With the conjunction of Easter and ANZAC in the same week, the word "sacrifice" is being sickeningly over-used.
"Sickeningly" because so few users of the work are fully aware of just how barbaric the ethic of sacrifice is. As I say in this repost of a blog from 2019:
There is Nothing Noble About Sacrifice.
Since so many have used the word so often, let's define it:
"Slaughter." "Surrendering..." "Immolation." Nothing noble about any of that.
Let's examine it further:
“Sacrifice” is the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a nonvalue. Thus, [the ethic of] altruism gauges a man’s virtue by the degree to which he surrenders, renounces or betrays his values (since help to a stranger or an enemy is regarded as more virtuous, less 'selfish,' than help to those one loves). The rational principle of conduct is the exact opposite: always act in accordance with the hierarchy of your values, and never sacrifice a greater value to a lesser one. [Emphasis added.]
And further:
“Sacrifice” does not mean the rejection of the worthless, but of the precious.
“Sacrifice” does not mean the rejection of the evil for the sake of the good, but of the good for the sake of the evil. “Sacrifice” is the surrender of that which you value in favor of that which you don’t.
If you exchange a penny for a dollar, it is not a sacrifice; if you exchange a dollar for a penny, it is. If you achieve the career you wanted, after years of struggle, it is not a sacrifice; if you then renounce it for the sake of a rival, it is. If you own a bottle of milk and give it to your starving child, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to your neighbour’s child and let your own die, it is.
If you give money to help a friend, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to a worthless stranger, it is. If you give your friend a sum you can afford, it is not a sacrifice; if you give him money at the cost of your own discomfort, it is only a partial virtue, according to this sort of moral standard; if you give him money at the cost of disaster to yourself—that is the virtue of sacrifice in full.
If you renounce all personal desires and dedicate your life to those you love, you do not achieve full virtue [by this moral standard]: you still retain a value of your own, which is your love. If you devote your life to random strangers, it is an act of greater virtue. If you devote your life to serving men you hate—[by this depraved moral standard] that is the greatest of the virtues you can practice.
A sacrifice is the surrender of a value. Full sacrifice is full surrender of all values.
"The surrender of all values." There is nothing, nothing at all, that is noble about that.
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| 'Sacrifice,' by sculptor Rayner Hoff, inside the Australian War Memorial in Sydney's Hyde Park |
Does that mean you should never fight at all? Never fight for those you love? No:
Concern for the welfare of those one loves is a rational part of one’s selfish interests. If a man who is passionately in love with his wife spends a fortune to cure her of a dangerous illness, it would be absurd to claim that he does it as a “sacrifice” for her sake, not his own, and that it makes no difference to him, personally and selfishly, whether she lives or dies.
Any action that a man undertakes for the benefit of those he loves is not a sacrifice if, in the hierarchy of his values, in the total context of the choices open to him, it achieves that which is of greatest personal (and rational) importance to him. In the above example, his wife’s survival is of greater value to the husband than anything else that his money could buy, it is of greatest importance to his own happiness and, therefore, his action is not a sacrifice.
But suppose he let her die in order to spend his money on saving the lives of ten other women, none of whom meant anything to him—as the ethics of altruism would require. That would be a sacrifice. Here the difference between Objectivism and altruism can be seen most clearly: if sacrifice is the moral principle of action, then that husband shouldsacrifice his wife for the sake of ten other women. What distinguishes the wife from the ten others? Nothing but her value to the husband who has to make the choice—nothing but the fact that his happiness requires her survival.
The Objectivist ethics would tell him: your highest moral purpose is the achievement of your own happiness, your money is yours, use it to save your wife, that is your moral right and your rational, moral choice.
Fighting for your values, fighting for those you love, these are acts of integrity. Not of sacrifice.
We may honour a man acting in support of his values, even at the risk of his life. We should neither honour, nor call it, a sacrifice.
Why?
First, because honouring their memory demands it. That's a question of our integrity.
Second, there is a very practical reason; one of self-defence:
We may honour a man acting in support of his values, even at the risk of his life. We should neither honour, nor call it, a sacrifice.
Why?
First, because honouring their memory demands it. That's a question of our integrity.
Second, there is a very practical reason; one of self-defence:
It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
Such people exist in every age.
They called men to war in 1914 in the name of, says one historian, "an altruistic willingness to sacrifice oneself for the cause of righteousness." They call people now, Great Leaders of every description seeking sacrifice to a "higher cause" -- to the State, to the Climate, to any Great Cause selected by the Great Leaders, expunging the sin of selfishness in their answer to the call of "Duty."
But as a great writer once observed: "Under a morality of sacrifice, the first value you sacrifice is morality itself."
There is nothing noble about sacrifice.
2 comments:
If you ask a dictionary to define sacrifice, one of the definitions is what you quote above. But you also get "Giving up something important or valuable for a greater purpose or benefit". It's the second definition that's more relevant in the context of whether going into war is rational or not, and what people usually mean when they use the term in everyday language. You hear it all the time even in more personal matters - when they describe for instances the sacrifices a top sportsman has to make - a rigorous training regime, careful diet, forgoing social contact, etc to reach the top of their sport.
Few would find it contentious that a man should spend his money saving his wife's life, compared to the lives of 10 strangers either. As a reductio ad absurdum example, it at least alerts people to regarding all sacrifice as good, and the perils of conflating the two different definitions.
But I've come to view the Objectivist position as less helpful in marginal cases. In WWI and WWII for instance, young men were called to fight a war, where the personal risk to them was significant, but it was to preserve more fundamental values necessary for the survival of the society as a whole, the society that they're a part of. Evolutionary psychology would have selected for the willingness to do this, in young men in particular. Hence the bravado and risk-taking young men often exhibit.
On an individualistic level, the contribution of one man is unlikely to make a difference to the war's outcome, so on a purely personal calculation, it would make sense not to risk your life. So I think it's hard to argue this is not a sacrifice. If nobody were prepared to sacrifice their personal safety, the society would be overrun by aggressors.
Objectivism essentially denies the 2nd definition I quoted, and says this is not real sacrifice. But I'm not sure declaring war on a common meaning is the best way to approach this. A word can often have different meanings depending on context, and I'm starting to think it's more useful just to differentiate good from bad sacrifice instead.
The problem with the talk of 'sacrifice' in the context of Anzac Day is that it conflates the two definitions. Joining the war efforts, and following the orders of competent generals, even at great personal risk is perhaps a good sacrifice. Charging into a machine gunners nest with no real hope of survival, or to get slaughtered on Gallipoli's beaches because of incompetent command is a bad sacrifice.
When you choose the welfare of someone else above yourself, on the basis of love, that is what I would consider sacrifice. I agree the example of a husband spending money to save his wife, which is an action I have completed via private healthcare, is something I would find objectionable if it was described as a sacrifice on my part. On the other hand I believe I would be willing to give up my life for my wife, children, grandchildren, other people I know and possibly a stranger in certain circumstances. I hesitate to write that as it is a easy to state, but no doubt confronting when the moment arises. Also appreciate that the world is complicated and those situations aren't necessary black and white ,with circumstances, and compromise confusing options and motivations.
The use of the objectivist ethics idea that sacrifice based on love is just fulfilling the identified highest moral purpose, being the achievement of your own happiness , is based on presumably a deliberately obtuse definition of love. While our language has relatively limited words to describe love, the love that puts others before your own desire (whether it makes you happy or not) is noble indeed.
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