Death -Suicide -Euthanasia (original) (raw)
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The Problem of Suicide in David Novak 's Scholarship (2021)
The Achievement of David Novak: A Catholic-Jewish Dialogue, 2021
4. By speaking of "physicians killing their patients, " I am not engaging in provocative hyperbole but am being overly benevolent. I am merely employing the traditional definition of "murder, " namely the killing of innocent persons, which seems to have recently gone out of fashion. By "innocent, " I am again using the standard meaning, that of a person who has done nothing to deserve being killed. Canada has now given its explicit blessing for an employee of the state to euthanize (murder) people, and some provinces have contemplated mandating murder by their physicians if they wish to keep their medical licenses. Since "euthanasia" and "killing" (much less "murder") are such unpleasant terms, Canada has resorted to using the acronym "MAID, " that is, medical assistance in dying. When the state decides people should be killed, it is no surprise that they would want an acronym that makes direct killing sound like garden-variety palliative care. The corruption of the Canadian judiciary is shown in its creating an acronym where every word is a falsehood. Euthanizing persons is not a medical treatment; euthanizing persons is not merely "Assisting In" their death; while we all have to Die, which of us want to be killed? 5. Novak, Suicide and Morality, x.
'THE EXPERIENCE OF DEATH and the Moral Problem of Suicide' - by Paul-Louis Landsberg, 2002
This incredible Existentialist Essay on the topic of Suicide features at the second of two essays in the volume 'The Experience of Death' by Franco-German Author Paul-Louis (also known as Paul Ludwig) Landsberg. He provides us with a deep and searching analysis of the moral issues surrounding Suicide from an Existentialist standpoint. He was to die, tragically, in a German concentration camp, though he left behind some of the most fascinating discussion of death and suicide by an Existentialist author apart from Martin Heidegger (whop did not in fact deal with the second of these two topics). Landsberg was part of the group embracing Sartre, Camus and de Beauvoir. He was a Christian yet without forcing this belief upon readers through his writing. The present essay, and the book as a whole makes a deep impact upon anyone who dares to accompany the author on his dark and intense explorations. Brief biographical details and bibliography are provided in the actual book as well as full textual annotations and an Editor's note/preface.
THE EXPERIENCE OF DEATH & THE MORAL PROBLEM OF SUICIDE - by Paul-Louis Landsberg, 2006
This is a Sample Extract from Paul-Louis Landsberg's 'The Experience of Death', the Kerr translation revised and edited by Edouard d'Araille. Paul-Louis Landsberg's 'The Experience of Death' is an extended essay philosophical essay on the nature of Death by a key Existentialist Philosopher who died in a German concentration camp. Part of the group embracing Sartre, Camus and de Beauvoir, Landsberg's essay is worth readin alongside the sections on death from Martin Heidegger's 'Being and Time' ('Sein und Zeit'). It is perhaps the most impactful analysis of death by any of the existentialist philosopher if not by all known authors. This extract includes a page which providesd more biographical information on Landsberg and a brief bibliography of his most significant works. The very first chapter from this essay is included in this sample. The actual essay (as published) is followed by an equally trenchant essay on the nature of suicide. Landsberg approaches his subject from the Christian point-of-view as well as that of a secular existentialist. He was himself a Christian yet he did not force this belief upon readers through his writing. A book that makes a deep impact upon anyone who dares to accompany the author on his dark yet exciting exploration of the ultimate 'end'.
Keywords: euthanasia, dying, death, existential analitics; fundamental ontology, ontology of death, metaphysics of death Abstract: The paper attempts to conceptualize the “ancient” issues of human death and human mortality in connection to the timely and vital subject of euthanasia. This subject forces the meditation to actually consider those ideological, ethical, deontological, legal, and metaphysical frameworks which guide from the very beginning any kind of approach to this question. This conception – in dialogue with Heideggerian fundamental ontology and existential analytics – reveals that, on the one hand, the concepts and ethics of death are originally determined by the ontology of death, and, on the other hand, that, on this account, the question of euthanasia can only be authentically discussed in the horizon of this ontology. It is only this that may reveal to whom dying – our dying – pertains, while it also reveals our relationship to euthanasia as a determined human potentiality or final possibility. Thus euthanasia is outlined in the analysis as the possibility of becoming a mortal on the one hand, while on the other hand it appears in relation to the particularities of its existential structure, which essentially differ from the existential and ontological structure of any other possibility of dying. This is why it should not be mixed up with, or mistaken for, any of these.
Suicide, Euthanasia and Human Dignity
Acta Analytica, 2001
Kant has famously argued that human beings or persons, in virtue of their capacity for rational and autonomous choice and agency, possess dignity, which is an intrinsic, final, unconditional, inviolable, incomparable and irreplaceable value. This value, wherever found, commands respect and imposes rather strict moral constraints on our deliberations, intentions and actions. This paper deals with the question of whether, as some Kantians have recently argued, certain types of (physician-assisted) suicide and active euthanasia, most notably the intentional destruction of the life of a terminally-ill, but rational and autonomous patient in order to prevent certain serious harms, such as enduring or reccuring pain or the loss of the meaning in life, from befalling him really are inconsistent with respect for the patient's human dignity. I focus on two independent, though interrelated explications of the rather vague initial idea that the patient (as well as the doctor), in intending and bringing about his death, treats his person or rational nature merely as a means and so denigrates his dignity: (i) that in doing what he is doing, he does not act for the sake of his person, but for the sake of something else; (ii) that, by trading his person for pain relief, he engages himself in an irrational and hence immoral exchange. After critically discussing some suggestions about how to understand this charge, I eventually find Kantian objections to suicide and (active) euthanasia, based on the idea of human dignity, less than compelling. For all the paper proves, suicide and (active) euthanasia may still be morally impermissible, but then this must be so for some other reason than the one given above.
A History of Ideas Concerning the Morality of Suicide, Assisted Suicide and Voluntary Euthanasia
Physician Assisted Euthanasia, 2005
The article examines from an historical perspective some of the key ideas used in contemporary bioethics debates both for and against the practices of assisted suicide and euthanasia. Key thinkers examined--spanning the Ancient, Medieval and Modern periods--include Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hume, Kant, and Mill. The article concludes with a synthesizing summary of key ideas that oppose or defend assisted suicide and euthanasia.”
14 How Should One Die? Nietzsche’s Contribution to the Issue of Suicide in Medical Ethics
2019
In the history of ideas, "suicide" refers in general to the voluntary act of selfdestruction (Minois 1995). By contrast, the word "suicide" is hardly used alone in contemporary medical ethics, as patients' requests to end their lives refers to specific ethical and legal issues (Beauchamp 1993). For instance, "physician-assisted suicide" raises the question about the justified conditions under which physicians may be involved in the request of patients to die. The fundamental condition is that the decision-making of the patient be unambiguously autonomous. A further use of the word "suicide" in medical ethics is within the context of "suicide prevention". It refers to the medical-social right to intervene in order to prevent patients who are mentally ill, or clinically depressed, from not acting autonomously (Beauchamp and Childress 2009). This paper focuses upon the philosophical arguments on assisted suicide, which the German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) developed in his early writings. We argue that Nietzsche-who is often perceived as defending the legitimacy of suicide as the expression of individual autonomy (Hecht 2013)remains, however, cautious and undecided concerning the possibility of identifying for certain whether a patient is indeed acting autonomously when s/he requests to put an end to his/her life. We underline the hermeneutic challenges that health-care professionals face when a patient formulates a suicide request. In this paper, we ask whether it should be desirable that health-care professionals suspend their personal view regarding assisted suicide. The paper focuses on Nietzsche's ideas about suicide, which he formulated at the end of the 1870s, mainly in Human, all too Human (HTH). In this contribution, we shall take a closer look at §185 of The Wanderer and His Shadow and suggest, in contrast to a widespread view, that Nietzsche is not an active and straightforward defender of the cause of suicide. Our suspicion is that Nietzsche was aiming at something else than at simply endorsing a pro-suicide attitude. When Nietzsche took up the case of suicide, it was mainly to criticize philosophical rejections of suicide, in particular Schopenhauer's view (Jacquette 2000), the religious prohibition, and the moral condemnation of suicide. The issue of suicide was an opportunity for Nietzsche to distance himself from normative stances. By criticizing the philosophical, moral, and religious condemnation of suicide, Nietzsche did not, however, plead for a legitimation of suicide. The suggestion made here is that Nietzsche's disagreement with the moral
Why Do People Want to Die? The Meaning of Life from the Perspective of Euthanasia
Royal Society of Philosophy Supplements, 2022
One way to examine the enigmatic meaningfulness of human life is to ask under which conditions persons ask in earnest for assistance to die, either through euthanasia or physician assisted suicide. The counterpart of intolerable suffering must consist in some form of, however minimal, flourishing that makes people want to go on with their lives, disregarding other reasons to reject assisted dying that have more to do with religious prohibitions. To learn more about why persons want to hasten death during the last days, weeks or months of their lives, what kinds of suffering they fear and what they hold to be the main reasons to carry on or not carry on living, the paper offers some examples from a book written by the physician Uwe-Christian Arnold. He has helped hundreds of persons in Germany to die with the aid of sedative drugs the last 25 years, despite the professional societies and codes in Germany that prohibit such actions. The paper discusses various examples from Arnold’s book and makes use of them to better understand not only why people sometimes want to die but what made their lives meaningful before they reached this final decision.
Euthanasia, Physician Assisted Suicide and Other Methods of Helping Along Death
Health Care Analysis, 2004
This paper introduces a series of papers dealing with the topic of euthanasia as an introduction to a variety of attitudes by health-care professionals and philosophers interested in this issue. The lead in paper-and really the lead in idea-stresses the fact that what we are discussing concerns only a minority of people lucky enough to live in conditions of acceptable sanitation and who have access to medical care. The topic of euthanasia and PAS really has three questions: (1) is killing another ever ethically acceptable; (2) is the participation of health professionals ethically different and (3) is it wiser to permit and set criteria (being fully aware of some dangers that lurk in such a move) or to forbid (knowing that it will occur clandestinely and uncontrolled). This paper takes no definite stand although it is very troubled by useless suffering (not only pain) by many who would wish their life and with it their suffering ended.
A History of Ideas Concerning Suicide, Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2005
not theology. This question of scope is not to discount the importance of such lines of inquiry concerning the relationship between faith and reason. 4 Rather, it is merely to state that the scope necessarily has to be limited to questions of what can and cannot be justified by natural reason in the light of our attempt to pose publicly accessible reasons that can, in principle, inform 'secular' morality and law in this area. 5 The history of suicide and euthanasia practices may, at first glance, seem to have only a distant influence upon the contemporary debate. Yet, the historical development of thinking on the subject is vital if we are to adequately contextualise the contemporary arguments made against traditional negative prohibitions; prohibitions that have hitherto formed the status quo in the West. 6 Being able to claim historical support lends credence to claims, especially when those figures or sources appealed to have had a significant impact on contemporary patterns of thought. 7 It is to the task of reviewing and analysing those historically rooted ideas, that I now turn. 4 Tensions with my own position concerning the relationship between faith and reason exist on two fronts: firstly, certain authors such as Ronald Dworkin blur the line between the kinds of truth that can be know by reason and kinds of truth that can be known only by an appeal to faith based considerations; secondly, there is the problem of thinkers and politicians who support the state sanctioning of religion, at least in the 'broad sense' of the Judaeo-Christian heritage. For a stimulating account of the general relationship between faith and reason, somewhat sympathetic to my own perspective, see