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Essay 3: Albert Schweitzer's Affirmations of Reverence for Life |
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mystical reflection. Brabazon quotes Schweitzer approvingly
in this regard: “If rational thought thinks itself out to a
conclusion, it arrives at something non-rational which,
nevertheless, is a necessity of thought.” In spite of the best
efforts of Schweitzer and Brabazon, I still do not think a
strong case is made for Reverence for Life as a necessity of
thought. Schweitzer himself admits that “the world is a ghastly
drama of will-to-live divided against itself,” that the world is,
as we also recognize to our grief, a dog-eat-dog world, or, for
Schweitzer, a hippo-eat-hippo world. For this question, this
issue, Schweitzer has no answer, and he calls the contrast
between creative will and destructive will an enigma. Further,
even if necessity of thought is not judged to be logical
necessity, few thinkers other than committed Schweitzerians
buy into the necessary relationship Schweitzer poses between
rational and non-rational thought, nor do ethicists feel
compelled to draw the same conclusion as Schweitzer.
Reverence for Life remains a powerful, appealing ethical
option, but it does not appear to be a necessity of thought.
Foundational to
Reverence for Life, I
would propose, is
reciprocity…
Nevertheless, it may be possible, in another way, to
demonstrate a universalizing tendency in the principle of
Reverence for Life.
Foundational to Reverence for
Life, I would propose, is
reciprocity, the recognition that
it is right and proper to balance
my expectations and actions
for myself with my
expectations and actions for
others. Thus Jesus, speaking
out of his Jewish tradition,
advises, “Act toward others the
way you want others to act
toward you.” (the golden rule,
which sometimes is articulated
in the negative as the so-called
silver rule), and he commands,
“Love your neighbor as
yourself” (love that includes love for enemy, as Jesus states in
the Sermon on the Mount). Schweitzer himself preached a
Confucius:
“Do not to others
what you do not want them
to do to you.”