Does one have a right to take one's life?
The answer is: it depends. Certain cultures and societies encourage suicide. Both Japanese kamikaze and Jewish martyrs were extolled for their suicidal actions. Certain professions are knowingly life-threatening - soldiers, firemen, policemen. Certain industries - like the manufacture of armaments, cigarettes, and alcohol - boost overall mortality rates.
In general, suicide is commended when it serves social ends, enhances the cohesion of the group, upholds its values, multiplies its wealth, or defends it from external and internal threats. Social structures and human collectives - empires, countries, firms, bands, institutions - often commit suicide. This is considered to be a healthy process.
More about suicide, the meaning of life, and related considerations - HERE.
Back to our central dilemma:
Is it morally justified to commit suicide in order to avoid certain, forthcoming, unavoidable, and unrelenting torture, pain, or coma?
Is it morally justified to ask others to help you to commit suicide (for instance, if you are incapacitated)?
Imagine a society that venerates life-with-dignity by making euthanasia mandatory (Trollope's Britannula in "The Fixed Period") - would it then and there be morally justified to refuse to commit suicide or to help in it?
Conclusions:
Though legal in many countries, suicide is still frowned upon, except when it amounts to socially-sanctioned self-sacrifice.
Assisted suicide is both condemned and illegal in most parts of the world. This is logically inconsistent but reflects society's fear of a "slippery slope" which may lead from assisted suicide to murder.
IV. Euthanasia and Murder
Imagine killing someone before we have ascertained her preferences as to the manner of her death and whether she wants to die at all. This constitutes murder even if, after the fact, we can prove conclusively that the victim wanted to die.
Is murder, therefore, merely the act of taking life, regardless of circumstances - or is it the nature of the interpersonal interaction that counts? If the latter, the victim's will counts - if the former, it is irrelevant.
V. Euthanasia, the Value of Life, and the Right to Life
Few philosophers, legislators, and laymen support non-voluntary or involuntary euthanasia. These types of "mercy" killing are associated with the most heinous crimes against humanity committed by the Nazi regime on both its own people and other nations. They are and were also an integral part of every program of active eugenics.
The answer is: it depends. Certain cultures and societies encourage suicide. Both Japanese kamikaze and Jewish martyrs were extolled for their suicidal actions. Certain professions are knowingly life-threatening - soldiers, firemen, policemen. Certain industries - like the manufacture of armaments, cigarettes, and alcohol - boost overall mortality rates.
In general, suicide is commended when it serves social ends, enhances the cohesion of the group, upholds its values, multiplies its wealth, or defends it from external and internal threats. Social structures and human collectives - empires, countries, firms, bands, institutions - often commit suicide. This is considered to be a healthy process.
More about suicide, the meaning of life, and related considerations - HERE.
Is it morally justified to commit suicide in order to avoid certain, forthcoming, unavoidable, and unrelenting torture, pain, or coma?
Is it morally justified to ask others to help you to commit suicide (for instance, if you are incapacitated)?
Imagine a society that venerates life-with-dignity by making euthanasia mandatory (Trollope's Britannula in "The Fixed Period") - would it then and there be morally justified to refuse to commit suicide or to help in it?
Conclusions:
Though legal in many countries, suicide is still frowned upon, except when it amounts to socially-sanctioned self-sacrifice.
Assisted suicide is both condemned and illegal in most parts of the world. This is logically inconsistent but reflects society's fear of a "slippery slope" which may lead from assisted suicide to murder.
IV. Euthanasia and Murder
Imagine killing someone before we have ascertained her preferences as to the manner of her death and whether she wants to die at all. This constitutes murder even if, after the fact, we can prove conclusively that the victim wanted to die.
Is murder, therefore, merely the act of taking life, regardless of circumstances - or is it the nature of the interpersonal interaction that counts? If the latter, the victim's will counts - if the former, it is irrelevant.
V. Euthanasia, the Value of Life, and the Right to Life
Few philosophers, legislators, and laymen support non-voluntary or involuntary euthanasia. These types of "mercy" killing are associated with the most heinous crimes against humanity committed by the Nazi regime on both its own people and other nations. They are and were also an integral part of every program of active eugenics.
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