The Immoral Implications of Physician Assisted Suicide
I recently went to a talk on physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and there was a pro argument for the subject given. I would like to explore the implications of this argument, in an attempt to show that this “fairly common” argument is undesirable. The argument went like this:
1. People have the right to dignity, including dignity in death.
2. Sometimes, to continue to live would infringe significantly on the dignity of an individual.
3. Thus, in those cases, it is permissible for a person to kill themselves.
I am going to attempt to run this argument to its logical and undesirable conclusion. A child born with a mental deficiency that would render them without the capacity to make major life decisions as well as deprive them of what could be reasonably called common dignities would meet the qualifications for the first and second premises of this argument. If such a child existed, their parent(s) would have the right to act on behalf of the child and it would, therefore, be “permissible” for them to kill that child.
I believe this counterexample denies the first premise, that people have the right to dignity in death. In the context of this argument, I am not saying that people never have the right to dignity in death, but that the infringement of their dignity in life does not qualify them to prematurely take their right to dignity in death.
I also recognize that this counterexample has potential objections. The main one that I see is that the parents of the child would hold the right to end the child’s life on their behalf. My reason for this assumption was that we commonly give parents the rights to make other major life decisions on behalf of children and that this would not be significantly different.
I would just like to hear some thoughts on the original argument, as well as my critique of it.
1. People have the right to dignity, including dignity in death.
2. Sometimes, to continue to live would infringe significantly on the dignity of an individual.
3. Thus, in those cases, it is permissible for a person to kill themselves.
I am going to attempt to run this argument to its logical and undesirable conclusion. A child born with a mental deficiency that would render them without the capacity to make major life decisions as well as deprive them of what could be reasonably called common dignities would meet the qualifications for the first and second premises of this argument. If such a child existed, their parent(s) would have the right to act on behalf of the child and it would, therefore, be “permissible” for them to kill that child.
I believe this counterexample denies the first premise, that people have the right to dignity in death. In the context of this argument, I am not saying that people never have the right to dignity in death, but that the infringement of their dignity in life does not qualify them to prematurely take their right to dignity in death.
I also recognize that this counterexample has potential objections. The main one that I see is that the parents of the child would hold the right to end the child’s life on their behalf. My reason for this assumption was that we commonly give parents the rights to make other major life decisions on behalf of children and that this would not be significantly different.
I would just like to hear some thoughts on the original argument, as well as my critique of it.
Comments (20)
Not necessarily. Parents don't have unlimited rights to act on behalf of their children. Or they don't need to have such rights, in any event.
Quoting Ferzeo
By adding the word "prematurely", you're already making a value judgement. Under what circumstances do you consider suicide to be "premature"?
What I find odd about the argument in general is that it seems to assume that suicide is not "permissible" in general, so we need to establish an exception. This would imply suicide is immoral. There are arguments to this effect, I am familiar with Kant's, for example. But it doesn't seem to be a very widely held view nowadays.
Your wording is a bit unfortunate, as to "take their right to dignity" may mean to TAKE AWAY THEIR RIGHT TO DIGNITY IN DEATH, as well as it may mean that they RETAIN THEIR RIGHT TO DIGNITY IN DEATH. Similar to the construct of "I'll take the Fifth" etc.
Please clear up this ambiguity, then we can make progress (maybe).
I would also like to ask you to please state your claim in the positive, not in the negative. You are using single, double, triple negatives, and that creates a logical nightmare of trying to analyze what it is that you are actually saying.
Please be as detailed as you may.
Moreover, parents are always offered an opportunity to abort the pregnancy if a fetus is diagnosed with a genetic disorder, which may result in a shortened life of a child.
A legitimate morality is a complete axiomatic system with system-wide premises. Producing theorems outside the confines of a complete theory is not supported. You cannot cherry pick unconnected premises that support your conclusion and next time check pick other ones, because then you can always prove anything you want.
Furthermore, that practice is not difficult enough. Everybody and their little sister can do that. Watch out when someone seemingly solves a difficult question using an utmost simple approach. If it is too good to be true, it invariably is. The purpose of doing that is almost always to mislead and to manipulate the unwashed masses. They will believe anything anyway.
I'd not allow anyone to make this decision for someone else, unless the person in question is considered (a) at a development stage where they'd normally be capable of consenting to this decision, and (b) they've designated someone else to make the decision for them should they be incapacitated at the time.
Which means that parents would not be allowed to make this decision for children.
That shouldn't be controversial. While parents make many decisions for their children, we do not allow them to decide to give their child body modifications such as putting horns in their head or tattooing something over their entire skull/face/neck. So there are already some things that people are allowed to decide for themselves, as consenting adults, that we do not allow parents to decide for their children. This would be another one of those things. It has to be the party in question consenting to suicide for themselves, where they're at a development stage where we consider them capable of consenting, or someone that the person in question has designated to decide for them as above.
And yet we do allow parents to saddle a child with gender neutrality at birth....
I'm pretty sure parents aren't allowed to decide whether their kids even have hormone therapy related to that. It hinges on what the kid says in sessions with psychiatrists, etc. (And I have some personal experience with this as I have a transgender niece.)
Sure. We do allow all sorts of personal identity influence from parents/other family members. I don't know how we'd avoid that.
In the case of children it needs to be taken on a case by case basis and should take into consideration such things as the severity of problems and the child's quality of life.
Define "dignity" for a mentally capable cancer victim versus a child with mental difficulties?
I mean, dignity isn't even the same for a healthy child and a healthy adult. Children have parents blow their noses, give them baths, change diapers, feed them with airplane noises, etc. Treatment most adults would find mortifying.
Now, if you want to talk about quality of life that balances suffering versus pleasure, we might get somewhere.
No one would be able to justify helping someone die because their farcebook account did not see enough visits and likes. As we have seen over the past few years a lot of teenagers are doing just that though, killing themselves because of bullying or lack of interest from the social site members.
But to just sit back and say to someone whose body is literally killing them and the pain they suffer is unbearable that they do not have the right to die when they want to is disgusting.
How can anyone decide for someone else when enough is enough.
A friend of mine killed himself a few years because of cancer eating away at his body, a bullet to the head ended his pain. But the family had to deal with the mess and shame of it all. Everyone could have had a reasonable end to the situation if he had been allowed to end his own life when he considered it to be too much trouble to keep on living.
As an adult, one's life is one's own to do with as one wants in life. No one rushes after you to tell you that you are making mistakes and that you should do this and not that, unless you spend a lot of time watching the news. You are expected to get on with your life and do what is necessary to be able to live it decently.
So why do so many people think that they have the right to stick their nose into other people's lives and deaths?
All newborn children lack such mental capacity. Therefore newborn children satisfy the criteria you ascribe to those in favour of euthanasia.
Do you think that those in favour of euthanasia all suppose it reasonable to kill babies? Or have you mistaken their argument?
A clearer analysis is needed.
Now that's a philosophical topic worthy of consideration.
I'm not saying we should simply wait for the cures to come to us. What are we to do in the interim? Probably come up with laws that protect both patient and doctor from making mistakes and moral transgressions respectively. Of course we can't forget the possible misuse of physician assisted suicide for profit.