sensed something was wrong with Genie, shocked to learn her true age but having the appearance and demeanor of a six-year autistic child, and immediately contacted the police. Genie’s parents were arrested, and she was taken into the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.
After that, Genie started her recovery and became the center of studies to understand the harmful consequences of the neglect and abuse she was subjected to. During her recovery, Genie started learning how to read and talk, and there was a glimpse of hope she could become a “normal” child, but unfortunately her learning reached a plateau, and specialist believe her brain had missed critical periods of development, which she could never recover.
Despite her incredible recovery, everyone agreed, there was “something missing” in Genie’s personality, something that unfortunately she could not develop, because she was robbed from it during the years, and that is the same case with all feral children who have suffered abuse and abandonment.
But these atrocious acts conducted by the most horrendous human beings make me wonder, if we indeed come to this existence with a pre-defined or a migrated soul, would not these kids’ personalities or essence develop similarly to normal kids? Or how relevant are the early stimuli for a child, the learning and engagement with society in the soul’s construction?
Considering this, I believe we can at least empirically agree, that our essence or soul is not an immutable construct we are gifted at birth, but something we develop through time, shaped by our daily life experiences.
The value of our souls.
If the opportunity to travel into the past to relive our lives were given to us, most of us would go back and change our past, either to fix the mistakes we committed or to change our decisions in order to secure a better future for ourselves. However, if we had the chance to be born again but without living the same life, the proposal might not be that enticing. And I don’t mention this because of the possibility that our family and upbringing could be worse than our previous life. But what makes the first scenario appealing, contrary to the second, is the accrued knowledge and experience we have from our life, and that drives our interest to change our life, to improve it.
If we go back to our version of the trolley problem, where we have a baby version of ourselves on one track and our adult version on another. Our baby coming to this world is only a clean slate, just partially populated with the genetic information of our forebears, which still lack a soul or a personality, and it represents only a possibility with a full life ahead. A possibility of a good or a terrible life, a happy or a sad one. But at this point, we can only hope.
Our adult versions, even when we are technically closer to our deaths, we have a fully formed personality or soul, shaped by our experiences of our lives, our minds full with the memories of all the people we have met, the places we have visited, the things we have accomplished, the mistakes we have committed but also the lessons we have learned.
If two babies can be told apart based entirely on their physical characteristics and genetic charge, that’s not true from adults. Even if they are twins, their minds will be entirely different.
So, if we were to say at which point of time your life is more valuable, I would say it’s in your adult self, because during your existence you have accumulated experiences and memories that make you unique.
I’m not saying this intending to disregard the worth of the life of an infant, but to make you conscious that you are the principal person responsible for the creation of what we refer to as a soul, which ultimately gives value to our lives. And that besides the childhood experiences you can’t control, it’s you who decides which memories you’ll use to build your personality, to build your soul.
Because what makes us human if not a collection of memories engraved in our souls?
And for this reason, I find the finale of the movie Blade Runner so deep and moving, when the replicant Roy Batty is facing death, and he ponders on the things his synthetic nature, not bound to the biological limitations of humans had allowed him to witness in his wanderings across the galaxy, but all those memories will fade after his passing. Asking to the audience if he had indeed achieved his goal of becoming human. And if he had, in his synthetic being, harbored a soul.
M. Ch. Landa
