The Value of a Human: A Response to Godwin: An Essay

Written for an Ethics class.

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A house is on fire. Trapped inside are two people: an archbishop and his maid-servant. You are within arm’s reach of both, but you can only save the life of one; the other you must leave to perish. Which is more worthy of saving? Whose life is more valuable to humanity and the world? These are some of the questions William Godwin asks in his book An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. He claims that the archbishop should be the one saved, due to his moral value and greater influence. I think that Godwin’s opinion is wrong, and in this essay I will present a counter argument.

A Question of Value

The main theme of Godwin’s work is value: the value of one man to another, of a man to a woman, of a rich man to a poor one. Godwin asserts that some people are indeed more valuable than others. His bases for defining human value are morality and achievement.

Godwin begins by telling us that “[a] man is of more worth than a beast, because, being possessed of higher faculties, he is capable of a more refined and genuine happiness. In the same manner the illustrious archbishop of Cambrai was of more worth than his chambermaid, and there are few of us that would hesitate to pronounce, if his palace were in flames and the life of only one of them could be preserved, which of the two ought to be preferred.” Godwin is influenced by his times in his comparison of the maid to a beast. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, servants and people of the lower classes were considered stupid and ignorant, good for nothing but menial labor.

Godwin also claims tht the archbishop is more valuable than the maid because he has achieved more than she has; he has written a book and reformed sin. Through his book, the archbishop has influenced many people for the better, making him a highly powerful (and valuable) man. But, upon examining the maid’s life, we may find that she has also influenced others in a good way. If she is a good worker, then she has made her employer’s lives easier. If she is a good mother, she has raised her children to be virtuous and good (and done her biological duty by replicating herself, something which the archbishop has not done.) She may not have written a book, but this is because she has neither the time nor the education; if she were to be given as much leisure time as the archbishop, and had access to as much education as he, who is to say that she could not write a book herself? The maid does have value; it is simply value of a sort different from the archbishop’s.

A Question of Virtue

Interestingly, Godwin applies the question of virtue solely to the women, arguing that their morals may not be equal to that of the archbishop (they may be fools or prostitutes, “malicious, lying or dishonest”). Godwin does not mention the morals of the archbishop; in fact, he ignores the archbishop’s personal character completely. From his emphasis on the archbishop’s intellectual achievements, we may assume that Godwin’s views on the archbishop’s superior value would not alter even if the archbishop’s morals were bad or nonexistent; the archbishop, Godwin would argue, has written a book and saved others from sin, and is therefore more valuable than the maid, who has (presumably) spread no virtue and reformed no sinners. This argument directly contradicts his earlier argument, that the women have no value if they have no virtue.

A Question of Achievement

Godwin measures value by achievement. The archbishop, he says, achieved more than the chambermaid, for the archbishop wrote a book. The achievements of the maid are nowhere near as great. Even if the maid was his mother, who nourished and raised him, she would not have achieved more than the archbishop. The archbishop is worth saving because he has benefited humanity in the past and may continue to benefit it in the future; the maid is not worth saving because she has done nothing extraordinary or truly valuable.

But how do we measure achievement? Godwin is primarily concerned with intellectual achievement; the archbishop’s book ranks higher than the maid’s household chores. But couldn’t we argue that menial labor permits the luxury of intellectual labor? Doesn’t the maid’s cleaning free the archbishop from the daily hassle of household labor and give him more time for mental pursuits? The maid can thus be considered a major contributor to the archbishop’s achievements; her work is just as important as his.

There is also the question of motherhood. Godwin claims that women do not mother their young out of benevolence, but out of a natural instinct. This, in his view, deprives motherhood of both virtue and achievement, since a mere natural duty cannot be compared to supernatural virtue. Instinct does indeed play a role in motherhood, but instinct and benevolence are often mixed to the point where they cannot be separated. And then there is the question of achievement. Godwin would probably say that the archbishop’s mother is more valuable than the maid, for having borne an influential man; by the same argument, this value would decrease with age, for she would no longer have the capability to bear more influential children and would therefore be worthless. But in the same manner, one could say that every influential man (the archbishop included) eventually loses his power and faculties to age, and is therefore destined to be worthless despite his achievements. So would the maid and the archbishop retain their respective values into old age, or would they both be reduced to equal positions? Godwin would most probably argue that they retain some of their former value. But he must then admit that the archbishop’s mother, whatever the current status of her childbearing abilities, retains the value she gained in bearing and raising the archbishop.

Godwin’s views on human worth are archaic and close-minded; they seem to be based on gender and social class, unsteady bases for any ethical argument. The maid and the archbishop are both worthy of life, even though their impacts upon the world are markedly different. Without people of all types, society would be unable to function.

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