How all things are underpinned by philosophy

Philosophy is everywhere

Philosophy has a poor image; people arguing inane senseless trite. Philosophers use sophisticated language. Very few conclusions are reached. Yet, all human activity has a philosophy behind it. The point, the purpose, the principles, the rules, the aims of sport, politics, clubs, businesses, and all societies are underpinned by a philosophy. Aims are set out coupled with principles and rules. The spirit of the rules is instilled into those taking part. The philosophy of the organisation sets out the purpose, the point, the goal and the objectives. The philosophy describes how the sport, club or business will conduct itself and how it will be run. The philosophy will decide how it is enjoyed.

One person asked a simple question; why can’t I pick up the ball? What is stopping me? So, he picked up the ball and ran with it. This gave birth to a new game called rugby. Questioning things leads to new dynamics, new ways and allow more light into our lives. We question, we come to some hazy conclusion, and then build principles around it. That questioning is what philosophers do. You too will undoubtably question things. We are separated by the extent and depth of our questioning.

Nobody can provide definitive answers to some questions. In legal circles, the law may seem clear cut, but mitigating circumstances come into play. Is killing ever justified? Maybe if someone was about to kill you. Should you steal if it is the only way to stay alive? Saving a life can excuse theft in the minds of many. It leads us to think about cause and effect. The tenth person that breaks into a shop to steal lifesaving medicine gets clubbed to death by the store owner. Or the shop stops stocking the medicine. Or they let it be. Or we campaign to make drugs available for free to those most in need. It will always depend upon what our individual aims are. All answers contain an agenda. What we would do in some situations is not always the same as what we expect others to do.

Philosophy frames the arguments. Politicians use these philosophical arguments when formulating regulations. Take abortion as an example. Some feel strongly that it is wrong to interfere in any way. Even contraception should be forbidden. People claim that life ought to stay in the hands of nature once conception takes place, no matter how abled or disabled the resultant child might be. Nobody ought to destroy a growing embryo. At the other end of the scale, we have those that see it as a right to do what we please until the baby is born, and the umbilical cord is cut.

Many a comedian has remarked, “I didn't ask to be born”. You can't select your parents, and you had no say in your arrival. But at what point did you become a person? Was it when you were born or when you were conceived? What about at the age of three? How do we decide when a human being has been created? Also, at what point are you pronounced dead. When your heart stops, or when rigor mortis fully sets in? If you lose your arms and legs, you still count as a person. What therefore defines a living human being? If a human is killed, we consider that to be murder, manslaughter at best.

Genetic strings are super tiny. A sperm enters a microscopic egg. You began from something very small and as an adult you are some twenty times bigger than what you were as a baby. Saying that a foetus is very small and is just a bunch of cells is no different to saying a baby is very small compared to a fully-grown adult. The size of the person has no relevance in this debate. An exact definition of a person is not easy to come by, but a body that metabolises using sugar and fats to derive energy, is a good starting point for deciding what is living.

In the womb, you begin as a parasite, sucking nutrients galore from your mother’s reserves. There comes a critical point when you no longer need your mother. You will need someone to feed you, but not necessarily your mother in particular. Someone, anyone could look after you from then on. At the stage in the pregnancy when the child created no longer needs the mother to survive, a new human being is created. If a birth is induced and the child delivered could be nurtured by someone and nobody does so, then it becomes neglectful murder. The father, the grandparent, the charitable, someone could care for a child if the mother is incapable or has no wish to. If a child is sufficiently developed, developed enough that they would survive and lead a full life we could judge it as murder if we make no effort to feed and care for them.

The mother does not own the child simply because it is ‘inside’ their body. You could argue that the baby is attached to, rather than inside someone. Once it reaches the stage of viability it owns itself. In fact, the entity never belongs to anyone bar itself. It is a mystery as to why someone would be horrified if a five-year-old child was locked away and left to starve but not at all concerned that a new-born baby is dumped in a bucket and disposed of just because the umbilical cord was only recently cut.

One might describe a human being as an entity with the signature human genome, is metabolising and most importantly, is viable. Someone that is viable need not be independent. When you get old, your body is certainly viable, but you may need a lot of assistance. You may require help getting out of bed, onto the loo and need spoon feeding like a child once again. Nevertheless, you can continue your human existence for many more years despite the burden you place on others.

A precise definition of what viability is, sadly not possible. We may revert to a judgment call made by people, people that can make mistakes. If a typical pregnancy is likely to create a viable child at around 24 weeks, we might err on the side of caution and declare abortions after 22 weeks as murderous. The proportion of viable entities increases as each week passes, with much more being viable after 22 weeks. However, advances in incubation and medical intervention will blur the issue further. If we accept that it is unbelievably difficulty to make a stick exactly 1 metre long or make an object precisely 1kg, it is easier to be more relaxed about what person is deemed viable and who is not.

Viability at heart, is the heart, lungs and organs that are sufficiently formed and functioning to sustain life. We could say that removing the foetus from the womb at an early stage prior to it becoming viable is a termination of pregnancy. Letting it die or destroying it after this stage becomes murder by definition. We leave it to the policy makers to set the rules for what we can and can't do when intervening in the course of a pregnancy. The philosophy simply aids and potentially clarifies the issue.

What is the difference between a 22-week-old foetus and a 21-week-old one? On the one hand, not much. On the other hand, a small difference makes a world of difference. What is the difference between a happy spaceship launch and a fireball? One tiny part not working properly. One part failing due to the temperature. All critical parts need to be functioning correctly to avoid a catastrophic fireball. If the skin of a rocket is too thin, it fails. If the skin of a foetus is too thin a baby never materialises. All of the ball must go over all of the line. Using technology to precisely measure the position of the ball, we can disallow a goal for the ball not being a hairs width over all of the line. It is not a goal despite being in the goal mouth and so close to counting. One small part in your body can fail at any moment rendering your viability invalid. Life is an elegant fragile thing.

We might declare a fertilised egg to be a human being. We can also declare one grain of rice and two peas as a rice and peas meal. We can state than an acorn is an oak tree. We can say that a week-old embryo is a human in the making, but it doesn’t function as a human being. One grain of rice and two peas is insufficient to be classed as a meal. Opinion divides people. The right to live free from interference and abort before a murder is committed, vs a belief that human life begins at conception and is not to be terminated at will. There is no right answer, just opinion in matters such as these.