Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide from Confucian Moral Perspectives

This essay first discusses the three major arguments in favor of euthanasia and physician-assisted-suicide in contemporary Western society, viz., the arguments of mercy, preventing indignity, and individual autonomy. It then articulates both Confucian consonance and dissonance to them. The first two arguments make use of Confucian discussions on suicide whereas the last argument appeals to Confucian social-political thought. It concludes that from the Confucian moral perspectives, none of the three arguments is fully convincing.     

Progressive Dying: Meaningful Acts of Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

In this paper I use William James's understanding of “significance” in life to show that for certain patients euthanasia and assisted suicide can be importantly meaningful acts that family, friends, and health care professionals must acknowledge and even, at times, aid in bringing to fruition. Dying with meaning is transformative. It reshapes the lives of others that are left behind, giving to their lives new groundings by engaging them in the meaning of dying for us. For the patient, dying with meaning takes the seemingly formless void in the abyss of death and gives it a significant purpose in the last stages of life itself; it turns potential nothingness into actual significance. To the extent that we outsiders do not help the dying, we condemn terminally ill patients to a meaningless existence until they die.     

Assisted Suicide,Euthanasia, and Suicide Prevention: The Implications of the Dutch Experience

What impact would legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia have on our ability to treat suicidal patients and to prevent suicide? Information from a study of the Dutch experience illustrates how legal sanction promotes a culture that transforms suicide into assisted suicide and euthanasia and encourages patients and doctors to see choosing death as a preferred way of dealing with serious or terminal illness. The extension of the right to euthanasia to those who are not physically ill further complicates the problem. So too does the tendency of doctors in such a culture to begin to feel that they can make decisions about ending the life of competent terminally ill patients without consulting the patient. “Normalizing” suicide as a medical option lays the groundwork for a society that turns euthanasia into a “cure” for suicidal depression.     

The Opinions of GP's Patients About Suicide,Assisted Suicide,Euthanasia, and Suicide Prevention: An Italian Survey

A survey about opinions on end‐of‐life issues of a population represented by 1,171 people in the waiting room of general practitioners' surgeries was conducted in a province of northern Italy. Most subjects did not consider suicide as a reasonable option even in cases of a serious and incurable disease. Moreover, subjects did not consider euthanasia as a possible option either; however, they did express an opposite attitude when considering euthanasia in a third‐person perspective. People with a personal history of suicidal behavior appear to present as a different population, overall expressing more open attitudes.     

Acceptance of Conditional Suicide and Euthanasia among Adult Americans

ABSTRACT: Analysis of the attitudes of a 1977 cross-sectional sample of 1,530 American adults concerning euthanasia and suicide indicates that sex, age, and education are significant variables. Males, those who are younger and those who are better educated, are more likely to approve of euthanasia and suicide when a person has an incurable disease. Religious affiliation was not an important variable, although those who were frequent church-service attenders or who were high on religiosity were highly likely to reject euthanasia and suicide.     

Ronald Dworkin on Abortion and Assisted Suicide

In the first part of this article, I raisequestions about Dworkin's theory of theintrinsic value of life and about the adequacyof his proposal to understand abortion in termsof different ways of valuing life. In thesecond part of the article, I consider hisargument in ``The Philosophers' Brief on AssistedSuicide', which claims that the distinctionbetween killing and letting die is morallyirrelevant, the distinction between intendingand foreseeing death can be morally relevantbut is not always so. I argue that thekilling/letting die distinction can be relevantin the context of assisted suicide, but alsoshow when it is not. Then I consider why theintention/foresight distinction can be morallyirrelevant and conclude by presenting analternative argument for physician-assistedsuicide.     

Suicide Causation: Pies,Paths, and Pointless Polemics

Most people readily agree that suicide is caused by a complex web of many different factors. However, for many people the concept of a single event resulting from the combined effect of a constellation of different factors (multiple causation) is imperfectly understood. Unfortunately, a naive understanding of multiple causation can lead to needless arguments about what “really” causes suicide, and pointless debate about the “right” point for preventive intervention. In this paper, I review several simple conceptual models of multiple causation as they relate to suicide prevention. I suggest that a more explicit understanding of the nature of multiple causation has the potential to obviate some of these misguided arguments and to facilitate cooperative prevention efforts among person who choose to apply their energies at different points in the causal chain of suicide.     

On Procreative Responsibility in Assisted and Collaborative Reproduction

It is common practice to regard participants in assisted and collaborative reproduction (gamete donors, embryologists, fertility doctors, etc.) as simply providing a desired biological product or medical service. These agents are not procreators in the ordinary sense, nor do they stand in any kind of meaningful parental relation to the resulting offspring. This paper challenges the common view by defending a principle of procreative responsibility and then demonstrating that this standard applies as much to those who provide reproductive assistance in the form of medical services or gametes, as it does to coital reproducers or intending parents. Drawing on vocabulary from the common law tradition, I suggest that it may be helpful to refer to the various participants in assisted and collaborative reproduction (ACR) as accessories to procreation. Referring to the participants in ACR as accessories to procreation highlights the fact that these agents are not just providing medical services or products. They are participating in a supply chain designed to bring about new persons. I conclude by arguing that regulative standards in the fertility industry should be structured such that they permit, facilitate, and encourage agents to satisfy the requirements of procreative responsibility.     

Assisted Suicide,Suffering and the Meaning of a Life

The ethical problems surrounding voluntary assisted suicide remain formidable, and are unlikely to be resolved in pluralist societies. An examination of historical attitudes to suicide suggests that modernity has inherited a formidable complex of religious and moral attitudes to suicide, whether assisted or not. Advocates usually invoke the ending of intolerable suffering as one justification for euthanasia of this kind. This does not provide an adequate justification by itself, because there are (at least theoretically) methods which would relieve suffering without causing the physical death of the suffering person. Carried to extremes, these methods would finish the life worth living, but leave a being which was technically alive. Such acts, however, would provide no moral escape, since they would create beings without meaning. Arguments seeking to justify ending the lives of others need some grounding in concepts of the meaning of a life. The euthanasia discourse therefore needs to take at least some account of the meaning we construct for our lives and the lives of others.     

论安乐死如何可能——兼论作为风险的自杀问题

本文写作之时传来美国"死亡医师"科沃基恩(J.Kevorkian)的去世消息,他在巴赫的音乐声中平静离世。①目前对安乐死的讨论尽管激烈,但无论赞成与否,其在方法论上都只是一个经验上必然碰到的"二律背反"的问题,这就是幸福论与义务论伦理思想的对立在死亡问题上的表现,即:"(自我)杀死"与"(自我)牺牲"。本文的目的则是要在先验层面解决这个问题,并揭示自杀的风险性质。在蕴含式A→B(如果A,那么B)中,若只有当A为"真"而B为"假"时A→B才是     

Effects of Manipulation on Attributions of Causation,Free Will,and Moral Responsibility

If someone brings about an outcome without intending to, is she causally and morally responsible for it? What if she acts intentionally, but as the result of manipulation by another agent? Previous research has shown that an agent's mental states can affect attributions of causal and moral responsibility to that agent , but little is known about what effect one agent's mental states can have on attributions to another agent. In Experiment 1, we replicate findings that manipulation lowers attributions of responsibility to manipulated agents. Experiments 2–7 isolate which features of manipulation drive this effect, a crucial issue for both philosophical debates about free will and attributions of responsibility in situations involving social influence more generally. Our results suggest that “bypassing” a manipulated agent's mental states generates the greatest reduction in responsibility, and we explain our results in terms of the effects that one agent's mental states can have on the counterfactual relations between another agent and an outcome.     

Counterfactual Causation and Mental Causation

Counterfactual conditionals have been appealed to in various ways to show how the mind can be causally efficacious. However, it has often been overestimated what the truth of certain counterfactuals actually indicates about causation. The paper first identifies four approaches that seem to commit precisely this mistake. The arguments discussed involve erroneous assumptions about the connection of counterfactual dependence and genuine causation, as well as a disregard of the requisite evaluation conditions of counterfactuals. In a second step, the paper uses the insights of the foregoing analyses to formulate a set of counterfactuals-based conditions that are characterized as sufficient to establish singular causal claims. The paper concludes that there are ample reasons to believe that some mental events satisfy all these conditions with respect to certain further events and, hence, that mental events sometimes are causes.     

Sparse Causation and Mere Abundant Causation

Philosophical Studies - Setting off from a familiar distinction in the philosophy of properties, this paper introduces a tripartite distinction between sparse causation, abundant causation and mere...     

Mental Causation and the Metaphysics of Causation

The paper argues for four claims: (1) The problem of mental causation and the argument for its solution in terms of the identity of mental with physical causes are independent of the theory of causation one favours. (2) If one considers our experience of agency as described by folk psychology to be veridical, one is committed to an anti-Humean metaphysics of causation in terms of powers that establish necessary connections. The same goes for functional properties in general. (3) A metaphysics of causation in terms of powers is compatible with physics. (4) If combined with the argument for mental causes being identical with physical causes, that metaphysics leads to a conservative reductionism.     

Stances on Assisted Suicide by Health and Social Care Professionals Working With Older Persons in Switzerland

This qualitative study investigated the personal and professional stances of 40 health and social care professionals confronted with assisted suicide of older persons living in nursing homes or supported by social welfare or home care and support services in French-speaking Switzerland. Requests of assisted suicide triggered questions with regard to the professional mission, the quality of accompaniment, values, and ethical principles. Four types of stances emerged from the analysis performed according to the principles of the grounded theory: favorable in principle, professional compromise, personal compromise, and opposed in principle. Each stance results from the combination of several dimensions: personal or professional concordance or compatibility with assisted suicide; implication in, and impact of, the process; appreciation of the process; and satisfaction with the resources at disposal. The differentiated stances adopted by professionals depend largely on their way of interpreting their mission, deontology, and the relationship to the older person.     

The Moral Deliberations of 15 Clergy on Suicide and Assisted Death: A Qualitative Study

Given the relationship between moral objections to suicide, physician-assisted suicide (PAS), and euthanasia and religion, it is important to understand under what conditions clergy have moral objections to suicide, ending futile medical treatment, PAS, and euthanasia. This study used thematic analysis to explore the moral deliberations of 15 clergy and the right- and wrong-making properties of nine death and dying scenarios. Fifteen Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant clergy completed semi-structured interviews. Data analysis generated eight themes: sanctity of life, preservation of the natural course of life, pastoral care, support of the faith community, referral to professional services, end-of-life decision in community, consultation with medical professionals, and a shift to a hopeful narrative. Respondents consistently endorsed the priority of pastoral care, demonstrating a deep concern for the well-being of suffering congregants. In conclusion, respondents were consistent in the application of eight themes to end-of-life scenarios but differed in their approach to the removal of a feeding tube and being present for a PAS death. Every respondent objected to suicide.