Euthanasia - Ethics

Question 1

Advantages of Natural Law with Euthanasia

Answer 1

• Removes guilt of drug administer (intention to relieve pain and death being an acceptable side effect)
• Doctrine of Double Effect allows human reasoning to decide
• Feel as if following God’s will; hierarchy of laws
• More objective; removes discrimination and protects vulnerable in a safeguarding way to equalise life
• Ease of decisions; every situation is different and complex; removes burden from families and doctors
• Seeks to address society

Question 2

Disadvantages of Natural Law (Harris)

Answer 2

Anti Democratic

Antecedent of Plato

We keep people alive unnaturally

Alive and humanity need definition

The value of a human is their heart

Natural Law and unwitting Utilitarianism

Question 3

Anti democratic (NL)

Answer 3

Rules are more important than the people (Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath

• Treating people as ends rather than means
  + God wants us to live, but not to our detriment
• Monodirectional, ethics is done to us by God
  + Top down

Question 4

Antecedent of Plato

Answer 4

Plato’s unchanging forms and Aquinas’ model of heaven as single moment of experience atemporally

• Unchanging thing totally ignorant of our existence
• Fitted better in medieval times as medieval medicine was poor at preserving life whereas modern can keep life running for ages which results in progressive diseases
  + Feudal system limited autonomy

Question 5

We keep people alive unnaturally

Answer 5

It is normal to live shorter life, but we have intervened to create unnaturally long life

Question 6

Alive and humanity need definition

Answer 6

Difficult to argue there is Ontological equality between a conscious and PVS (perma veg state) person

• Harris argued it’s not arbitrary to distinguish the two
• Keown and Gormally are worried this distinction leads to devolving people’s humanity
• Yet can’t discriminate to something ontologically different
• Harris is concerned that ‘human’ is being stretched to encompass anyone with a beating heart, which is reductive and means only genes matter
• Have to bite the bullet: some people are less human than others (*If asked about disabled people he might say they experience humanity different)
  OR
  Have to call lots more things ‘human’

Question 7

The value of a human is their heart

Answer 7

In Spain they put people under sedative for a long time

• Why do we value the heart beating over the mental lives that are more valuable
• Done instead of euthanasia as a result of NL
• Undignified way of living - NL is supposed to maintain their dignity and the sanctity of life

Question 8

Natural Law and unwitting Utilitarianism

Answer 8

DoDE is in place to deal with circumstances that might infringe on NL, but are morally wrong technically. As long as the intention is good and the act itself doesn’t infringe on any precepts, consequences can be disregarded.

• Doesn’t qualify when to use
• Sophistry - deceptive reasoning to justify
• Two outcomes: suffer or die
  + Knowledge must involve choice

Question 9

The difference of NL application in ectopic pregnancy and euthanasia

Answer 9

In pregnancy, it’s inevitable one of the PPs will be violated but in euthanasia this isn’t the case

As a result, utilising DoDE can be used for a good purpose in ectopic pregnancy where there are no other good options - best of a bad situation

In euthanasia you are letting someone die naturally and you are justified letting someone die through a strong dose of painkiller

Question 10

What does NL have no means to help you with

Answer 10

Which Primary Precept takes precedence

Question 11

How does lack of PP precedence work in case of euthanasia

Answer 11

It appears the decision is dictated by the amount of suffering in the end

If you believe that sometimes suffering should be alleviated by euthanasia, then why stop there? Alleviate the suffering earlier when there is much less suffering that has been endured.

Question 12

What are NL advocates

Answer 12

The laziest utilitarians who are only interested in saving their own suffering to make the choice/families decision - very cynical

Question 13

Why is our end unclear in NL

Answer 13

What makes God happy; human happiness?

Question 14

Pragmatism

Answer 14

• Fletcher believes rules are far too abstract that don’t take in to account the lived experience of people
◦ The example to be used is Jesus working to save and heal people on the Sabbath

• A common sense ethic which benefits our aims

• Resources would have to be dedicated to keeping people alive in the future if following Natural Law. Seems counterintuitive and quite demanding. Has lost sight of what the ethic is trying to achieve
◦ Conversely, SE allows us to make real world decisions that account for real world pressures and can allow us to divert resources to the areas which require aid

Question 15

Relativism

Answer 15

• Every situation is different

• Rules are far too inflexible to cover all our needs in agape love

• Middle ground between legalism and antinomianism

• People are different and what they want from the same situation differs, e.g people in the same boat want something different due to their experiences of it, their values, their role etc. No two cases of euthanasia will be the same

Question 16

Personalism

Answer 16

• People should be the main end in our ethical theory

• We are here because God wants us to be here, therefore our theory should revolve around us

• Focuses on dignity and avoids the anti-democratic bias that NL creates and the subservience to rules that becomes

• People are at the centre of this personal dilemma. The decision is about a person.
◦ Any ethic that denies us a say in our own lives seems backwards

• Determining what is ‘loving’ is what the person wants

Question 17

Problems of SE

Answer 17

Over permissive

Places people under burden

Lack of standardisation

Question 18

Over permissive

Answer 18

Gives people way too much autonomy and lets them decide over medical professionals
◦ The decision that one person takes, has knock on effects on the rest of society

◦ It benefits the individual at the expense of the rest of society

◦ Society gets no say
	‣ Demolished the idea that human life is valuable on a societal value

◦ Can lose sight of the bigger picture. NL prioritises humanity. SE priorities human individuals. Not responsible

Question 19

Places people under burden

Answer 19

Should we be taking other real world issues into account?

◦ Takes away the focus from humanity preserving lives to their best ability

◦ If we devise our ethic for the world around how it is, it means we aren’t striving for change
	‣ Impractical doesn’t mean wrong; sometimes difficult standards promote change

Question 20

No standardisation

Answer 20

• How can you train your health professionals when you are giving the doctors freeness to make decisions. No standardisation and so paralysing for medical workers
◦ NL is practical IRL

Question 21

Sanctity of life - conservative

Answer 21

God created human life and in His image so only He has the right to end it

Held by both Catholics and Protestants and belief is supported by Bible: ‘Thou shalt murder’ (6th of decalogue)

Question 22

‘Your body is a temple of…

Answer 22

… the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God. You do not belong to yourself’ - 1 Corinthians 6:19

This quote clearly shows there is something sacred about the body such that destroying it would be like destroying a temple.

It was given to us by God, implying a gift, and then very straightforwardly and clearly states that we do not belong to ourselves.

We essentially do not have the right to take our own life.

Question 23

‘Whoever sheds human…

Answer 23

… blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind’ - Genesis 9:6

This quote shows that the ultimate penalty is deserved for those who take life.

The value of life is explained through its link to our being created in God’s image.

Question 24

The weak sanctity of life view

Answer 24

Criticise the strong version by pointing out that despite its mention in the Bible, it’s only one of many themes and principals

So, whilst it’s important in judging value of life, there other principles that should be included e.g Jesus’ emphasis on compassion

In some cases compassion for quality of life may outweigh sanctity of life

Question 25

Rebuttal of the weak sanctity of life view

Answer 25

Whilst the Bible emphasises compassion, it doesn’t mean it can be used to overrule sanctity of life; the Bible is clearly against killing, with no exception for compassion

Although the Bible says to be compassionate it doesn’t follow that it is Biblical to go against the sanctity of life when it would be compassionate to do so.

Question 26

Peter Singer

Answer 26

Believes quality of life to be important factor in euthanasia, even recommending non-voluntary euthanasia for babes with incurable disease such as spine abifida

Question 27

Peter Singer’s criteria for personhood and how does he distinguish between humans and persons, where not all humans are persons

Answer 27

Rationality and self consciousness

Humans are members of our species and persons are rational, self-conscious beings

Question 28

What did Singer argue about the sanctity of life

Answer 28

That is based on ‘Christian domination of European thought’, especially belief in an afterlife and the ownership of us by God

He proposes that since Christian theological tenants are no longer accepted, we should re-evaluate Christian ethical precepts too

Question 29

What does Singer argue that we think about when we ask what we find wrong with killing someone and what is the impact

Answer 29

It deprives them of the life they want to continue to live

A consequence is that if a competent adult asks for euthanasia, it wouldn’t be wrong as they wouldn’t want to continue their life

In non-voluntary cases, they have no sense or conception life, let alone continuing living so it’s not morally wrong to kill them because it deprives them of nothing they are able to not want to be deprived of

Question 30

Archbishop Anthony Fisher

Answer 30

Makes slippery slope argument against qual of life view arguing that where euthanasia is legalised, it extends to more and more people e.g in Holland it was legalised for terminally ill but 10 years later was legalised for babies in cases of severe ilness

Also argues that elderly or vulnerable people will be tempted to die due to feeling like a burden **e.g 2022 Canada, Denise applied for euthanasia ‘because of abject poverty’ **

Question 31

Singer’s response to Fisher

Answer 31

Most in Oregon who got E are disproportionately white, educated and not particularly old, so doesn’t target vulnerable

Also in Oregon, only 1 in 3,000 deaths are by Euthanasia and genetic screening for babies meant post birth euthanisations dropped from 15 to 2 from 2005-2010; so not becoming more widespread

Fisher’s points are not criticisms of euthanasia per se. They highlight the problem with allowing euthanasia in a society which lacks proper support for those who need it.

Arguably it at most suggests that euthanasia must be combined with proper support for the vulnerable, not that euthanasia cannot be justified.

Question 32

Deontological view of autonomy

Answer 32

Nozick (libertarian) argued for principle of ‘self ownership’ meaning we essentially have property rights over our own lives and bodies

This results in a deontological view of autonomy regarding euthanasia. If a person wants to die and receive help from others (making it euthanasia) then that is their right.

Question 33

Problems with Nozick

Answer 33

People will choose euthanasia for short-sighted reasons such as when in the temporary grip of negative emotion.

• Singer takes a more consequentialist view of the value of autonomy.
  + He’s not an absolutist about autonomy as he says he doesn’t want to make it easy for people to end their lives when they have a treatable condition or when they might easily recover.

He gives the example of a young person wanting euthanasia due to depression over relationship issues. Singer argues we can ‘safely predict’ that they will come to view their life as worth living again and the value of that ‘overrides’ the temporary violation of their autonomy when denying them euthanasia.

Question 34

Consequentialist view of autonomy

Answer 34

Singer’s approach was influenced by Mill, who didn’t comment on euthanasia but whose philosophy formed the basis for justifying the autonomy principle - Mill developed political liberalism

Mill thought people would be happier if granted individual freedom as they know their needs best and what is the right choice for them; the best judge with the most motivation to ensure they live best possible lives

This shows euthanasia should be left to autonomy of a competent adult

Question 35

Slippery slope vs consequentialist autonomy

Answer 35

Fisher argues it’s vulnerable to it

No logically coherent way to restrict the principle of ‘freedom to die’ to the cases where it seems most applicable

Arguing not logically consistent to take consequentialist approach to autonomy - only possible for absolute autonomy like Nozick.

Yet that has such downsides it’s better not to adopts autonomy as a principle regarding euthanasia whatsoever

Question 36

Rebuttal to slippery slope from consequentialists

Answer 36

Following Singer and Mill’s arguments, the individual who is in the best position to judge what is best for them and whether the potential value of their future life is of sufficient worth to make continuing to live the best choice for them. However, sometimes people can make irrational choices, not taking their actual long term self-interest into account.

To ensure that autonomy avoids ethical issues, we can therefore add the condition of rationality:
- The young love-sick person is clearly not making a rational calculation, for example.

This position is not susceptible to the slippery slope argument. It would not allow euthanasia for short-sighted unthinking reasons since that would not be rational.

This is a logically coherent way of avoiding extending autonomy absolutely.

Question 37

Does the Catechism permit euthanasia

Answer 37

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Allows administering of high doses of pain killers, even if there is a risk of death, so long as death is foreseen but besides the intention