Abortion and Libertarianism

The abortion debate needn't be an endless rehashing of political minutiae when it can serve as an occasion for reexamining libertarian first principles. It touches on humanity as the basis for individual rights and the prohibition against initiatory violence.

Libertarians reject aggression against other human beings, including lethal violence against the innocent. But some defend the killing of fetuses on the grounds that the fetus is a potential rather than actual human being, a human going to be rather than a human being as William Westmiller would say.

Those making this argument fail to show the biological, genetic or ontological difference between what kind of being the fetus is and what kind of being a newborn is. Certainly birth is a monumental event. But the being that was born is the same being that was in the womb just moments before -- what miraculous change in its fundamental nature takes place simply due to the trip down the birth canal? If the development of the fetus is uninterrupted, it is an essential part of its nature to make this journey. Developmentally, it seems more accurate to say that the fetus is a potential infant in the same sense that an infant is a potential toddler or adolescent. A new being is not formed, but one organism reaches a new stage of development.

Skin cells contain human life. So do gametes. But neither have the potential to become a complete human being on their own. At conception or the simulation thereof that is cloning, a self-contained, distinct physical organism comes into existence that, unless interrupted, will actively develop into the various more mature stages of the life of a member of the human species. Sperm, eggs and somatic cells will not.

One can say that they have fertilized eggs but only became a father upon their children's birth. But the act of fertilizing the eggs was a necessary prerequisite of that person's fatherhood and if any of those specific fertilized eggs had not been allowed to continue developing, the specific children that this father has would not be here today. That clearly shows an individuated being. We were all once fetuses and if we had been killed as fetuses, we would no more be in existence as the individuals we are today than if we had died as infants or teen- agers.

Sapience may be one of the characteristics that makes the human species unique, but it does not define an individual's membership in that species. Humans have the capacity to reason, but even after birth this capacity is not always actualized (infants, the severely disabled, the comatose). Some mock the claim that a fetus has any rights by pointing to the absurd spectacle of fetuses exercising their rights to bear firearms, own businesses or come up with innovative ideas. But it would be equally absurd to imagine an infant doing any of those things, yet few (Peter Singer comes to mind as an exception) would endorse killing infants. Why? Because we know infants are humans and as they continue to develop cognitively, humans have the capacity for all of these things. Humans have inherent worth on the basis of their humanity, which in turn is the basis of all rights -- the intrinsic value that necessitates individual autonomy.

Reason makes human beings different from other animal-organisms, but this does not imply some sort of soul-body duality. We are essentially animal-organisms, we don't inhabit organisms, and we thus come to be when the organism that we are comes to be.

Mr. Westmiller chides abortion opponents for divorcing the birth of new people from the "disgustingly pleasurable sexual act" that creates them. Yet it is his position that actually does that. This sexual act is in fact what produces the being that leaves the womb at birth -- there could be no birth if the being was not already in the womb. It is this sexual act that creates the parental responsibility. The stork does not bring new babies; the sexual choices of free men and women do. We recognize that because of this act parents have an obligation to provide support for their children and not evict them from the crib and let them die. Logically, it is untenable to suggest that no responsibility exists until the being they have brought into existence leaves the birth canal. Nor will it do to suggest this somehow implies that people have no recourse against sexual mistakes. It is simply the case that such recourses must stop short of intentionally causing the death of another human being that came about not by its own will, but by the voluntary actions of its parents.

What about rape? Many pro-choicers hold the confused view that if fetuses are to have any rights, then they must have more rights than other human beings. They can be forgiven for this because many pro- lifers seem to share this illogical notion. If human beings can legitimately be killed in self-defense, fetuses are no different. This case can be made in instances of rape, when the mother did not consent to the act that imposes parental obligations, and it is unassailable in instances when the mother's life is endangered. Where it is not legitimate is in the estimated 98 percent of the more than 1 million abortions that take place annually in the United States which are purely elective.

This misconception also explains the fear of "fetus cops." Simply because a few deranged child-welfare bureaucrats believe that preventing every possible parental activity that may place a child at even the most miniscule risk warrants unprecedented state intervention in every home does not mean the proper libertarian response is to proclaim a parental right to beat, torture and kill children. Similarly, just because regulation of every act by a pregnant woman that might conceivably put some fetus at risk would be undesirable does not mean that there is a right to destroy that fetus for any reason or no reason whatsoever. Reasonable distinctions can also be made between serving as governor of Massachusetts and delivering a crack baby.

A pro-life libertarianism respects the individual from the moment that the specific organism that each of us are comes into existence. Such libertarianism isn't contradictory, for it recognizes the rights of every human being, foremost the right to life. Government cannot "solve" the abortion issue. But libertarians must ask if an abortion right gives license to initiatory violence. If so, libertarians must not abort the basis of their own movement.

W. James Antle III is a freelance writer and former researcher for a political consulting firm. He is a senior writer for Enter Stage Right and staff columnist for several other webzines.

Mysticism

(From myein, to initiate).
Mysticism, according to its etymology, implies a relation to mystery. In philosophy, Mysticism is either a religious tendency and desire of the human soul towards an intimate union with the Divinity, or a system growing out of such a tendency and desire. As a philosophical system, Mysticism considers as the end of philosophy the direct union of the human soul with the Divinity through contemplation and love, and attempts to determine the processes and the means of realizing this end. This contemplation, according to Mysticism, is not based on a merely analogical knowledge of the Infinite, but as a direct and immediate intuition of the Infinite. According to its tendency, it may be either speculative or practical, as it limits itself to mere knowledge or traces duties for action and life; contemplative or affective, according as it emphasizes the part of intelligence or the part of the will; orthodox or heterodox, according as it agrees with or opposes the Catholic teaching. We shall give a brief historical sketch of Mysticism and its influence on philosophy, and present a criticism of it.
HISTORICAL SKETCH
In his "History of Philosophy", Cousin mentions four systems, between which, he says, philosophical thought has continually wavered, viz., Sensism, Idealism, Scepticism, and Mysticism. Whatever may be thought of this classification, it is true that Mysticism has exercised a large influence on philosophy, becoming at times the basis of whole systems, but more often entering as an element into their constitution. Mysticism dominated in the symbolic philosophy of ancient Egypt. The Taoism of the Chinese philosopher Lao-tze is a system of metaphysics and ethics in which Mysticism is a fundamental element (cf. De Harlez, "Laotze, le premier philosophe chinois", in "Mémoires couronnés et autres de l'Académie", Brussels, January, 1886). The same may be said of Indian philosophy; the end of human reflection and effort in Brahmanism and Vedantism is to deliver the soul from its transmigrations and absorb it into Brahma forever. There is little of Mysticism in the first schools of Greek philosophy, but it already takes a large place in the system of Plato, e.g., in his theory of the world of ideas, of the origin of the world soul and the human soul, in his doctrine of recollection and intuition. The Alexandrian Jew Philo (30 B.C-A.D. 50) combined these Platonic elements with the data of the Old Testament, and taught that every man, by freeing himself from matter and receiving illumination from God, may reach the mystical, ecstatic, or prophetical state, where he is absorbed into the Divinity. The most systematic attempt at a philosophical system of a mystical character was that of the Neoplatonic School of Alexandria, especially of Plotinus (A.D. 205-70) in his "Enneads". His system is a syncretism of the previous philosophies on the basis of Mysticism--an emanative and pantheistic Monism. Above all being, there is the One absolutely indetermined, the absolutely Good. From it come forth through successive emanations intelligence (nous) with its ideas, the world-soul with its plastic forces (logoi spermatikoi), matter inactive, and the principle of imperfection. The human soul had its existence in the world-soul until it was united with matter. The end of human life and of philosophy is to realize the mystical return of the soul to God. Freeing itself from the sensuous world by purification (katharsis), the human soul ascends by successive steps through the various degrees of the metaphysical order, until it unites itself in a confused and unconscious contemplation to the One, and sinks into it: it is the state of ecstasis.
With Christianity, the history of Mysticism enters into a new period. The Fathers recognized indeed the partial truth of the pagan system, but they pointed out also its fundamental errors. They made a distinction between reason and faith, philosophy and theology; they acknowledged the aspirations of the soul, but, at the same time, they emphasized its essential inability to penetrate the mysteries of Divine life. They taught that the vision of God is the work of grace and the reward of eternal life; in the present life only a few souls, by a special grace, can reach it. On these principles, the Christian school of Alexandria opposed the true gnosis based on grace and faith to the Gnostic heresies. St. Augustine teaches indeed that we know the essences of things in rationibus aeternis, but this knowledge has its starting point in the data of sense (cf. Quæstiones, LXXXIII, c. xlvi). Pseudo-Dionysius, in his various works, gave a systematic treatment of Christian Mysticism, carefully distinguishing between rational and mystical knowledge. By the former, he says, we know God, not in His nature, but through the wonderful order of the universe, which is a participation of the Divine ideas ("De Divinis Nomin.", c, vii, §§ 2-3, in P. G., III, 867 sq.). There is, however, he adds, a more perfect knowledge of God possible in this life, beyond the attainments of reason even enlightened by faith, through which the soul contemplates directly the mysteries of Divine light. The contemplation in the present life is possible only to a few privileged souls, through a very special grace of God: it is the theosis, mystike enosis.
The works of Pseudo-Dionysius exercised a great influence on the following ages. John Scotus Eriugena (ninth century), in his "De Divisione Naturæ", took them as his guide, but he neglected the distinction of his master, identifying philosophy and theology, God and creatures, and, instead of developing the doctrine of Dionysius, reproduced the pantheistic theories of Plotinus (see ERIUGENA, JOHN SCOTUS). In the twelfth century, orthodox Mysticism was presented under a systematic form by the Victorines, Hugh, Walter, and Richard (cf. Mignon, "Les Origines de la Scolastique et Hugues de St. Victor", Paris, 1895), and there was also a restatement of Eriugena's principles with Amaury de Bène, Joachim de Floris, and David of Dinant. A legitimate element of Mysticism, more or less emphasized, is found in the works of the Schoolmen of the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there was, as a protest against a sterile dialecticism, a revival of mystical systems, some orthodox--J. Ruysbroek, Gerson, Peter d'Ailly, Denys the Carthusian--and others heterodox--John of Ghent, John of Mirecourt, the Beguines and Beghards, and various brotherhoods influenced by Averroism, and especially Meister Eckhart (1260-1327), who in his "Opus Tripartitum" teaches a deification of man and an assimilation of the creature into the Creator through contemplation (cf. Denifle in "Archiv für Literatur und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters", 1886), the "Theologia Germanica", and, to a certain extent, Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64) with his theory of the coincidentia oppositorum. Protestantism, by its negation of all ecclesiastical authority and by advocating a direct union of the soul with God, had its logical outcome in a Mysticism mostly pantheistic.
Protestant Mysticism is represented by Sebastian Frank (1499-1542), by Valentine Weiler (1533-88), and especially by J. Böhme (1575-1624), who, in his "Aurora", conceived the nature of God as containing in itself the energies of good and evil, and identified the Divine nature with the human soul whose operation is to kindle, according to its free will, the fire of good or the fire of evil (cf. Deussen, "J. Böhme ueber sein Leben und seine Philosophie", Kiel, 1897). Reuchlin (1455-1522) developed a system of cabalistic Mysticism in his "De arte cabalistica" and his "De verbo mirifico". We may also assign to the influence of Mysticism the ontological systems of Malebranche and of the Ontologists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The romantic Mysticism of Fichte (1762-1814), Novalis (1772-1801), and Schelling (1775-1854) was a reaction against the Rationalism of the eighteenth century. A pseudo-Mysticism is also the logical outcome of the Fideism and evolutionistic Subjectivism of modern Protestants, inaugurated by Lessing (1728-81), developed by Schleiermacher (1768-1834), A. Ritschl (1822-89; cf. Goyau, "L'Allemagne Religieuse, Le Protestantisme", 6th ed., Paris, 1906), Sabatier, etc., and accepted by the Modernists in their theories of vital immanence and religious experience (cf. Encyclical "Pascendi"). (See MODERNISM.)
CRITICISM
A tendency so universal and so persistent as that of Mysticism, which appears among all peoples and influences philosophical thought more or less throughout all centuries, must have some real foundation in human nature. There is indeed in the human soul a natural desire for, an aspiration towards the highest truth, the absolute truth, and the highest, the infinite good. We know by experience and reason that the knowledge and enjoyment of created things cannot give the fulness of truth and the perfection of beatitude which will completely satisfy our desires and aspirations. There is in our soul a capacity for more truth and perfection than we can ever acquire through the knowledge of created things. We realize that God alone is the end of man, that in the possession of God alone we can reach the satisfaction of our aspirations. (Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I:2:1; I:12:1; I:44:4; I-II:3:8; "Contra Gentes", III, cc. i, xxv, l; "De Veritate", Q. xxii, a. 2; "Compend. Theologiæ", 104, etc.) But the rational effort of our intelligence and positive aspirations of our will find here their limits. Is there truly possible a union of our reason and will with God more intimate than that which we possess through created things? Can we expect more than a knowledge of God by analogical concepts and more than the beatitude proportionate to that knowledge? Here human reason cannot answer. But where reason was powerless, philosophers gave way to feeling and imagination. They dreamt of an intuition of the Divinity, of a direct contemplation and immediate possession of God. They imagined a notion of the universe and of human nature that would make possible such a union. They built systems in which the world and the human soul were considered as an emanation or part of the Divinity, or at least as containing something of the Divine essence and Divine ideas. The logical outcome was Pantheism.
This result was a clear evidence of error at the starting-point. The Catholic Church, as guardian of Christian doctrine, through her teaching and theologians, gave the solution of the problem. She asserted the limits of human reason: the human soul has a natural capacity (potentia obedientialis), but no exigency and no positive ability to reach God otherwise than by analogical knowledge. She condemned the immediate vision of the Beghards and Beguines (cf. Denzinger-Bannwart, "Enchiridion", nn. 474-5), the pseudo-Mysticism of Eckhart (ibid., nn. 501-29), and Molinos (ibid., nn. 2121-88), the theories of the Ontologists (ibid., nn. 1659-65, 1891-1930), and Pantheism under all its forms (ibid., nn. 1801-5), as well as the vital Immanence and religious experience of the Modernists (ibid., nn. 2071-109). But she teaches that, what man cannot know by natural reason, he can know through revelation and faith; that what he cannot attain to by his natural power he can reach by the grace of God. God has gratuitously elevated human nature to a supernatural state. He has assigned as its ultimate end the direct vision of Himself, the Beatific Vision. But this end can be reached only in the next life; in the present life we can but prepare ourselves for it with the aid of revelation and grace. To some souls, however, even in the present life, God gives a very special grace by which they are enabled to feel His sensible presence; this is true mystical contemplation. In this act, there is no annihilation or absorption of the creature into God, but God becomes intimately present to the created mind and this, enlightened by special illuminations, contemplates with ineffable joy the Divine essence.
NOTES PREGER, Gesch. der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1881); SCHMID, Der Mysticismus in seiner Entstehungsperiode (Jena, 1824); GÖRRES, Die christl. Mystik (Ratisbon, 1836-42); COUSIN, Histoire générale de la philosophie (Paris, 1863); IDEM, Du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien (23rd ed., Paris, 1881), v; GENNARI, Del falso Misticismo (Rome, 1907); DELACROIX, Essai sur le mysticisme spéculatif en Allemagne au xive siècle (Paris, 1900); UEBERWEG, Hist. of Philos., tr. MORRIS with additions by PORTER (New York, 1894); DE WULF, Hist. de la Philos. médiévale (Louvain, 1900); TURNER, Hist. of Philos. (Boston, 1903).
GEORGE M. SAUVAGE
Transcribed by Elizabeth T. Knuth
Dedicated to Thomas S. Charters
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume X
Copyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

[Source]

I understand what you're saying, but there are several small problems with it.

Let's just say, we simply disagree.

There are Democrats who are definitely small-r Republicans and most Republicans would probably consider themselves small-d democrats, so your analogy breaks down there.

I don't believe it breaks down completely, specifically because, I don't agree with your evaluation of republicans and democrats. It's obvious you don't see much difference in the two parties and little differences between the positions of individual members.

However, this isn't about what interpretive values you may place on someones political affliations. That's highly subjective. This is about what the individual believes and professes. That's the whole point of this exercise into political awareness.

Secondly, libertarianism is a political ideology, like liberalism or conservatism (although it is not completely exclusive of those labels - there are left-libertarians and right-libertarians). It is not simply the creed of a political party. The Libertarian Party exists, ostensibly at least, to promote libertarianism, but libertarianism doesn't exist to promote the Libertarian Party. In fact, libertarianism as a body of thought considerably predates the LP. So your analogy is a little bit like saying that a conservative should belong to something called the Conservative Party rather than the Republican Party.

I hear you, but... Look, you can interpret anything in life, any way you want. In regards to politics, I can't help it, if you're adverse to politcal association and labeling. That's life. While eveyone can't be stuffed into a certain political reality, 100% of the time, there are some realities that we all must face. While political philosophies and ideologies, don't always jive with the individual party agenda, on every issue, it's still proper to make such political connections and links.

In the bigger context of communications, historical precedents are one thing, but we are living in the 21st century. It's pretty clear to me, that most republicans, folow the Republican Party agenda/platform and most democrats follow the Democratic Party agenda/platform. I can't and won't exclude the fact, that most libertarians, follow the Libertarian Party agenda/platform. Until you can prove me wrong, I think its fair to rationalize politics in this manner. If people get so upset with political labels, they should call themselves independents and leave it at that. I think some folks, like the convenience of political parties and philosophies, when it suits a certain situation, they might find themselves in the middle of, but easily cast off, such associations, when they feel its not so acceptable.

And if there was a ground swell for a true, a real, national conservative party, I'd seriously consider joining it. But as long as the Republican Party remains the home of the conservative movement in America, I'll remain, a republican, in the Republican Party.

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