Euthanasia and Ethics
Margaret P. Battin’s “Euthanasia: The Way We Do It, the Way They Do It” discusses the occurrence and practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide in three first-world, industrialized, developed nations: The Netherlands, Germany, and the United States. All three of these countries have one important factor in common that makes them ideal for studying euthanasia: aging populations who primarily die of degenerative diseases, rather than parasitic or infectious diseases (Battin 579). In the United States, outright euthanasia is illegal. Rather, the accepted form of ending a patient’s life is withholding or withdrawing any forms of treatment which were previously keeping said patient alive (Battin 580). In the Netherlands, …show more content…
This means that ethical theories and issues are judged to be moral or not by their ability to be applied universally, or to become universal maxims/laws of nature. For euthanasia, one such maxim might be ‘All terminally ill people who request to die must be assisted to die’. This maxim does not contradict itself- a world in which it is universal is conceivable and not chaotic. In this sense, voluntary euthanasia is a viable ethical choice. However, Kant’s categorial imperative was born out of reason, his desire for rationality. He argues that a person who chooses death is choosing fear of pain and suffering over the primary directive: duty. So, then, euthanasia is seeking an end (freedom from pain) and does not treat rationality/duty as an end in and of itself. On the other hand, Kant also believes that humans’ rationality and ability for higher reasoning and functioning is what makes us human, and therefore responsible for carrying out our moral duties. When a person is so ill that they lose the ability to reason and/or function, perhaps they are not considered human in that sense, and therefore euthanasia becomes viable. I believe that Kant would generally be opposed to euthanasia except in the most extreme cases, such as the one I have …show more content…
Choosing to end one’s life in many cases shows an unwillingness to suffer and endure pain, which is I believe is an act of cowardice. However, I will also say that I realize not all cases of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide can be said to have the same circumstances. Like Aristotle, I also consider the needs of a society or community as a whole to be more important than the needs of an individual. Therefore, I assert that withdrawing extensive life-saving treatment from a patient who would not survive without it is morally acceptable. Exhausting great deal of effort, money, and time on what it ultimately a terminal case is not rational or logical. In fact, I believe that if Aristotle so vehemently condemns cowardice, he would say that a patient who demanded such dramatic measures to be taken in order to maintain such a low quality of life would be afraid of death and unwilling to accept their fate- succumbing to fear, and therefore losing