There’s a standard in his answer, one that cannot be unseated even by academics who make careers, some very successful, out of studying precisely which book is the best book to be stranded on a desert island with. These folks are outsmarting themselves—any other book is simply a matter of taste. Only Chesterton’s answer reminds us there is a whole world to see, one wholly worth seeing if only we could get the hell off that sandbar.
This is the essential difference between the relative and the universal, the subjective and the objective, the arbitrary and the absolute. And it outlines the real challenge in the study of ethics, especially in the study of martial ethics: to discern the truth of the good and then protect and defend it. If we’re willing to fight, or protect others from harm, or hurt, maim, or kill those who might do the harming, we had better be able to explain not only the good reasons, but the just reasons we fought for and defended others. We had better be able to clarify why.
In seeking the universal, what is good for everyone, we first need some context for what it is we’re searching for, thus the question, what is the nature of human nature? Is it a book to be read or a book to be written? Is it revealed to us, something we discover and recognize as an answer to what it means to be human? Or is our human nature whatever we conclude is worthwhile through reason and experience?
If our nature is due to reasoned knowledge, acquired through experience, then human nature is a book to be written and ought to be organized as good experiences deemed worthy enough for habituating. Much of Greek philosophy centered on the concept of defining this “good life,” eudaimonia. Greek thought is really, really old, so this is by no means new.
But here’s an older idea.
What is it that deems worthy any collection of experiences, habits, or traits concerning the good in the first place? What is it that provides the justification for their inclusion? Is it simply the fact that we think they are worthy? We all take a vote and agree they are? Remember, this book is not about what we agree on. We’re looking instead for what is undeniable.
Could there be an ardent standard by which our “good” ideas could be judged? Perhaps one that is more important and of greater value than fickle human opinion? Could there be a concept that is so cherished that even the good itself could be appraised against it to determine if it is in fact “good”?
There is.
In graduate school, I wrote a paper in which I made the case that certain human values—truth telling, prohibition on murder, and valuation of the young—are nonnegotiable. This means they require both our protection and profound respect.
Truth telling protects the functioning of an interconnected society that relies on accuracy in measurements and communications. Imagine if ground control lied to airlines about the weather or engineers fabricated dimensions in the construction of bridges and buildings. Chaos would ensue since we could never be sure if we were being told the truth. Every individual has an inalienable right to their existence, and the prohibition on murder embraces this right as the foundation of societal laws and mores. If the unborn, babies, and children were not protected and instead were killed, they could not grow up to replace older and dying members of society. And if wholesale violation of all these values were to occur in some anarchic scenario, it would jeopardize the collapse of any society.
These three values are not merely good ideas; they are crucial, fundamental, and necessary to human existence and its flourishing. Not only does this make their inclusion in the pantheon of cherished human values obvious, but it also designates them as something special: moral. How we understand what is moral has everything to do with how we value. And how we value has everything to do with how we value life.
Whenever we discuss the load-bearing walls of ethics, we wind up reaching for this concept called normativity. A “normative source” is like the Ark of the Covenant, the Sankara Stones, the Holy Grail, and that silly crystal skull all rolled into one fortune-and-glory McGuffin of moral philosophy. Think of it as a quantum or string theory that moors our disparate emotions, mindful concerns, and physicality to a single dock. It provides an explanation for why we feel, think, and do the way we feel, think, and do. This isn’t simply defining what drives the car but rather unraveling the theory of combustion that necessitates the form of the engine, which in turn designates the design of the car, and even shapes the manner of its use.
Only a value for life provides the set of inclinations humans have to naturally protect, defend, and sustain it. Our cells fight off viruses; our immune systems create tolerances to bacteria; our brains process fear and purpose adrenaline, driving neural instincts to concentrate blood and raise our heart rates to help us defend ourselves or flee from an attack; and our consciousness teams with our proprioception to navigate a world that can harm us. From our cellular structure to our spiritual consciousness, even to the surprising number of failed suicides—most—we humans are designed to be life-sustaining creatures.
The value of life is the nature of our human nature, the book that is read, and thus revealed to us, and is the wellspring for our sense of normative obligation, one that recognizes self-evident behaviors that support our care and protection.
It’s no mistake that within the annals of martial history, the highest order of mastery has always been to undo the enemy while sparing his life, if at all possible. And within the philosophic realm, the value of life is the source of justification for our visceral instincts of obligation to care for ourselves and others. What other earthly validation exists to make sacred our highest conception of values, in the form of morals, ethics, justice, and rights? What good would any of these notions be if they were twisted to violate and ravage, operating in contradiction to the existence of human “being”?
If you’re not convinced that the power of morals, ethics, justice, and rights is due to the value we place on life, then ask yourself this: Why do these things matter anyway? What is it that makes them valuable in the first place? Is it simply because we agree they are? Do they only matter as much as the prevailing opinion held by those who vote for them at the time? A 51 percent rule is a dangerous precept for discovering moral clarity considering that collective human agreement is as foolproof as picking up a bucket while you are in it.
There is an intrinsic quality that makes these metaphysical concepts valuable, even if the majority of us agreed they were not of value. What invigorates them must be the value of life because that is what they aim to protect and defend. If the dignity of human being were somehow of no importance to our experience, then these concepts would not exist because they would not have mattered enough to be articulated over the course of history. You can’t have ideals like morals, ethics, justice, and rights if there is nothing about life ideally worth protecting.
And just why do we value life? What is it that compels us to value our lives and judge everything else by its sustainable accord? Here’s my answer after years of research, study, teaching, and contemplation: we don’t know; we just know.
Did God put it there? Maybe. Is it evolutionary residue? Perhaps. The fact that humans value life is an inescapable truth of the natural world. It shares the stage with other natural truths, such as the four fundamental forces of physics, or the elements that make up the primary constituents of matter.
If we can fulfill the protector ethic—protecting ourselves, those around us, and even our enemy, if at all possible—we will have realized the essence, the root, the core of every core value that has ever shaped the martial way. In fact, we cannot formulate any martial value,
