| Abstract: | ...While Spiegelberg emphasizes these "cosmic" -- perhaps more accurately, ontological -- features of birth and undeserved inequalities, it seems to us not inappropriate to suggest that what Douard terms "outrage" and Annas "instinct" go in the same direction. When impairment occurs without desert, something should be done to help. This is all the more true when, as in cases of chronic affliction that concern Douard or the case of the Siamese twins that fascinates Annas, something helpful can be done. Then, in Spiegelberg's words, what is "undeserved" demands redress. In these terms, each of these authors points to a deeply rooted sense of our common human lot. Or, in Albert Schweitzer's apt phrase, to witness such undeserved misfortune is to awaken "a moral sense that is usually dormant but that on special occasions can be brought to the surface." Chronic illnesses, we suggest -- no less than the "accidents of birth" that concern Spiegelberg -- are just such "special occasions" for awakening that "moral sense" suggested by Douard in his appeal to the "outrage" of doing nothing for, or refusing to help, the chronically ill. |
