The Germans were very good at ‘assisted dying’ for some years in the mid-20th century. They appear to have lost the art.
Russell Hamilton
4 years ago
“In a moral framework that holds ‘autonomous self-determination’ to be the only meaningful value worth protecting, this makes sense. Missing from it, though, is the recognition that human dignity might exist in how we belong not just to ourselves, but to others as well.”
I think this takes the argument to an extreme, which few would agree with – yet polls show a lot of support for regulated voluntary assisted dying. Dignity doesn’t just belong to ourselves because it is something we can give to each other. People can, like with the abortion issue, consider all the complex angles and come up with different justifiable positions. People near the end of their lives who want to be able to choose a dignified exit (in their terms) are perhaps a lesson in dignity.
David Simpson
4 years ago
You make an important point, that deaths of despair should not be tolerated or ignored, because of the principle that we each have the right to decide when enough is enough. But this decision defends, rightly in my view, that principle, however society may wish to hedge that around with protections for the vulnerable. It should not in the end be easier to throw oneself under a tube train with all the horrors that involves for others, than to take a legally sanctioned and controlled route to end one’s life.
rogerbishopjones
4 years ago
What a struggle you make here to maintain a moral constraint on this one legal human need that you dissapprove of.
The Germans were very good at ‘assisted dying’ for some years in the mid-20th century. They appear to have lost the art.
“In a moral framework that holds ‘autonomous self-determination’ to be
the only meaningful value worth protecting, this makes sense. Missing
from it, though, is the recognition that human dignity might exist in
how we belong not just to ourselves, but to others as well.”
I think this takes the argument to an extreme, which few would agree with – yet polls show a lot of support for regulated voluntary assisted dying. Dignity doesn’t just belong to ourselves because it is something we can give to each other. People can, like with the abortion issue, consider all the complex angles and come up with different justifiable positions. People near the end of their lives who want to be able to choose a dignified exit (in their terms) are perhaps a lesson in dignity.
You make an important point, that deaths of despair should not be tolerated or ignored, because of the principle that we each have the right to decide when enough is enough. But this decision defends, rightly in my view, that principle, however society may wish to hedge that around with protections for the vulnerable. It should not in the end be easier to throw oneself under a tube train with all the horrors that involves for others, than to take a legally sanctioned and controlled route to end one’s life.
What a struggle you make here to maintain a moral constraint on this one legal human need that you dissapprove of.