Julian Baggini: Suicide can be a rational choice

Description: [of the article from The Independent]

In reviewing the arguments against rational suicide, Julian Baggini, editor of The Philosophers' Magazine writes that some people "argue that anyone who judges that they are better off dead has got to be mistaken. They're depressed but they don't realise it, or they have misjudged what the future is likely to hold. This is deeply patronising to the many men and women who have decided that life with their terminal conditions is not worth living. To say that they are just mistaken is to say we are better judges of the value of other people's lives than they are themselves. This is not compassion but arrogance.

The irony here is that people often object to euthanasia because they think that it entails some kind of judgement on the value of others' lives. A severely disabled person who chooses to die, so it is argued, sends out the message that a severely disabled life is not worth living. But it does no such thing. The person who decides that their life is not worth living under such circumstances is saying nothing about the value of someone else's life in similar circumstances. To use a trivial example but a structurally identical one, if I walk out of a Lady Gaga concert, I'm not saying it's not worth anyone else staying. The suicide who walks out on life is likewise not saying everyone else has to follow.

Others claim that every suicide represents a failure of society to provide the conditions that would make life bearable. But by making a suicide the responsibility of others, it denies the responsibility each of us has for ourselves. Such a response is also a way of simply avoiding considering the serious possibility that sometimes suicide may indeed be a rational choice, which is precisely the possibility I think we find it hard to countenance."

[Note: Some other recent stories related to this topic are in the Links: section below.]

Links:

To read the full article click on one of these links, both of which go to the same destination. A short link is provided for the convenience of readers. Also, readers may search and browse past advisories on the web (see bottom.)

  • http://tinyurl.com/ygkmlqp

  • http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/julian-baggini-suicide-can-be-a-rational-choice-1912358.html

    Also see:

  • Jacob Appel: Should Children Have A Right to Die? [The Huffington Post]
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-m-appel/should-children-have-righ_b_484318.html

    Bioethicist Jacob Appel writes about the difficulties involved in granting "suffering minors the right to die."

    In an ideal world, of course, no children would ever suffer from terminal disease. The cruel reality is that cancer alone kills more than two thousand kids each year in the United States, and thousands of others succumb to chronic genetic disorders, such as cystic fibrosis, or perish in ICU beds after sustaining irreversible trauma. These are real children—not hypothetical entities injured for the intellectual benefit of philosophers and theologians.

    Some opponents of pediatric aid-in-dying argue that legalizing the hastening of death will open the door to exploitation and that a horde of nefarious parents will use this opportunity to rid themselves of burdensome offspring. Strong evidence casts doubt upon these claims, as those jurisdictions that have legalized aid-in-dying for adults have not seen any such abuse of the elderly or disabled. Similarly, if the fear is that insurance companies and corporate hospitals will pressure families into terminating care prematurely—which they are just as likely to do in a world governed by the willful self-deception of "double effect"--then the proper solution is to curtail the power of hospital and health insurers, not to force unwanted life of minimal quantity on our most vulnerable citizens.

Source:

Baggini, Julian. "Julian Baggini: Suicide can be a rational choice". The Independent. Saturday, 27 February 2010. <www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/julian-baggini-suicide-can-be-a-rational-choice-1912358.html>. The Independent, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5HF, UK.

Tags:

Tags (or keywords) briefly indicate some major topics of the report.

  • suicide

  • ethics

  • euthanasia

ID:

The EuthaNEWSia ID for this advisory is: enid201003086069.
Mailed: Monday, March 8, 2010 13:45:26 -0600
at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Etcetera:

EuthaNEWSia is a free Canadian news advisory service covering end-of-life issues such as right to die, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. EuthaNEWSia is produced by the Right to Die Society of Canada which works toward a good death for all, including open, regulated and equitable access to euthanasia and assisted suicide. The editor is Michael Dawson <editor@euthanewsia.ca>. 

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