No one chooses where they are born.
No one has done anything to deserve being born into a rich or poor family, to be born in Barcelona, London or Berne instead of a suburb of an Indian city or a small village in Africa. Our parents may have worked very hard or very little to give us the best possible start, but again, we have done nothing to deserve or suffer those parents. It simply was not in our hands to influence that decision.
And yet, much of the difference we observe between people has its origin precisely in this accidental fact. Access to education, healthcare, security, social recognition or economic opportunity depends enormously on the context in which we appeared in the world.
It is strange that such a simple truth should be so easy to forget. No one can prove they were born where they wanted to be born. No one can honestly claim they earned the right to have the parents they had. And yet we often act as though success or failure were exclusively a matter of individual responsibility.
Chance is also present in the definition of our bodies and in our intellectual and artistic capacities. We have not chosen our height, physical build, eye colour or many of the biological predispositions that will shape our lives. Nor have we chosen our starting intellectual capacities, our ease of learning, our memory or certain creative aptitudes. And yet millions of people consider themselves superior to others because of characteristics that have simply been given to them.
The initial cards were dealt before we could take part in the game. We cannot, therefore, use these characteristics to justify the fortune or misfortune of others.
But chance does not only determine the individual. It also shapes the Person.
The Person is not merely the body or mind we are born with. The Person is the dynamic sum of our Inner Culture, our relationships, and the Outer Culture that surrounds us. It is the result of a history that begins before us and continues to unfold through others. The language we speak, the values we take for granted, the fears we develop, the aspirations we hold, or the way we understand happiness are, in large part, the consequence of a personal and collective history that precedes us.
This is why chance does not end on the day of birth.
Every significant relationship we form, every teacher we encounter, every friend who accompanies us, every community that welcomes us and every institution that protects or excludes us adds new layers of chance upon the initial chance.
Human life is always an interaction between the cards we receive and the bonds we build.
Capacities and possibilities
We must guarantee the same rights to all people. But more important than potential rights is the real capacity to exercise them.
Having decent housing, legal security, the ability to participate in elections, access to healthcare, education, loans or grants — all of these rights may exist formally in a country and yet remain out of reach for many people. And this, like race, intellectual capacity or social class, does not depend on you in any way: it is given to you.
Our Inner Culture — everything we are as a result of biology, family, education and the context in which we grew up — is not something we chose: it is the sediment of our past. But it is precisely from this sediment that we build our understanding of the world and our capacity to act within it. Recognising that what we are is largely given to us is the first step towards stopping judging others for what they too did not choose.
This is why what truly differentiates people is not so much the set of rights that society formally recognises, but the framework of possibilities within which they can develop their lives. There are rights that exist on paper but remain beyond the reach of millions of people for economic, cultural, political or geographical reasons.
If you are Western and have a large nose, or you are a woman who wants to fly a plane, you generally have the capacity to have your nose operated on or to get your pilot’s licence. It will be painful or expensive, but if you want to, you can. If you are poor in Africa, you will almost never have that capacity. And if you are a woman in Somalia, you will not be able to get your pilot’s licence no matter how much money you have. No one formally denies you the right to do so, but neither the economic possibilities in a village in the Congo, nor the weight of religious tradition in Somalia, will allow it. Having the right does not mean having the possibility of exercising it.
Institutions and the framework of possibilities
When we speak of a person’s real possibilities, we cannot ignore the role of institutions.
Political, economic, educational, legal and religious institutions form part of the Outer Culture surrounding the individual and profoundly condition their opportunities. They do not only determine which rights we formally have, but also which rights we can effectively exercise.
The same person, with the same capacities and aspirations, can develop a completely different life depending on the institutions under which they live. Institutions can expand a person’s framework of possibilities or reduce it to the point of turning certain rights into a mere theoretical declaration.
But their influence goes even further. Institutions do not only condition our actions; they also participate in the construction of the Person. Educational systems, social norms, power structures, mechanisms of reward and punishment, or even bureaucratic procedures, influence the way we interpret the world and the expectations we develop about ourselves and others.
If we recognise that institutions contribute to defining the Person, then it becomes essential to try to maintain control over them and limit their power wherever possible. Institutions are necessary because they make coexistence possible, but when they escape the control of people they can end up developing interests of their own that conflict with human development.
A free society is not one that lives without institutions, but one in which institutions exist primarily to expand people’s possibilities rather than to reduce them. The goal should be to submit only to the degree of institution necessary to make life in common possible, preserving as much as possible each person’s capacity to build their own life project.
Advantages and luck
And yet there are always some people who, despite where they were born, their physical appearance or their psychological characteristics, manage to access possibilities that are denied to others like them.
The Person does not act from a void. They act from an inherited Inner Culture, from a concrete environment, and within a framework of possibilities they have not built entirely themselves.
I have mentioned the case of a Somali woman who, even with money, will find it difficult to become a pilot for reasons of tradition and infrastructure. But some Somali women — such as Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, model and writer Waris Dirie, or top model Iman — have reached a point where that possibility falls within their framework of future possibilities. There has undoubtedly been personal effort. But without an extraordinary physique, a sharp intelligence, great courage and a great deal of luck, they would not have reached where they have. All of these qualities were partly given to them or came about without their intervention. There are thousands of women like them who have not had that luck.
Enjoying freedom and having the capacity to be happy is not only a matter of having certain rights, but of being in a position that makes it possible to use them. And this depends on the person, but also on the institutional environment and on luck. In this life, success or failure depend to a great degree on the person, but we cannot say they are solely their merit or their fault.
Boasting of success when the foundations of that success are not your own doing has little value. It is like boasting that the Mediterranean is bluer than the North Sea or that the Alps are higher than the Pyrenees. If it makes you feel better, fine; but it does not depend on you, and it is therefore absurd to turn it into a measure of moral superiority.
The person we have managed to become
The only thing that largely depends on oneself is the assessment we make of the person we have managed to become.
This involves understanding our Inner Culture — what has been given to us —, understanding the individual — what we have done and the relationships we have built — and understanding the Outer Culture — the environment that continues to shape our decisions and our horizons for the future.
If a person understands who they are, accepts the limitations and opportunities that have constituted them, and is at peace with the way they have chosen to act within those circumstances, then they can indeed feel proud of what they have achieved: something as simple and as difficult as being a truly good person.
This leads me inevitably to one final point, which is politically problematic and which, while I recognise the impossibility of its full application today, should serve as an ethical reminder:
— No one considers that a scientist, a politician or an artist has more rights simply because they are more intelligent, powerful or creative than, say, our own child.
— No one considers that because someone was born more attractive, more intelligent or stronger, they should have more rights than those who are not.
— No one considers that because someone was born in one place rather than another, or because they have a disability, we should deny them their basic rights.
— And if we agree that being able to act, feel free and develop one’s own life project is a fundamental right, then we should also reconsider our relationship with some other living beings.
Not all humans are persons, and not all persons are human.
Empathy is an essential component in helping us perceive that something more which identifies persons among living beings, and also those beings who, despite being human, have renounced behaving as persons.
Recognising the role of chance does not diminish the dignity of the Person. On the contrary: it reminds us that behind every individual there is a history they did not entirely choose. And it is precisely this awareness that forms the foundation of empathy and of any ethics that aspires to be truly human.