"Do you know any seminal books on eugenics and euthanasia, particularly dealing with the Nazis?", I asked my friend Sam.
Sam, who holds a degree in geo-politics, paused and thought for a second.
"I might just have something you should read", Sam replied.
Sam loaned me his copy of , by Robert Jay Lifton. Lifton specializes in writing about the psychological aspects of history. He analyzes and tries to understand how physicians, who take the Hippocratic oath, could commit atrocities like these [warning: graphic content].
Lifton writes, "In Nazi mass murder, we can say that a barrier was removed, a boundary was crossed ... My argument in this study is that the medicalization of killing - the imagery of killing in the name of healing -- was crucial to that terrible step. At the heart of the Nazi enterprise, then, is the destruction of the boundary between healing and killing." p.14, The Nazi Doctors.
Lifton*, who writes from a naturalistic world view, tries to make sense out of evil. Those entrusted with saving lives were front row participants in savagely taking lives. How does that happen? How do highly intelligent, medically trained people lose their souls and commit atrocities?
Lifton's theory, after spending years interviewing Nazi doctors and gathering research, is that they viewed it as bringing healing.
How can a worldview get so twisted? Could it happen again? Could doctors be willing participants in the ending of lives in the name of healing or compassion or mercy? Is our country's current fascination with hastening death for those who are suffering at all similar?
How did this slide down a slippery ethical slope occur? That is why I am reading Lifton's book. I want to know what took place in the early days of Nazi Germany's biocracy. What were the assumptions that gave eventually gave rise to such horror?
Chapter one is about sterilization and the Nazi biomedical vision. My thoughts on that chapter in a future post.
* Lifton's parents were Jewish, but his father rejected orthodox Judaism in favor of atheism. Lifton was heavily influenced by his father's atheism though he himself has taken a keen interest in ethics.
Lifton comments, "It's very hard to gauge for me exactly how a sense of ethics developed. It wasn't out of any religious conviction. Again, I was influenced by my father, who was very much an atheist and took pride in combating the traditional or orthodox forms of Judaism, which his parents and which my mother's parents were very steeped in. And I must say that that orthodoxy felt very suffocating to me as a kid growing up and witnessing it, though not really entering into it. Yet, I do think there was an ethical idea about human beings, who ought to be treated well. It was very vague in that sense, in a secular form, very early on. It has remained secular in me ever since, and yet it has some spiritual component."
Hello,
I just found your blog today.
One of the disturbing facts I found with one book I bought several years ago on nazi doctors is that, Carl Brandt- personal physician of "Adolph Hitler" used Sulfudamide on his subjects as expierments and today you can still find the same drug in the Physican's Drug Reference Mannuel.
Posted by: Pete Hernandez | November 11, 2005 at 12:48
Of course people could do it again. the US let black men die of sysphilus at Tuskegee in order to study the deseas, and the US military esposed peope to radition and chemicals to see what would happen -- without telling them what would go on.
Anytme you put people on sides - -us vs. them, believer vs non-believer, straight vs. gay -- then you are starting down the road that can lead to things like what we are talking about here.
Posted by: kevin | November 11, 2005 at 14:24
"but does it always lead to viewing killing as healing?"
Always? No. But I cannot think of a single situation where large segments of the population or power structure aquiesced to brutality without first sorting society into the Rightous and the Other. Once someone stops being a human being and starts being an Other, well, it is much, much easier to defend killing or torturing them.
Posted by: kevin | November 11, 2005 at 19:24
Kevin - you have a point, but I think you misstate. The sorting isn't between the righteous and the not; it's between the Human and the not. You can have all sorts of fault lines running through society - just like we have always had in the USA. It doesn't descend to violence until the other side is seen as less than human, and that's what happened with the Nazis.
In the case of the doctors, they were ripe for killing once they started performing euthanasia - the killing of those who have lost their claim to humanity by being terminally ill, or mentally defective, or physically defective, or (a small leap at this point) racially defective.
Once you include somebody in the "not quite really human" group, it's easy to add others. Unfortunately, after one of the USA's greatest successes - "rehumanizing" black people who were once considered inferior - we've had one of our greatest failures - the dehumanizing of the unborn. We're now in the process of adding the crippled. It's gonna be interesting, though not very pleasant, to see who's added next.
Posted by: The Waffling Anglican | November 11, 2005 at 22:36
"In the case of the doctors, they were ripe for killing once they started performing euthanasia"
And they were ripe for euthanasia once they started performing forced sterilization. This thing unfolded one step at a time.
"it's between the Human and the not."
Smashed it out of the park. That's the division that allows a doctor to view killing as healing.
The issue for the Nazi's was personhood. They had a list of criteria for personhood starting with race, but also including physical and mental capacity. They also had a concept called "life unworthy of life" which I will discuss in future posts.
Remove the "person" element (i.e. the human element) and your conscience will allow almost anything.
The W.A. is correct ... personhood language, and what counts for human, is very much alive and well in our own society. It is applied to entire class of human beings ... those not born. We are also beginning to see the notion of "life unworthy of life" rearing its ugly head too.
Posted by: Dawn Treader | November 12, 2005 at 05:35
A general question - when did the concept of the unborn as humans begin?
Posted by: Paul | November 12, 2005 at 18:11
Anglican:The sorting isn't between the righteous and the not; it's between the Human and the not.Umm, no, he got it exactly right. Didn't you read where he said "Once someone stops being a human being and starts being an Other?" [Emphasis mine]
Jeff:
The personhood issue is much more complex. At what point does someone become a person? At what point do they cease to be a person? Some (like you, perhaps) would define these endpoints as conception and absolute death. Many others, however, aren't so sure.
The problem with the Nazis, and with the doctors at Tuskegee, etc., is not that they simply distinguished between human and "other," but that they did so without legitimate justification or reason; they classified people as other (i.e., non-human) simply because those people were different (skin color, faith, whatever). That's a completely different thing than so classifying people as such because they have no self-awareness or consciousness and no chance of recovering it, for example. (Schiavo springs to mind.)
Posted by: tgirsch | November 13, 2005 at 13:53
Tgirsch...what it seems to me that you are saying is that the Nazi's got it wrong because they didn't agree with your justifications of personhood.
On what non-circular line of reasoning can you determine which of your views of personhood are correct?
Posted by: Alan Grey | November 15, 2005 at 00:58
Alan:
No, what I'm saying is that the Nazis got it wrong because they had an inconsistent definition of personhood, and because their definition was so far out that it doesn't come close to passing the "reasonable person" test.
Determining the correctness of such issues can be a tough nut, I'll be the first to admit. But I don't think it's in any way circular to tie personhood to self-awareness. To my mind -- and I'm far from alone, there are plenty of medical ethicists who agree -- an embryo which has not yet achieved self-awareness has not yet achieved personhood. Once self-awareness is achieved, however, personhood is irrevocable until such time as that self-awareness is permanently lost. A person who has irreparably lost their self-awareness has also lost their personhood. A person who temporarily loses self awareness (e.g., comatose) still has personhood.
This is an entirely consistent ethical position, even if it's not one with which you're inclined to agree.
All this said, I could ask you the same question. On what non-circular line of reasoning do you justify your views of personhood?
Posted by: tgirsch | November 15, 2005 at 15:32
Tgirsch,
Saying that some people are not persons because of different skin colour is not inconsistent. It just is inconsistent with your view of what constitutes personhood.
That it is 'far out' and not reasonable is no use because according to the Nazi's at the time it seemed quite reasonable and perfectly rational. 50 Years ago, your ideas on personhood would also have seemed far out and unreasonable. Just because a few medical ethicists agree now doesn't make it any more correct.
I didn't say your position was inconsistent, just subjective (and so there are no objective grounds for judging between your definition and the Nazi's).
I personally don't have a view on personhood. It is an arbitrary concept that people subjectively determine to justify the oppression of a particular group who they find inconvenient. I believe all human life deserves the same level of protection. It is the only way to keep the door closed to oppression, as Mr Dawn Treader so rightly highlights
Posted by: Alan grey | November 16, 2005 at 17:54
Alan:
But there's a legitimate question as to whether we do harm by erring in the opposite direction. If we force hospitals to keep shells of people alive when the mind is clearly gone, we prolong suffering for the family (and possibly also what's left of the person), and for what? Similarly, in the case of an unwanted pregnancy, it's no longer a simple matter of personhood for one entity -- now it involves two. If an embryo hasn't achieved personhood yet, is it really worth taking away part of the personhood of the woman -- her personal autonomy -- to protect the embryo? Your answer to this question is probably different than mine, but that doesn't mean we get to pretend that the answer is so simple.
There's an even more fundamental question here: is all life worth protecting? It seems simple enough, but given specific examples, the picture quickly gets muddy. That's all I'm saying.
Posted by: tgirsch | November 16, 2005 at 19:51
Tom,
Personhood language is the problem. If we rid ourselves of the notion of drawing a line that must be crossed in order to be a person, then we avoid running the risk of oppresion and the taking of innocent life.
Alan is correct. Your standard of personhood looks different than Himmler's. Himmler's was genetic purity. Roger Taney, author of the infamous Dred Scott decision, had a different line for personhood. His was skin color, and Dred Scott failed to cross Taney's line ... the result was that Dred Scott was not a person, he was property.
Your line is self-awareness. That is more tasteful to you than Himmler's or Taney's line.
Ethicist Peter Singer's line is utilitarian in nature -- what happiness points will the infant contribute to this world -- if none, then the child is not a person. Cold calculus.
Surely you see the danger in endorsing personhood language. It opens Pandaro's box -- and history has proven that monsters like Hitler are Taney are all too happy to take advantage of the slippery slope.
Your point about messy scenarios is valid. We need to find ways to solve difficult problems without ending life to do it. Solutions are there ... and they allow us to leave Pandora's box shut.
Posted by: Dawn Treader | November 17, 2005 at 05:33
Alan and Jeff - despite your comments, it seems you both *do* endorse the idea of personhood, subject to your own definition (begins at conception, ends at unequivocal death). Given that there is nothing 'magic' about either of those lines, they're just as arbitrary as any other, unless of course you want to apply your own 'reasonable person' test.
Posted by: Paul | November 17, 2005 at 10:49
Note that I'm not endorsing any particular view; I'm just saying that it's a lot more complicated than some (like Alan) seem to suggest. Erring unconditionally on the side of "life" comes with its own unique problems. I reject the idea that the only way to avoid becoming like the Nazis is to avoid life-and-death decisions entirely.
And why does Taney always get the bad rap, anyway? Not that he shouldn't, but there were several other justices who ruled with him, or he'd have been writing a dissent.
Posted by: tgirsch | November 17, 2005 at 14:12
"Alan and Jeff - despite your comments, it seems you both *do* endorse the idea of personhood, subject to your own definition (begins at conception, ends at unequivocal death)."
There is no such thing as personhood, so I disagree with your assertion.
We are either human beings or not. We are either alive or not.
Personhood is invented language to justify the taking of innocent life.
Posted by: Dawn Treader | November 17, 2005 at 18:14
"I reject the idea that the only way to avoid becoming like the Nazis is to avoid life-and-death decisions entirely."
I reject the idea that the discussion of personhood is an issue limited solely to the Nazis. The concept of "life unworthy of life" certainly did not originate with the Nazis ... nor did it end with them.
Don't forget, eugenics started in Great Britain and in America before it started in Germany.
In my opinion, it is already making its come back in America.
Posted by: Dawn Treader | November 17, 2005 at 18:24