Is assisted suicide immoral?
Is assisted suicide for adult people who wish to die, immoral? Are there good arguments against assisted dying? Or should people have the right to die a relatively painless death if they wish to do so? Why should you keep living if life becomes unbearable and does not get better? Why do some people perceive assisted suicide as immoral? What would assisted suicide make immoral if the person really wants it?
Comments (81)
I do not think there is anything immoral at all about any kind of suicide. If someone wants to die, for any reason, that is up to them. Its immoral to force someone to stay alive if they do not want to just to satisfy your own sensibilities. Its not your life. We all live under the boot of somebody or something, we so seldom get to make real choices, for fucksake can we just let them have that choice at least?!
Assisted suicide is a no brainer, all that needs to be considered is how to prevent people from ising it to justify actual murder. If we can confirm the person does in fact want to die, let them. Its the only moral choice.
I don't think it's immoral, but I think it's a bad idea. It shouldn't be easy. I think palliative care makes it unnecessary in a lot of cases. I think there's a good chance of hurting those left behind. There is also definitely a risk of disposing of people who are considered inconvenient.
I don't think it should be legalized, but it would make sense as a matter of enforcement policy to make it a low priority prosecution. If it really is justified, let the criminal justice system decide. There's a risk with that, but, as I said, it shouldn't be easy.
My post was responsive to the OP, which asked for an opinion. It was respectful. Philosophy is all about opinions. All about what people think. Sounds like you are suggesting we substitute Kant's opinion for our own. I have never found his philosophy helpful.
Was the OP appropriately philosophical? I think it was. I challenge you to focus on your own posts and not try to enforce your personal opinions, what you think, on others. It's not welcome.
Why is a suicide by older people "tragic" and helping somebody (eg., older person) to die NOT a tragedy?
There are not a lot of statistics on the matter, but apparently people who have the option of commencing a painless death (say, someone with terminal cancer) -- not just the theoretical option, but the actual barbiturates -- they usually don't use them.
I think that what people fear in dying from terminal illness is the run-away chaos of disease: severe pain, loss of bodily control (incontinence, etc.) nausea, paralysis... lots of very unpleasant stuff.
Hospice can greatly reduce the chaos and discomfort of dying.
Morality is either properly reductionist, i.e. axiomatic, or else, invariably subject to infinite regress. As Aristotle wrote, "If nothing is assumed, then nothing can be concluded". Therefore, morality always requires the explicit appointment of Kantian categorical imperatives.
In other words, any objective answer entirely depends on the axiomatic foundation for morality that you retain.
At the same time, atheism does not propose a documented, axiomatic foundation for any question in morality, and is therefore always a baseless exercise in infinite regress. Hence, on mere epistemic grounds, I cannot take atheist answers seriously.
In the wikipedia page, you can find the various religious views on euthanasia. On the whole, across theologies, outright termination of human life is not allowed, but reducing suffering certainly is. Furthermore, there is no obligation to give or accept life-extending medical treatment.
Morality cannot be discussed with just anyone, if you believe morality is subjective then there is no point in discussing it with those who believe it is objective and vice versa. If it is objective then it's either right or it's wrong and then you need common ground in your moral axioms and sources to determine how they should be applied to the topic. Without common ground, a discussion is pointless.
Alternatively, if you believe morality is discovered then whether it feels right or wrong intuitively is key, asking the right questions to bring the truest answers out of yourself and others.
If it's subjective then a discussion may be worthwhile but we're likely to get stuck disagreeing on our premises which aren't necessarily based on anything overly convincing.
Assisted suicide has circumstances so varied that one context gives an entirely different image to another. There's room for saying some situations it's okay and others it's not okay.
I think the answer to your question is simply that one's moral views do not always particularly value the authority of an individual to do whatever they want with themselves. Your OP seems to prioritise that and one other thing which is the reduction of suffering. That would be a dubious claim, however, I think it is pretty easy to prove that suicide causes suffering and leads to no happiness or relief, it just leads to nothingness.
I think a desire for suicide is usually driven by genetics or despair, and I don't recognise either as being good reasons for suicide. I don't support it without extreme circumstances.
I find myself at odds with how I think society should be, I myself don't really treasure the lives of strangers or think that others are special. If they are to die or not die, it can't matter to me, they aren't even known to me. However, I think that society is damned if it starts to judge that life can be anything but the most precious thing. Every person must be assumed to be essential and indisposable, it can't be based on something and the system shouldn't ever give up on us even if we give up on ourselves.
If one wishes to discover what is immoral, then one must decide what is moral. Virtues such as kindness, patience, and self-control are largely recognized as moral, thus good. Suicide is death, namely, the deliberate removal of life by oneself. (which in this perspective, assisted suicide doesn't exist. It is merely allowed killing.)
Does any "form" of suicide allow virtues to increase? Does it support the growth of love, peace, and goodwill towards others?
In "The logic of risk taking", Nassim Taleb says something very similar:
[i]Who is “You”?
Let us return to the notion of “tribe” of Chapter x. The defects people get from studying modern thought is that they develop the illusion that each one of us is a single unit, without seeing the contradiction in their own behavior. In fact I’ve sampled ninety people in seminars and asked them: “what’s the worst thing that happen to you?” Eighty-eight people answered “my death”.
This can only be the worst case situation for a psychopath. For then, I asked those who deemed that the worst case is their own death: “Is your death plus that of your children, nephews, cousins, cat, dogs, parakeet and hamster (if you have any of the above) worse than just your death? Invariably, yes. “Is your death plus your children, nephews, cousins (…) plus all of humanity worse than just your death? Yes, of course. Then how can your death be the worst possible outcome?[/i]
In fact, we are mostly talking about around 3 days of suffering before death, and apparently it can even be shortened to 12 hours:
How long does it take to die of thirst? It very much depends on the conditions, if you are in very hot humid conditions, in the sun, dehydrated worst case scenario maybe even 12 hours. On the other hand, in ideal conditions it could be 3-5 days.
Dying of thirst is apparently not that bad:
[i]Terminal dehydration (also known as voluntary death by dehydration or VDD) has been described as having substantial advantages over physician-assisted suicide with respect to self-determination, access, professional integrity, and social implications. Specifically, a patient has a right to refuse treatment and it would be a personal assault for someone to force water on a patient, but such is not the case if a doctor merely refuses to provide lethal medication.
One survey of hospice nurses in Oregon (where physician-assisted suicide is legal) found that nearly twice as many had cared for patients who chose voluntary refusal of food and fluids to hasten death as had cared for patients who chose physician-assisted suicide. They also rated fasting and dehydration as causing less suffering and pain and being more peaceful than physician-assisted suicide. Patients undergoing terminal dehydration can often feel no pain, as they are often given sedatives and care such as mouth rinses or sprays.
Studies have shown that for terminally ill patients who choose to die, deaths by terminal dehydration are generally peaceful, and not associated with suffering, when supplemented with adequate pain medication.[/i]
So, if I understand it right, a 12-hour long steam bath, a water spray, and a good dose of painkillers should spare other people from having to "assist" ...
There are no normative value facts. How do you not understand this yet?
Whether or not you value you it is rather inconsequential but whether the government/society acts like they value it or not has extensive implications. Particularly if it's only valued conditionally by metrics like class, wealth, skills and so on. I don't think suicide is something that is often considered without levels of depression or despair which prohibit clear thinking. The impact on the family and friends of the individual has to be taken into account as well. The government should be adopting the view that every citizen is important and worth saving.
Philosophy forums like this, in my view, tend to romanticise suicide as being a choice like any other that people should be allowed to make. They rationalise the action and then replace the motivations of suicidal people with their rationalisation and feel it's therefore defensible. The reality is that suicide and suicide attempts are rarely rational, people react stupidly to despair or they live with a compulsion to kill themselves due to a psychological proclivity for depression that they inherited genetically. Alternatively, they're overwhelmed or depressed for other reasons, it's not just a sensible choice based on the facts.
Here's an interesting article on that: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/many-suicides-are-based-on-an-impulsive-decision-2014-8?r=US&IR=T
Assisted suicide only really makes sense in exceptional circumstances usually involving unbearable medical conditions. Anything besides that and we're talking about something really quite dark here. You didn't say anything about medical conditions, just if the person "really wants it" and I think that's the problem. My assumption about anyone thinking about suicide is that they're not in their right mind, they're lost right now and we should offer help - not help kill them.
Who says slavery was morally right in the past?
I don't agree with your analysis. It makes something which is fundamentally human and tries to make it mechanical. Morality is a matter of human values. To the extent those values are universal, I guess you could say they're "absolute." But to the extent they are cultural and personal, they are not.
Awww, shucks... Thank you.
One reason why the Papacy rejected Martin Luther's epistemic defense at his trial, in which he wanted to review the arguments mechanically, "through scripture and reason", is because the Papacy very much prefers the system of a living magisterium:
The magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church is the church's authority or office to give authentic interpretation of the Word of God, "whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition." According to the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, the task of interpretation is vested uniquely in the Pope and the bishops. Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth.
Tradition and Living Magisterium
Is all revealed truth consigned to Holy Scripture? or can it, must it, be admitted that Christ gave to His Apostles to be transmitted to His Church, that the Apostles received either from the very lips of Jesus or from inspiration or Revelation, Divine instructions which they transmitted to the Church and which were not committed to the inspired writings?
The Church in Rome received secrets, orally transmitted, outside the Bible. That is why the Bible is not sufficient as a source. Mechanically deriving conclusions through scripture and reason is therefore not permissible. The Church must have the opportunity to override the scripture when it suits her.
Between Catholics and the Christian sects of the East there are not the same fundamental differences, since both sides admit the Divine institution and Divine authority of the Church with the more or less living and explicit sense of its infallibility and indefectibility and its other teaching prerogatives, but there are contentions concerning the bearers of the authority, the organic unity of the teaching body, the infallibility of the pope, and the existence and nature of dogmatic development in the transmission of revealed truth.
It is not permitted onto the believers to question the principle that the Papacy is always right, even when it is not. The Papacy is infallible and "indefectible".
If the believers detect a contradiction in a Papacy's teaching, even by using mechanical means, the believers must believe both the Papal teaching as well as its very opposite. Furthermore, since the ability to engage in politicking, and also selling indulgencies, is badly damaged by any requirement of consistency, the believers must not use mechanical means to detect inconsistencies, as such would be considered inhumane.
There's no way to do moral foundations via reason. That's not to say that no one believes there is, but they have incorrect beliefs.Quoting tim wood
Standards are subjective, and then they can be conventionally agreed upon. Neither gives us any sort of normative facts. And going by convention is an argumentum ad populum.
Quoting tim wood
Re the personal view, an argument doesn't do any good, of course. Re the other claims, it's a matter of there being zero empirical evidence for there being any extramental normative values, any extramental moral stances, etc.
Quoting tim wood
No, you don't, and I've already explained this to you here at least twice in the past. You can state preconditions/prerequisites for something, but those aren't oughts. People typcially just assume "You ought to do/achieve what you desire," but that's not at all a fact.
Per what? You ought to pursue or achieve what you want per what?
Repeating the idea doesn't actually answer this question: "You ought to pursue or achieve what you want per what?"
So let's say that Joe wants to take a walk, but he thinks, "I ought not take a walk. I ought not do what I want." And let's say this is simply a foundational view for him. It's not based on mitigating circumstances or anything like that.
Is Joe wrong? What would make him wrong?
Sure, but that's not morals, that's practical. Quoting tim wood
I think it's more like there are no morals that are objective. We have no way to determine if suicide, in general, is immoral, or when it is. We can move from our desires or values to what kind of society we want and then see what practical steps lead to this. But there is absolutely no universal moral related to suicide, let alone objective ones. I support this by pointing out that we have disagreement on suicide in this thread, though it's barely fleshed out, it's there. I support that there no objective values or, perhaps more cautiously, none we have access to, since we have no way to measure their correctness. We can certainly evaluate them consequentially, but the evaluation with include value judgments that we must then demonstrate are correct, always coming to new values or the same ones with no way to get away from our desires or ideas aobut what much be objectively valuable.
If the is--"I want to take a walk" implies an ought--"I ought to take a walk," then Joe is wrong because he's missing an implication, no?
Insects don't have empathy, as far as I can tell. Humans do. Humans are social mammals. So we take into account emotional effects on ourselves and others and given our potential range of thinking, imagining and our training in noting possible pain in others, this can create all sorts of subtle caring about, preventing pain, getting upset at things that cause people pain. I don't think insects have this. None of this means there are universal morals let alone objective ones.
IOW Terrapin, for example might never ever come to believe in objective morals or universal ones. However this does not mean he is like insects. He still can be a social mammaly and given this his actions behavior and values will likely be influenced not only by vastly more complex understanding than insects have, but will also be influenced by empathy.
Are you making the case that a more rational approach to morality is less corruptible? I don't necessarily disagree with that, although I don't think it changes the basic nature of morality.
Really? You don't think there are genetic or biological factors in human behavior, including how we treat other people, e.g. mothers and fathers protecting their children? I am skeptical about ideas of sociobiology, but that doesn't mean I don't see any biological contribution.
What would make it the case that you ought to have some benefit?
As an extramental normative? No. There's zero evidence of that. Are you keeping in mind that "normative" doesn't refer to statistical norms per se, but shoulds or oughts?
Right, so what makes it the case that you ought to have any of those things?
It's a simple question.
Well, it's not that axiomatic theology cannot be done, or even that it would not work:
[i]Principles of Islamic jurisprudence, also known as U??l al-fiqh (Arabic: ???? ??????, lit. roots of fiqh), are traditional methodological principles used in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) for deriving the rulings of Islamic law (sharia). This interpretive apparatus is brought together under the rubric of ijtihad, which refers to a jurist's exertion in an attempt to arrive at a ruling on a particular question.
According to the majority Usuli view, it is legitimate to seek general principles by induction, in order to provide for cases not expressly provided for. This process is known as ijtihad, and the intellect is recognised as a source of law. It differs from the Sunni qiyas in that it does not simply extend existing laws on a test of factual resemblance: it is necessary to formulate a general principle that can be rationally supported.[/i]
In both Rabbinical Judaism and in Islam, axiomatic theology, "through scripture and reason", is perfectly accepted. Therefore, Martin Luther was only advocating what is actually self-evident. It is the proposition of an infallible and "indefectible" Papacy that has turned out to be unsustainable.
Furthermore, concerning the oral secrets that the Church would have received and which would be the source of its legitimacy and origin of its power. For the sake of the argument, I am even willing to accept that these secrets could possibly exist. In early Christianity, under the persecutions of the Roman empire, the Church actually was a secret society. Therefore, the idea of orally transmitted secrets is not that far-fetched. However, I also believe that society-wide morality is not well served when keeping essential rules a secret. Furthermore, as far as I am concerned, justifying from these hidden secret teachings, the sale of indulgencies, was clearly one bridge too far.
On the whole, I side with Martin Luther's argument in favour of axiomatic morality, which is a principle that has clearly been elaborated successfully in Rabbinical-orthodox Judaism and Islam, and of which the very nature has substantially better guarantees against corruption and depravity. In that sense, axiomatic theology effectively preserves the basic nature of sound morality.
From the altercation between the Church and Martin Luther, the impression emerges that the Church is fundamentally an occult society that occasionally uses a book, i.e. the Bible. However, from its deepest secrets the Church very well knows that its book is an arsenal replete of deceptive arguments.
So, we may probably somehow conclude that the Vatican Secret Archives contain these secrets, and that they utterly discredit and disparage the Bible.
So, yes, we had better use an approach to morality that is more rational than that. Again, there are good reasons to believe that Rabbinical-orthodox Judaism and Islam offer exactly such alternatives.
Even with geometry there is non-euclidian geometry, and, in fact the latter has turned out to be useful in describing reality in science. So even what seems utterly clear and objective is actually not universal in geometry.Quoting tim wood
God would potentially be another one.
But when dealing with 'objective' there is no reason we cannot come up with a standard and even try to make it universal, but that trying would not simply be an appeal to reason, it would also be an appeal to value certain states more than others. An emotional appeal.Quoting tim woodI don't think so. Because if have one that is something like 'Don't unnecessarily cause people to suffer' the word necessarily carries with it the potential for a wide range of other values. And that's with a kind of consequentialist value. IOW even if eveyrone on earth is a consequentialist, which they are not, they are still going to potentially think that axiom is true, but apply differing ideas around necessarily. And since they include deontologists, we will have people who will not even evaluate using the same processes, let alone coming from the same axiom. They will be disturbed by having an adverb, for example. Or by evaluating in terms of pain.Quoting tim woodFortunately, as I pointed out above, people ignored precisely that conclusion and found useful math that also, even, applies to the real world. Hyperbolic geometry is more effective, for example in three dimensions, and in specific situations, like when working with the surface of a sphere, like he world. Euclidian is more useful when dealing very locally and especially in two dimensions. But beyond that it seems that Einsteing found that hyperbolic genometry is the case at relatavistic levels of scale, where space is actually curved. Quoting tim wood
Well, nowhere have you shown that the analogy is a good one. But assuming it is a good one, it fails.
It wasn't the harshness, which I took as aimed at the idea, not at him. It was the conclusion. Even if we do not think there are objective or universal values, this need not lead to insect like relations. In fact morals have often led to insectlike behavior, because they have often been used to justify not feeling empathy for people. And because even with being able to say these values are he ones that can be demonstrated to be the right one's objectively, one need not be like an insect, since one has facutlies and tendencies that insects do not have.Quoting tim woodI was claiming that your argument did not lead to the conclusion you were making.
You're claiming that this is an implication, that it's a fact that it's a implication.
I'm asking you what makes it a fact that if you want Y, you ought to (go to) X. You can get apple pie by going to the bakery, sure. But what makes it the case that if you want apple pie (which you have to go to the bakery to get, let's say), then you ought to get apple pie (you ought to go to the bakery)?
Or to make that shorter, what makes it the case that if you want something, you ought to achieve it? That's essentially what's being asserted here--that people ought to do what they want, that they ought to achieve/obtain their desires. Well, is that a fact? What is it a fact of? Where does it obtain?
As I said, if it's really an implication that if you want x you ought to get/achieve x (or you ought to do y which achieves x), then when Joe says, "I want apple pie. I can get apple pie by going to the bakery. Therefore I ought to avoid the bakery (because I ought to avoid what I want)," Joe should be saying something not just odd or very unusual, Joe should be saying something incorrect. What makes it incorrect?
Joe's certainty not saying something impossible to understand. Joe has desires, he has things that he wants, but for whatever reason, Joe also feels that he should not achieve his desires/should not obtain the things he wants. (Maybe Joe has this ingrained in him as some sense of deprivational duty, or maybe he's an ascetic, etc.--the reason doesn't matter, really, even if there's no reason aside from it just being the way he feels.) If it's claimed that it's really an implication that "If S wants y, then S should achieve/obtain/do y (perhaps by achieving/obtaining/doing x, which is necessary for y)" then it would have to be the case that Joe is incorrect.
How do we get to that part?
Yes, if the means for getting Y are X, then in order to get Y, one must do X.
How does "he ought to do X" enter the picture?
You think that somehow you're avoiding "If one wants, then one ought," but you're not. You have it right there: "If he wants Y, he ought to do X."
That he must do X to get Y doesn't imply that he ought to to X, or that if he wants Y, he ought to do X. We just know that he must do X to get Y. That doesn't tell us anything about what he ought to do.
No it doesn't. Why ought someone do something if they want something?
Well, on what grounds?
It seems to me like you're not understanding something very simple, and I suppose it seems like that to you, too (that I'm not understanding something you consider very simple).
If they want to achieve it, then they should do what's necessary to achieve it, because?
I'm not sure how else to ask you. It seems like you just take it as a given that if you want x, you ought to do, or at least try to do, what's necessary to do x . . . but I don't think that's a given at all.
Aside from that, it's worth emphasizing that "y is necessary for x" is NOT the same thing as "one ought to do y (if one wants x)" . . . I mean, you could use language unusually and say that you're using them to mean the same thing, but then it doesn't have anything to do with the normal connotation of "ought," or what anyone is talking about when they say you can't derive an ought from an is.
It's just like you could say that God exists if God is your toilet, but then that wouldn't capture what anyone else is talking about, really. No one was wondering if your toilet exists.
I'm a bit lost in most of that. I'm approaching this purely from a skeptical philosophical perspective, where I don't buy a claim that it's somehow a fact that having a want implies any ought, contra a claim that it does.
If it's a fact that there's that implication, then we should be able to support that it's a fact somehow.
So that when Joe says, "I want to eat an ice cream, and it's necessary for me to go to the store to buy an ice cream to be able to eat it, BUT I ought not go to the store," we can say that he's getting a fact wrong, and we can somehow justify that he's getting a fact wrong.
If it's the case that a fact in this case, "I want x," implies an ought, "I ought to do y," then he'd be getting "I ought not do y" wrong--his logic would be faulty, because supposedly it's a fact that "I ought to do y" is an implication of "I want x"
I don't think this.....
is true and I argued that in my previous post, but you didn't respond to that, I don't think. I take that up again below.
Quoting tim wood
In certain bases, like base 10, but not in others.Quoting tim wood
I don't think I am arguing that. It certainly becomes a rather large range of types and examples: iow what is considered good/bad has tremendous variety.
AS far as I can see you didn't respond to the core point.
Even if you come up with one axiom that everyone might agree on - it does not guarantee that we have objective or universal moralities. And this gets even more true if we talk about a specific act - like some horrible act against children or something. That axiom does not necessarily at all lead to other agreed upon axioms. And once you have differing sets of axioms (even if an overlap of one or even a few axioms) you can end up with incredible different ethical systems and ones that are not compatible with each other.
If you can present with one universal axiom that we all have - and actually I don't think this will be easy - I can then try to show you this what I just asserted above. I explained in my earlier post using an example, but I am happy to try with whatever axiom you think we have in common.
Any idea why we tell students that you can't understand formal logic by plugging natural language into it?
My point was, again, that something you seem to be putting forward as the only way something can be taken, isn't the only way. I am not exactly sure what your point was, but it seemed like you were saying that,and it doesn't really matter if in most bases it would be 2+2=4, just that it is not universal. Similarly when you said no geometrist would take me seriously if I said the angles of a triangle did not add up to 180 degrees,when in fact they very well might. How exactly this all relates to ethics for you, I am not sure. Doing my best?Quoting tim woodI have been. I know these bad people for example have friends who think they are good people. But in any case, you just told me I didn't have certain experiences, but haven't explained why this must be the case.Quoting tim wood
Water drops, piles, holes. Have two water drops here, two there, bring them together you can end up with one water drop. Likewise piles and holes.
But what this has to do with ethics who knows.
You have one kind of ethics here and one kind there, sure, you often end up with two kinds of ethical systems.
I am not sure what we have proven.Quoting tim wood
Or there are some things that I do not like, but which I cannot prove to anyone else they should not like. Some of these disliked, like say hurting children for no reason, are disliked by most other people, though those who differ cannot be swayed by reason. And then there is a mass of stuff where there are large groups who disagree. Like with suicide.Quoting tim wood
And what this has to do with ethics, I see no clear explanation of.Quoting tim wood
I have made no argument based on the ethic or moral rule not being absolute because people can go against it. I am saying there is no way to demonstrate it is objective and I see no ethics that are universal. Universal would mean all agree. Objective would mean that one can demonstrate that one should live this way. Absolute mortals, well that might mean....
which means it is deontological, and many people are not this, and also objective. So if you think there are absolute morals, you need to show you have a process to demonstrate this isn't just your value, but acutally you know what is objective good.Quoting tim wood
YOu seem to be arguing against a position I do not have. I do not think that because people can go against it or because they might err or because not all follow it. There is the Christian idea that God has shared what is absolutely good and we may or may not follow that. There is an epistemological claim in there. 'I know what God thinks is Good' and here is a kind of deductive claim in there. If God thinks something is good or bad, it is absolutely so. Those claims need to be backed up and I don't think they can be.
Now that may not be how you decide what is absolute good and bad. I don't know. But what is your way of knowing what it is? What backs up your epistemological claim?
Which is, basically, almost never. I can't actually think of a case where it's immoral. I can only think of cases where it's moral. People who want help to kill themselves seem to be always suffering a great deal. And a great deal more than their selfish friends and/or family who would rather the person, who they supposedly loved, forced themselves to keep living merely for their own benefit.
Of course, in some cases, the person is suffering so much that even their friends and/or family want them to die. And it's just the law that doesn't allow it. And that's just stupid, of course.
That is extremely abstract. Could you apply that to morals in some specific way. If it is meant to apply to morals.Quoting tim wood
At this rarified abstract level I agree. People's beliefs do not necessarily change the truth of something. IOW if something is objectively true, then even if someone does not agree that it is, it doesn't change the fact that it is objectively true. However universal means that every has that value. A universal value is one that is held by everyone. By definition. It can even be wrong, but as long as it is held by everyone, it is universal.Which means that the following is confusedQuoting tim woodQuoting tim wood
Their might be a value that everyone shares. Perhaps some extremely harsh punishment of someone with no benefits to others. That value would then be universally held. This would not mean it is absolute or objective. It does not mean that those people will necessarily agree on much else or that all or even some conflicting ideas of the good can be resolved.
I have not been convinced there is a way to determine objective or absolute values.
And I don't see this as having much bearing on the topic of the thread. I would happily claim that there is no universal value in relation to suicide. I think there is likely evidence in this thread. There is certainly a wide variety of values on the subject out there. If you are skeptical I can find a few examples of differing values on suicide.
Sure, there are so many things you do not explain or give concrete examples for when I ask and you often do not respond to core points I make. I am glad that Kant's argument, whatever it was, satisfies you. I don't see the argument here. You produce quite a bit in response. I appreciate the effort you put in, but you just don't seem to be responding to me or completing your own thoughts Yes, let's leave it here.