The Oxford Dictionary broke what I was taught is the cardinal rule for defining terms. The broken rule in this case is that one should not use the word being defined in the definition. The challenge to define one particular word is clear – sometimes with powerful repercussions.
The word in question is ‘life.’
The Oxford English Dictionary defines life as ‘the state of living.’ That attempt at definition clearly breaks the rule and is woefully inadequate. Oxford expands its definition with this second iteration: ‘the ability to breathe, grow, produce young, etc. that people, animals and plants have before they die and that objects do not have.’ The attempt is diffuse – but then again, so are the applications of the word itself. Something’s missing.
Does the ability to perform certain functions equate to actually being alive? Anaerobic bacteria don’t breathe but are a life form. If an individual life form is sterile and incapable of reproducing, it may still be alive. Life is not well-defined by an individual biological entity’s capabilities. The core element is what it means to determine something is alive, which leads to yet another definition.
Oxford English Dictionary defines the word, ‘alive,’ as: (1.) ‘Of a person, animal, or plant: living, not dead.’ (2.) ‘intransitive. To live; to survive.’ In terms of effectively defining the word, Oxford appears to have failed more dramatically in its attempt to define ‘alive’ than it did with its definition of ‘life.’
By now, I’m sure readers are asking, “so what?”
There are many situations in which these definitions are critical both to individuals and even civilizations. Consider a condition that is treated significantly different by modern medicine than was practiced as recently as 1968. Prior to 1968, death in most medical settings was defined as the cessation of all vital functions, including respiration and a heartbeat.
If the state of being alive, or the presence of life in a person was still determined by the pre-1968 definition, professional football player Damar Hamlin might have been declared dead on the field when he went into cardiac arrest after making a tackle in a game last year. Hamlin went into cardiac arrest last year. His heart and respiration stopped. Thankfully, he was treated and is back on the Buffalo Bill’s roster this year.
The same fate might have befallen basketball superstar LeBron James’ son when he recently went into cardiac arrest while working out with his college basketball team. These are only two examples of many whose lives were saved because modern medicine changed its perspective on life – and the state of being alive.
Human history has been shaped by the definition of life. From the earliest foundations of religions many thousands of years ago, the world’s religions grappled with questions of life and death, offering salvation and eternal life to those who adhere to the religion’s laws and customs. Conflicting religious dogmas have caused wars and religious persecution estimated to have cost over 195 million lives.
Yet another application of the word ‘life’ has become a political focal point The word is an attributive to a movement that may determine the future of American government – the Right to Life Movement.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Roe v. Wade decision, the debate about when human life begins as a legal question has all but disappeared, replaced by ironclad political positions, pro and con, determining electoral outcomes for conservative or liberal candidates or legislative measures. Still, even though the debate has petrified, the definition of life remains the core ideological question.
A mind-numbing array of descriptions defining the beginning of human life can be found in an online article published by Princeton University. The words most commonly found in those definitions are ‘embryo’ and ‘zygote.’
https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html
Among the quotes listed in the Princeton website is a passage from a book published in 1997. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World by Lee M. Silver, which illustrates how defining terms challenged the Right to Life Movement nearly 30 years ago.
The movement struggled to rationalize its support for in-vitro fertilization, (which usually results in unused embryos being discarded) even though the practice would seemingly violate the core element of right to life ideology. The movement created a term; ‘pre-embryo,’ which provides a moral escape route for questions of IVF ethics.
“The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena — where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation — as well as in the confines of a doctor’s office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. ‘Don’t worry,’ a doctor might say, ‘it’s only pre-embryos that we’re manipulating or freezing. They won’t turn into real human embryos until after we’ve put them back into your body.'”
It’s often said that words matter. Definitions are fundamental components that make words matter – and I think about religions, ethicists, and politicians exploring the meaning of life. Perhaps it’s the Oxford English Dictionary that should be a grounding element in that exploration. If so, they have work to do.
How would you define the words ‘life’ and ‘alive?’