Our humanly concern over worth arises out of two innate existential (sic "spiritual") needs; our desire to live in a world which has meaning and to embed our self-worth in that construct.
1. "The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of life." (Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections 1961).
2. "Look on my right and see-
there is no one who recognizes me.
All refuge is denied me,
No one cares whether I live or die." (Psalm 142:4-5
"Though my father and mother forsake me, Yahweh will gather me up."
(Psalm 27: 10).
"Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone’ only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. There are some authors who contend that meanings and values are ‘nothing but defense mechanisms, reaction formations and sublimations.’ But as for myself, I would not be willing to live merely for the sake of my ‘defense mechanisms," nor would I be ready to die merely for the sake of my ‘reaction formations.’ Man, however, is able to live and even ready to die for the sake of his ideals and values!" - Victor Frankel
The human desire for certainty within our existential needs has created an attempt to ground both worth and meaning in a system of absolutes.
The desire for an objectification of human worth grounded in "certainty"/absolutism is a byproduct of ancient Greek (specifically Platonic) and Christian (chiefly Augustine and Calvin) metaphysics, AND logical "necessity" (that is, to speak of human worth "objectively" we are often compelled to seek an objectified definition of worth). It stems from a belief that that which is open to change (i.e. the natural world) is somehow a "corrupt" form of true "being." Thus, we must look elsewhere for the "pure form." Dewey in speaking about the tradition within philosophy to seek out certainty summed this belief as follows:
"The realm of the practical is the region of change, and change is always contingent; it has in it an element of chance that cannot be eliminated. If a thing changes, its alteration is convincing evidence of its lack of true or complete Being. What is, in the full and pregnant sense of the world is always, eternally. It is self-contradictory for that which is to alter. If it has no defect or imperfection in it how could it change? That which becomes merely comes to be, never truly is. It is infected with nonbeing; with privation of Being in the perfect sense."
b. Augustine (who in turn was significantly influenced by Plato) was highly influential for John Calvin (as well as Calvin’s teachers). He called Augustine "the best and most reliable witness of all antiquity." The Augustinian notion that human reasoning can only take us so far fully blossomed within Calvin. "…Calvin sometimes turned the traditional anthropology literally on its head by associating sin primarily with the supposed higher faculties [that is with reason]….’Once the mind is polluted, that is, the intelligence of men spoiled,’ Calvin commented, ‘the rest is easily corrupted.’ Reason was thus fatally weakened and ‘overwhelmed by so many deceptions, subjected to so many errors, dashed against so many obstacles, caught in so many difficulties’ it could no longer guide us." Therefore, no amount of "works" (even guided by the best reasoning) could lead to salvation, and human worth was solely dependent upon God’s grace (as mediated and contingent upon Jesus’ salvific act).
An attempt to "objectify" human worth into an absolute is pointless and misleading.
In the introduction to his book "Building a Moral System", the philosopher Robert Ashmore (Marquette University) writes;
"In building a moral system, we are not like engineers on shore, constructing a ship de novo. Because we find ourselves already immersed in a system, we begin with something – a ship already at sea. It can be overhauled only plank by plank. The accumulated experience of the human race provides us with a starting point, reflected in the practices and modes of thought to which we are exposed in early childhood. However, we must bring our theories, as Aristotle says, to the test of the facts of life. Consequently, our adherence to tradition or our reconstruction of any of its part must be the result of critical thinking and fidelity to experience (italics mine)."
The difficulty is that Ashmore assumes (as is confirmed by his text) that critical thinking (by which I think he fully means the maintenance of an objectifiable system for grounding worth) is necessary before an ethical philosophy can be constructed.
Much of the writing coming from secular Humanists would seem to agree. Paul Kurz is a prime example. In his book "Philosophical Essays in Pragmatic Naturalism" he writes; "This point is fundamental to naturalism [on which we would agree much of Humanism is based]: that concepts without perceptual or observational rules of application to the concrete world are empty." He does argue within the same section that "…human beliefs are to be considered fallible in the sense that they are always corrigible and open to revision. In other words, beliefs are not certain or absolute, but only probable since they are based upon a range of evidence." Yet Kurz does indicate a further criteria. "Moreover, the grounds for the acceptance of scientific hypothesis"(under which, as Paul would suggest, lay even ethical discussions), "must be publicly repeatable or replicable and based upon the tested judgement of a community of inquirers who are committed to the cannons of scientific objectivity." (I wonder why Kurz doesn’t spot the internal inconsistency – if beliefs are not "certain or absolute" why does science still possess the ability to be objective?). As there is no "empirical" evidence for human worth, does that necessarily mean that we need to dispense with the construct?
This sort of reasoning stands in contrast to writers such as Nel Noddings. In her book, " Caring; A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education," Ms. Noddings writes;
"…when we approach moral matters through the study of moral reasoning, we are led quite naturally to suppose that ethics is necessarily a subject that must be cast in the language of principle and demonstration. This, I shall argue, is a mistake."
She uses as her primary focus for this distinction the shift in emphasis that occurs as we care for others.
"The original impulse is often the one associated with caring. It arises in individuals. But as groups of individuals discuss the perceived needs of another individual or group, the imperative changes from "I must do something" to "Something must be done." This change is accompanied by a shift from the nonrational and subjective to the rational and objective…This sort of thinking is not in itself a mistake; it is needed. But is has buried within it the seed of major error. The danger is that caring, which is essentially nonrational in that it requires a constitutive engrossment and displacement of motivation" (she draws on Emerson here) "may gradually or abruptly be transformed into abstract problem solving."
We need to shift the focus of our existential needs away from a transcendental/absolutist source to an intimate/relational source.
Although we may disavow an absolutist source to affirm both worth and meaning, we cannot overlook the power of the existential needs and their all-compelling compulsion for fulfillment. The answers for which humanity seeks cannot be found in abstractions or in lofty ideals no matter how high the "virtue" of those ideals. Rather, we must fully connect with the "source" from which our existential needs are satisfied. This is only possible through an intimate encounter with that source "from whom all blessings flow."
The source that can afford us the greatest personal growth and the greatest opportunity for meeting our existential needs is the one that is based not on ideals, but on relationships.
The primary word I-Thou can be spoken only with the whole being. Concentration and fusion into the whole being can never take place through my own agency, nor can it ever take place without me. I become through my relation to the Thou; as I become I, I say Thou."
Eric Fromm argues that for a religious idea to have credence and power in our lives, it must be embedded within our emotional matrix, which allows the mind to consent to the ideal. He writes in Psychoanalysis and Religion, "Any idea is strong only if it is grounded in a person’s character structure. No idea is more impotent than its emotional matrix….The meaning of any single part of a philosophical or religious system can be determined only within the context of (the emotional matrix)."This is certainly worth exploring more fully.
Nel Noddings in her book, Caring, puts it much more powerfully. "The philosopher who begins with a supremely free consciousness – an aloneness and emptiness at the heart of existence – identifies anguish as the basic human affect. But our view, rooted as it is in relation, identifies joy as a basic human affect. When I look at my child – even one of my grown children – and recognize the fundamental relation in which we are each defined, I often experience a deep and overwhelming joy. It is the recognition of and longing for relatedness that form the foundation of our ethic, and the joy that accompanies fulfillment of our caring enhances our commitment to the ethical ideal and sustains us as one-caring."
Nel Noddings may have touched upon a powerful theme arising from our own psychodynamic structure. In his book, "Identity and the Life Cycle" the well known analyst Erik Erikson discusses the stages of psychodynamic development. At our earliest stage in our infancy, the basic psychosocial crisis is of Trust vs. Mistrust, and it is here that Erikson believes our understanding of the "Cosmic Order" gets solidified. Basically, as infants, we expect to receive the love and warmth from our mothers, coupled with life-giving sustenance (mother’s milk). If the relationship is natural, our orientation is to receive (he calls it "to get" which I think confuses the issue) that which is naturally ours by our birthright, rather than having to work to "go and get." If the relationship is poor, and the child is denied this warmth and sustenance, and feels abandoned the orientation of the child to the world changes. If the child has to try too hard to satisfy his longing, "he will activate himself into a state of exhaustion or he will find his thumb and damn the world." This can cause a permanent wound on the child’s psyche, the result being that as an adult, a person can either have an orientation to the world in which he merely expects and receives the love that others offer, or he will try to work hard to create a world which satisfies his own longing.
It’s possible that we can use this as a critique of traditional versus humanistic religion. The Christian concept of "grace" is interpreted to be the natural love of God that floods this universe, and which we can receive freely and unconditionally if we but open ourselves up to it. This is a powerful notion that certainly speaks to our earliest interpersonal orientation. Many Humanists by contrast "preach" a duty to "go out and make" a good and caring world where "none exists", and we often de-emphasize the idea that a "universal" love can exist naturally in this world. What Noddings suggests is that this love is there, if we but remember our ties to community and reciprocate in that process.
We cannot merely turn inward to find a new source for worth and meaning.
"Be ye lamps unto yourself." - Siddhartha Guatama
The understanding of what it means to be a Human and to touch upon that worth requires experience with other humans. We can no more describe the experience of the warmth of the sun upon our face, without having such an experience, than we can to describe the "tender mercies" of human touch without such contact. Adler was emphatic on this point:
"In order to advance toward uniqueness, in order to achieve what in a word may be called my own truth, to build myself into the truth, to become essentially real, I must seek to elicit the consciousness of the uniqueness and the interrelation in others. I must help others in order to save myself; I must look upon the other as an ethical unit or moral being in order to become a moral being myself."
The search for a consequentialist (utilitarian) ethic based on utility or value will ultimately fail to satisfy our existential needs if worth is not the primary end.
The "good," or some form of virtue cannot be used as the ultimate end above human worth, since humans can (and have historically) been sacrificed on the road to building "utopias" and because meaning cannot be imposed.
Worth arises out of experience with other humans and is dynamic. We seek not to impose "worth" but to "uncover" it through our relations with others.
While acknowledging that humans are part of the natural world, there are limits to what nature can reveal to us about humanity.
Nature is a source of beauty and wonderment. It is in the juxtaposition to this environment that we feel a greater sense of longing in our existential needs.
The principle of falsifiability places limits on revealing a concept of worth using the natural environment. This notion, developed by the philosopher Karl Popper states that in order for a thesis to be proven true (in the scientific sense), the defend must also be able to state the conditions under which it can also be proven false. Since the concept of worth could never be proven to exist as a "product" or "process" of the natural world, there are limits to what nature can provide us in this area.
The source for meeting our existential needs must arise out of our relationships with others.
Worth is a relational attribute, arising out of the reciprocity of the life affirming relationship…not an inherent thing-in-itself. Therefore we seek to discover the ability within a person to affirm the worth of another rather than some metaphysical entity. (what I seek is that my worth matters….I search for that in another when they demonstrate to us that they can affirm the worth of someone not ourselves).
I discover that the affirmation of worth does indeed exist within the universe when I uncover it in the reciprocal relationship.
During the process of my uncovering the worth affirming ability within another, I can discover new insights and understanding about the humanity within myself as well.
Meaning is also a relational thing (it cannot be imposed). The worth affirming process places a great need for the whole of the human story (to understand the fullness of life) for we need the insights of others to help us to better understand what it means to affirm worth (it has a pedagogical quality as well). Thus, the process by which I arrive at meaning is also the process by which I also affirm my worth.
The worth affirming process also has profound spiritual benefits
It counteracts the tendencies for people to gravitate towards totalitarian meaning systems.
It demands that we continue to reach out and grow…promotes psychological health.
It can heal pain and sorrow, for we are touched by the relationships that we seek.
It promotes world peace and greater understanding for it respects diversity and places an emphasis on communication.
It demands constructive moral engagement which can lead to tikkun olam(to remake, repair, and transform the world).
Our religious legacy will be the rich stories of the changes that occurred within people as they participated in the worth affirming process
Bibliography List
Frankl, Victor, "Man’s Search For Meaning." Washington Square Press, 1984. Frankl created a whole type of counseling, logotherapy, on the premise that helping the client reestablish the will to live can only come about by helping them to reaffirm that life can be meaningful.
John Dewey, "The Quest for Certainty), chapter 21 "Escape from Peril." I highly recommend this chapter for a better understanding of the compulsion/evolution (?) of philosophy towards absolutism.
From an excellent review of John Calvin; "John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait" by William Bouwsma (Oxford University Press 1988).
In his book "Philosophical Essays in Pragmatic Naturalism" Paul Kurz does try to answer the accusations of those who employ the naturalistic fallacy as a critic by suggesting that pragmatic naturalism, with its basis on scientific study, can still be a means for determining an ethical system. See also his book on "Eupraxophy." Although I feel pragmatic naturalism is certainly helpful in assisting in our moral reasoning, it should not be our main emphasis, as I feel when you get right down to it, the affirmation of worth is based on a sense of faith.
"Caring: a Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education" by Nel Noddings pg. 25.
Sigmund Freud in his work, "The Future of An Illusion," argues that our belief in God is a projection of an infantile psychodynamic struggle. As Erich Fromm interpreted Freud, "If man gives up his illusion of a fatherly God, if he faces his aloneness and insignificance in the universe, he will be like a child that has left his father’s house. But it is the very aim of human development to overcome this infantile fixation." Even if this is true, does it make the desire no less real?
Buber, Martin. "I and Thou." Charles Scribners, 1958. Buber did not create the Dialogical Principle (his term), of course, but borrowed the process from Frederich Jacobi, although it found its full flowering within Buber. It is interesting to note that Buber’s understanding of the I-Thou concept came to him from reading material related to Hasidic and Jewish tradition. However, several others were writing about the I-Thou relationship at that time including Hermann Cohen. Herman Cohen was also Felix Adler’s private philosophy teacher, and through whom Adler learned about Kant. Herman Cohen was also the teacher of Franz Rosensweig. See Buber’s "Between Man and Man" Macmillan Company 1965 for the whole story.
From "Caring: a Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education" by Nel Noddings.
Erikson, Eric. "Identity and the Life Cycle." Erikson reminds us that it is a mistake to only think of humans (and hence "humanity" as adults and as arising out of the social matrix. Rather, we must remember that each person has a mom and a dad and that it is out of this primary relationship that so much of our world view/orientation is created.
Adler, Felix. "An Ethical Philosophy of Life; Presented in its Main Outlines." In the chapter marked "The Ethical Manifold."