Toward freedom from value

¶ … Freedom From Value

Humans are the most evolved creatures on earth when considering our capacity to think and our capacity to act as a result of our thinking. The human society today regards the human life as being the most praised thing ever to have existed. Richard Stith's essay "Toward Freedom from Value" emphasizes the fact that humans are inclined to see life as being one of the most important things on earth instead as regarding it as just of being of "some importance."

Human life is something marvelous, yet, it is hard to define, with different opinions existing on the topic of where it comes from, how important it is, or when the first modern human had set foot on this earth. Its origins differ depending on religious communities and philosophical concepts. While some regard life as being the work of god, others see it as merely being the result of billions of years of evolution with no aid from a divine intervention.

In time, people have paid great attention to the well-being of their society and rules have been created with the purpose to stop crimes from being committed. Most societies consider the worst crime as being that of taking one's life. Even when the circumstances require for the respective human's life to be taken, the occurrence is judged as being perverted and against the laws of God. Capital punishments, for example, have been created in order to make people pay for horrible crimes that they had been found guilty of. However, while people regard capital punishments as being justified, they do not regard the events as being natural.

Capital punishments have their origins long before our era in a world where people came to the conclusion that terrible crimes had to be penalized with the deprivation of life. Over time, such punishments became more frequent, and the practice survived until our days with some countries still practicing capital punishments.

Capital punishments are not the only mean through which one can be killed legally and without any reprisals. Wars have been the main factor leading to the death of many innocent people. The capital punishment is somewhat reasonable for the fact that the person sentenced to death deserves his or her fate in the opinion of some. The innocent people who are deprived of their lives during wars however, do not die for something that they have done, but they die simply because they have been in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

People still die today because of unnatural reasons, but the rest of the world has gotten accustomed with this. This acceptance is believed to exist because of the fact that the people today think that it is unavoidable for accidents to happen. This is partly true, and somehow just, because accidents happen randomly, and victims are also chosen randomly. One of the best metaphors to be represented in today's society is "you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet." There is a tendency in the present to justify the death of one person in a state of affairs in which the lives of others have been saved. One's life is becoming a privilege instead of being a right as it would be normal.

In Richard Stith's opinion, the taking of a life is never justified, regardless to the good that the occurrence brings. Indeed, there is no existing reason for why the life of an innocent person has to be taken. There are separate cases in which martyrs have chosen to give their lives in order for others to be saved. However, this is an example that society cannot choose who dies and who doesn't. People are free to decide whether they want to sacrifice their lives or whether they don't.

Humanity today is imperfect because of several motives. One of the aspects in which humanity fails from letting justice prevail is determining the value of life. Nowadays, life has a price, and people usually determine what that price is depending on the circumstances. Clearly, it would seem barbaric to try and decide the value of a human being. Truthfully, it is barbaric even to associate the words value and human because of the fact that in the civilized world the human life is meaning much more than something you can put a price on.

Even if a man was to decide the faith of another man, and the latter would be killed, the first man would certainly feel a drawback from taking the decision. This can happen because all people have a conscience and everyone is aware that such a decision can be taken only by someone designated to take such actions. A feature which makes a human life priceless is that all humans are unique with no two identical persons existing. However, there is much more than uniqueness when regarding a human life. The character of a particular human being, the way of thinking and much more similar features contribute in making a person beyond price. Thus, there are no possible means to determine the value that a life has.

When referring to people, the word value can be replaced with the world love, as the second one only shows its true meaning when it is associated with a human being. Love is much more than value due to the fact that it expresses the exact feeling that one feels when pronouncing the word. It is very important to associate the word with human beings only, because it loses its true meaning when it is linked to an object or an animal. By claiming that he or she values a certain human being, one indirectly offends the human being that is being valued. Value is a rather vulgar expression when it is used to put across somebody's feelings. A lover cannot be valued, for if we chose to value him or her, we would automatically assert that there is a price we can put on our love, and that the respective lover can actually be replaced by one that has a similar price.