Formatting is off a little but not too bad.
7) Subjective Morality and Infanticide
Thanks to the dry sands of Egypt, a letter from 1 B.C. survived in “the rubbish dump of ancient Oxyrhynchus.” A pregnant wife, concerned that her husband (who was also her brother, following Egyptian custom) had forgotten her, sent him a letter. Here is the response from the husband (Hilarion) to his wife (Alis) :
“Hilarión to his sister Alis many greetings, likewise to my lady Berous and to Apollonarion. Know that we are even yet in Alexandria. Do not worry if they all come back (except me) and I remain in Alexandria. I urge and entreat you, be concerned about the child and if I should receive my wages soon, I will send them up to you. If by chance you bear a child, if it is a boy, let it be, if it is a girl, cast it out [to die]. You have said to Aphrodisias, “Do not forget me.” How can I forget you? Therefore I urge you not to worry. (Year) 29 of Caesar [Augustus], Payni 23. (White 111–12; see also Hunt & Edgar 1.294–95; Davis 1933:1–7)”
John Dominic Crossan has described this letter as both tender and terrible. The operative part for our purposes is: “If it is a girl, cast it out.”[1] Infanticide has been widely practiced the world over. Laila Williamson reports:
“Infanticide has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunter gatherers to high civilizations. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule.”[2]
Wikipedia similarly reports:
“Most Stone Age human societies routinely practiced infanticide, and estimates of children killed by infanticide in the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras vary from 15 to 50 percent. Infanticide continued to be common in most societies after the historical era began, including ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the Phoenicians, ancient China, ancient Japan, Pre-Islamic Arabia, early modern Europe, Aboriginal Australia, Native Americans, and Native Alaskans.”
In modern times, the practice is almost universally condemned but more recent examples include a staggering number of missing girls due to China’s “Longer, Later, Fewer” policy that predated its one-child policy. It is estimated that over 200,000 girls went missing, some due to abandonment and neglect.
If humans lack intrinsic value and meaning, then the specific method of their disposal is morally irrelevant. It is certainly not wrong to cast out unwanted infants like trash to die of exposure; nor, by that same logic, would it be immoral to use them as piñatas, shark bait or for bayonet practice. If the infant is not a person, neither act is a crime. This may seem sensationalistic, but the latter scenario actually occurred during the Nanking Massacre. The following is a quote from David Ray Griffin:
“To affirm atheism is to hold the view of John Mackie, Gilbert Harman, Bernard Williams, and Richard Rorty, . . . according to which moral norms do not belong to the fabric of the universe. According to this view, morality is simply a social convention, which human societies have invented. As Mackie said, it is generally thought that “if someone is writhing in agony before your eyes,” you should “do something about it if you can.” However, said Mackie, this is not an objective requirement “in the nature of things.”
Griffin provides quotes from Harman and Rorty to the same effect. He also notes that “atheism implies that we have no obligation even to the next generation. If no moral norms exist in the fabric of the universe, we are doing nothing wrong if we use up all the remaining fossil fuels, even if this brings about the end of civilization.”[God Exists but Gawd Does Not]
Griffin is painting with a broad brush as an atheist can certainly believe morality is objective. However, from my perspective it seems typical of materialists to embrace subjective morality. Williams finds this outlook to stem from the death of the teleological worldview. For the subjective moralist, an infant (like everyone else) has no intrinsic value or meaning. A number of modern ethicists and philosophers have concluded that infanticide is not a moral crime. A few quotes are illustrative:
“Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons”; therefore, “the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee.” \[Ethicist Peter Singer\]
· “[a human being] “possess[es] a serious right to life only if it possesses the concept of a self as a continuing subject of experiences and other mental states, and believes that it is itself such a continuing entity.” [Philosopher Michael Tooley] Infants clearly do not qualify.
· On infants, philosopher Jeffrey Reiman has asserted they do not “possess in their own right a property that makes it wrong to kill them” and “there will be permissible exceptions to the rule against killing infants that will not apply to the rule against killing adults and children.” This comes from Reiman’s Critical Moral Liberalism but was accessed via [Death With a Happy Face]
The idea is that since an infant does not possess the concept of self, it does not yet qualify as a person. In widely read material on abortion[3], Mary Anne Warren put forth several criteria—some of which she thinks a living being needs to possess—in order to classify as a person with moral rights: sentience or consciousness, the ability to reason, self-awareness and a few others. Since fetuses do not possess these, they do not have moral rights and thus, abortion is not wrong in her view.
The problem is her own criteria lead not just to abortion being okay, but infanticide as well. Infants do not possess the requisite mental faculties needed to classify as a person with moral rights either. She anticipates this objection and includes a postscript addressing it. Warren agrees that killing an infant can never be murder but is wrong insofar as it – I kid you not – makes other people sad. Her own words:
“The needless destruction of a viable infant inevitably deprives some person or persons of a source of great pleasure and satisfaction, perhaps severely impoverishing their lives.”
Peter Singer has said something similar:
“We should certainly put very strict conditions on permissible infanticide, but these conditions might owe more to the effects of infanticide on others than to the intrinsic wrongness of killing an infant.”
Now it should be noted that plenty of people who could be classified under the heading of “objective moralists” have also engaged in the practice of infanticide. Like so many moral issues, the actual position you adopt isn’t defined by what heading you fall under (objective or subjective). Merely subscribing to or paying lip service of any form of objective morality is not going to determine whether infanticide is right or wrong. It is how you understand the nature or essence of what it means to be human that will decide this issue. There is one important parallel between abortion and infanticide. Many people who are pro-choice do not generally consider themselves to be “murdering a baby” but instead terminating the biological function of a “clump of cells” existing inside a woman’s body. It would seem that the same type of logic can and has been used to justify infanticide. If infants are not fully human, then disposing of them is not intrinsically evil.[4]
Given that subjectivists do not think there is any intrinsic meaning or purpose to human life, moral absolutes cannot exist. The is/ought divide spans an infinite distance for them, yet most still empathetically grant humans basic “subjective” rights. But why would these rights extend to infants who lack self-awareness, consciousness and the ability to reason? A compelling reason why these sacks of developing flesh (as materialism would view them) should be given human rights is not forthcoming for the subjectivist. Not to mention, babies born weak or disabled are a burden and resources were limited at certain times in the past. Consequentialist or utilitarian arguments in the form of population control could be used to justify the practice of infanticide for subjectivists.
The difficulty of infanticide has no logical force in and of itself without justifying the idea that humans–and infants specifically-- have intrinsic value and inalienable rights. If babies do not have intrinsic rights, and their parents are not obligated to take care of them, then it is not morally wrong to throw a baby outside to die of the elements or be eaten by wild animals. This has been a widespread practice the world over into modern times. It is difficult for many modern people to justify why this is objectively wrong but natural moral law is adequate to that task.
The telos or ends of sex are both procreative and unitive since our offspring are helpless for so long. Both infants and pregnant women remain vulnerable and require sustaining care. Exposing infants frustrates the natural end of procreation and the purpose of the parent-child relationship in that role. Natural law says the value of a human infant is inherent to its nature, not its current capacity to reason. This will be spelled out in more detail later. While natural moral law can provide the philosophical basis for why infanticide is wrong, we have Jesus to thank for why Western civilization finally recognized this truth.
The morals of Jesus form the backbone of Western society and infanticide is so widely despised today because of Him. The Christian tradition teaches that all humans are created in the image of God (imago dei) with intrinsic rights due to their nature. This part of Genesis 1 was originally polemic against contrary views that saw only Kings and rulers as being created in God’s images. Genesis disagreed and said all people are made in God’s image. Whether we are Christians or atheists, or if we believe in objective or subjective morality, taking this teaching seriously would erase so many problems in the world. It means we cannot kill the mentally ill or old if they are burdens simply because we do not want to bear them. It would mean we could not enslave other humans and we certainly could not conquer them and steal their land. This simple truth should have undercut so much evil that has happened in the world.
It is unfortunate that so many people, including many Christians, never took it seriously. Instead, they chose to see those not like them as sub-human. It was not all bad, however. Christians created hospitals, Christian abolitionists ended slavery and a number of early Christians took in and cared for exposed infants. A significant number of early Christians did speak out against the widespread practices of both infanticide and abortion. A few quotes on the former issue are listed below:
· Didache: “And the second commandment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born. (c. 50-110 CE)
· The Letter of Barnabas: “Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born” (Letter of Barnabas 19 [c. 70-132 CE)
· Athenagoras: “ For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it” (c. 177 CE)
· Tertullian: “nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth.” (c. 200 CE)
· Apostolic Constitutions: Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten. . . . (c. 400 CE)
An incident in the gospels shows how this is an extension of Jesus’s own thoughts. People were bringing little children to Jesus and the disciples rebuked them, attempting to prevent their access. Apparently, the disciples thought little children weren’t important enough for Jesus to bother with. Most of us know how the story ends. Jesus famously corrected them and said, “Let the little children come to me.” He accepted, hugged and blessed these small children. Infants and small children were nobodies in paternal Mediterranean culture. They were powerless and disposable. Infants, especially those infirm or female, could be tossed out to die in polite society. Jesus’s words take on their strongest meaning in this context. This originally was not just a metaphor about how people need to become like children with blind trust to enter the kingdom of God. When Jesus said, “for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these, ” this is a statement by Jesus that small children are included in the Kingdom of God. This was quite an astonishing view. Adela Yarbro Collins writes:
“The rabbis debated whether children would be raised from the dead and included in the age to come. Rabban Gamliel argued that the children of the impious in Israel would have no share in the age to come. Rabbi Joshua argued that they would. The rabbis agreed that the children of non-Israelites would neither be raised nor judged.12 They debated what age an Israelite child had to have reached before death in order to be included in the age to come. One taught that all who had been born would be included; another, only those who had begun to speak; another, from the time when they could answer “Amen” in the synagogue with understanding; another, from the time when they are circumcised. Near the end of the collection of rabbinic views, the opinion that all those who have been born are included is restated. The passage ends with the declaration by Rabbi El>azar, that even children who have been miscarried will be raised; he based his opinion on a midrashic reading of Isa 49:6.13
The fact that the rabbis needed to engage in such a debate and the portrayal of the disciples as not wanting Jesus to be bothered with children both indicate the relatively low status of children in the ancient world in comparison with adults.14 Jesus’ indignation and his statement that “the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” indicate not only that children are included in the kingdom of God but also that they represent the type of person who is especially associated with the kingdom of God (cf. Mark 9:33-37).” [Mark, Hermeneia Commentary)
Per Jesus, the Kingdom of God is not only open to, but belongs to what many people only saw as disposable burdens or growing sacks of flesh. Famous for role reversals where the first are last, in elevating these nobodies, Jesus completely dismantles any defense of disposal for his followers.
[1] Another example is from Apuleius’ Metamorphoses: “a man setting out on a journey orders his wife, who is in expectation of becoming a mother, to kill the child immediately if it should prove to be a girl” Deissmann (Ancient Near East) cited by White (Light from Ancient letters).
[2] Williamson, Laila (1978). “Infanticide: an anthropological analysis”. In Kohl, Marvin (ed.). Infanticide and the Value of Life. New York: Prometheus Books. pp. 61–75.
[3] Warren, M A (1973). “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion”. Monist. 57
[4] It should be noted that abortion has also been defended as morally acceptable on the basis of Thomson’s violinist thought example. The argument suggests that even if a fetus has a right to life, the mother does nothing wrong in having an abortion on the basis of bodily autonomy. This viewpoint would carefully distinguish between abortion and infanticide. See the SEP for a discussion.