Death -Suicide -Euthanasia (original) (raw)

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

Analysis of euthanasia from the cluster of concepts to precise definition

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bio ethics, 2019

There are common concepts between euthanasia and suicide because euthanasia is historically connected with the discourse on suicide. In widespread literature on euthanasia there is confusion over the concepts and definitions. These definitions are analyzed in this paper and along with other conclusions and distinctions the researcher has substantially defended his definition of euthanasia. There are two different usages of the term euthanasia: a narrow construal of euthanasia and broad construal of euthanasia. Contrary to other researches, the researcher agrees only with the narrow construal of euthanasia, i.e. active euthanasia. The researcher’s definition of euthanasia is: intentionally causing a terminally ill person’s death through an action performed by a physician. As a result, passive euthanasia is expunged from the definition of euthanasia. In addition to that, the definition excludes suicide, assisted suicide, and physician-assisted suicide.

Self-Euthanasia, the Dutch Experience: In Search for the Meaning of a Good Death or Eu Thanatos

Bioethics, 2016

My main purpose in this article is to establish the meaning of a 'good death' when death is self-chosen. I will take as my point of departure the new notion of 'self-euthanasia' and the corresponding practice that has evolved in the Netherlands in recent years. Both physician-euthanasia and self-euthanasia refer to an ideal process of a good death, the first being ultimately the physician's responsibility, while the second is definitely the responsibility of the individual choosing to die. However, if we also accept the existence of a fundamental moral difference between ending another person's life and ending your own life, and if we accept this moral difference to be also relevant to the normatively laden good death, then this difference represents a strong reason for preferring selfeuthanasia to physician-euthanasia. My main purpose in this article is to establish the meaning of a good death when death is self-chosen. I will take as my point of departure the new notion of self-euthanasia and the corresponding practice that has evolved in the Netherlands in recent years. 1 Euthanasia in accordance with the so-called Dutch euthanasia law, the Law on the Review of the Termination of life on request and assistance with Suicide (LRTS), will be referred to as physician-euthanasia. As I will concentrate on self-euthanasia using lethal drugs, and will only incidentally refer to the process of Stopping Eating and Drinking (STED), the relationship of self-euthanasia to normal or plain suicide must be clarified. 2

Socrates' Choice: A Philosophical Perspective on Euthanasia, Suicide, and Assisted Suicide

Psychiatric Times, 2025

Key Takeaways • Socrates' choice to die is analyzed as a philosophical event, highlighting autonomy and the nature of death in ethical discussions on euthanasia and assisted suicide. • Ethical theories such as utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics provide frameworks for evaluating euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, focusing on consequences, moral duties, and character. • Historical examples, including Antigone and Jewish prisoners in Nazi camps, illustrate the complexities of suicide, autonomy, and resistance against authority. • Modern debates emphasize the importance of mental health assessments and support systems in euthanasia and assisted suicide, with varying perspectives from psychiatrists in Canada, the US, and Europe. Link: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/socrates-choice-a-philosophical-perspective-on-euthanasia-suicide-and-assisted-suicide

Euthanasia – A Dignified End of Life! page 45-64

Amicus Books is the initiative of the Icfai University Press to publish a series of books in various segments of law with a special focus on emerging issues. These books seek to provide, at one place, a retrospective as well as prospective view of the contemporary developments in the legal environment, with emphasis on general and specialized branches of knowledge and applications.