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Do we have a moral obligation to live for as long as possible?

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Re: Do we have a moral obligation to live for as long as possible?

#61

Post by throw0101a »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #57
Brian_K_White wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's a real life practical issue for me that there be no wiggle room or ambiguity, ever, in any context, about whether it's OK to kill me. Even if the doctor on the scene doesn't know me personally and I'm not capable of making my arguments to him and defend my self from his, say, religious belief that I'll be in a better place or have outlived his concept of usefulness or worth. It makes sense to me that this is…

I'm not aware of anyone who is advocating involuntary euthanasia. I've no doubt that someone is but it is far outside of the mainstream, even among those who support an unconditional right to euthanasia. In all current implementations and all the ones I've seen proposed it has to be actively sought by the patient who is to be euthanized. Your comment seems like more than a little bit of a strawman.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_euthanasia#United_...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-voluntary_euthanasia

> I've no doubt that someone is but it is far outside of the mainstream […] Your comment seems like more than a little bit of a strawman.

For now perhaps, but sometimes the inclined plane has a low coefficient of friction:

> Evidence of widespread evasion of such safeguards in Belgium and the Netherlands, where assisted suicide had previously been legalized, was dismissed as “anecdotal,” while the widening of its application in those countries, from the consenting adults originally envisaged, to children and the mentally ill, was waved away as the product of a different “medico-legal culture.” In essence, the court said, it can’t happen here.

> This was not just an incidental point. This was central to the court’s reasoning, the thing that allowed it to ignore the precedent set in Rodriguez. Legalizing assisted suicide, relaxing the prohibition in place for centuries in virtually all Western countries, need not open the floodgates, as feared. It could be limited to consenting adults, of sound mind, in the last agonizing stages of a terminal illness – the sorts of people who had come before the court in Carter and Rodriguez, the sorts of cases that had moved the public to support their cause.

> Yet here we are, in 2020, considering whether to legalize assisted suicide for non-terminal cases, for the mentally ill, even for children – sorry, “mature minors.”

* https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-on-assisted-...

* https://archive.is/hFXjJ

Re: Do we have a moral obligation to live for as long as possible?

#62

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

throw0101a wrote: post #61
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not aware of anyone who is advocating involuntary euthanasia. I've no doubt that someone is but it is far outside of the mainstream, even among those who support an unconditional right to euthanasia. In all current implementations and all the ones I've seen proposed it has to be actively sought by the patient who is to be euthanized. Your comment seems like more than a little bit of a strawman.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_euthanasia#United_... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-voluntary_euthanasia > I've no doubt that someone is but it is far outside of the mainstream […] Your comment seems like more than a little bit of a strawman. For now perhaps, but sometimes the inclined plane has a low coefficient of friction: > Evidence of widespread evasion of such safeguards in Belgium and the Net…

The miniscule risk of a slippery slope in some remote and unlikely future cannot serve as a reasonable justification for violating the bodily autonomy of adults in their sound mind today. Nor am I much impressed by the existence of an organization that advocated involuntary euthanasia eighty years ago in the US. There was all kinds of insanely messed up stuff going on in our country at that time. Involuntary euthanasia, even if they had succeeded in implementing it, wouldn't have remotely been the worst.

Re: Do we have a moral obligation to live for as long as possible?

#63

Post by Nzen »

louwrentius wrote: post #27
oleander73 wrote: post #17

As someone for whom this is a real life practical issue, not some idle philosophizing, even asking the question is repugnant to me. I have incurable cancer and at some point I will decide "enough is enough" and I'd like to be euthanized by a doctor. The doctor will then have to decide if my suffering is sufficiently unbearable and only if he comes to that conclusion is he allowed to do it. He'll have to justify his j…

At least we in NL have access to Euthanasia. Frankly I would like to see Futurama style suicide boots. OK, the latter may seem extreme, but why do we have all the liberty in the world to create life, including a lot of suffering, but not to end our own? In America, Euthanasia doesn’t seem like an option, but access to guns solves that option in practice. Terrible, but the hard reality. In the end, It is about quality…

Presumably, suicide is illegal where I live because it may involve another person. Obviously, destroying my own life by my own hand leaves no perpetrator, though it does leave suffering [0] in my social circle. Of course, if I'm unsuccessful, our social net must pay to pump my stomach or sew my gash. Presumably, there is a punishment in place to prevent a proliferation of expensive, half hearted attempts. I agree that policy, unfortunately, affects people who aren't intending to harm themselves.

But, consider my semi mobile 97 year old, arthritic grandmother. If she did harbor a desire, she probably isn't in a position to end herself without suffering while she expires. She's not in a position to get a gun, or jump into a river. She doesn't control her pill supply, so she can't swallow all of her opiods. Maybe she could starve or dehydrate herself for an age.

Her greatest hope for dying without complication means involving an able bodied person. But, it's hard for uninvolved people to prove that murder didn't happen, given that the consenting party is gone. Sure, maybe the medical professional isn't interested in killing this person, but benefactors might be. It looks like murder in Los Angeles County in 2018 was 5 per 1e5 [2] and suicide was 14 per 1e5 residents [3]. (LA county contains 1e7 residents.) That is many cases that would need to be audited, and hence an expense that would be simpler to avoid with prohibition.

To be clear, I'm answering your question of why a society may choose to continue criminalizing suicide. I say this as someone who plans to off myself before my quality of life reduces to what (I perceive) my grandparents have experienced. Of course, it is easy for me to pronounce my intention [4] while my preferred date is still decades in the future.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvkbHIrrrvU

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25526104

[2] http://www.laalmanac.com/crime/cr02.php

[3] https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/annual/measur...

[4] https://twitter.com/Ashton_Murdock_/status/12617511652110868...

Re: Do we have a moral obligation to live for as long as possible?

#64

Post by achillesheels »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #53
achillesheels wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not correct. Cicero in his Laws Book I emphatically states right and wrong as attributable what is proper and improper vis-a-vis Nature. That is to say, what is consistent or what is contradictory to natural action. This is in no way related to believing in a higher (and I suppose you mean) personal authority - and which he uses to demonstrate the wonderful idea of “Natural Law” as that which is supreme to an…

That's just like, his opinion, man. :) The concept that what is natural is moral is just a higher authority in another guise. (Or a redefinition of morality away from what it means to me.) It's also inconsistent in many cases with what most humans would label as moral and immoral behavior.

Your speech is presupposed by biologically scientific ergo naturally scientific principles.

And who cares what most humans think is moral and immoral? Human record testifies to the average persons indecency.

Re: Do we have a moral obligation to live for as long as possible?

#65

Post by louwrentius »

tzs wrote: post #58
louwrentius wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least we in NL have access to Euthanasia. Frankly I would like to see Futurama style suicide boots. OK, the latter may seem extreme, but why do we have all the liberty in the world to create life, including a lot of suffering, but not to end our own? In America, Euthanasia doesn’t seem like an option, but access to guns solves that option in practice. Terrible, but the hard reality. In the end, It is about quality…

Futurama style suicide booths would be terrible. A huge fraction of the people who use them would be people who if they had just had to wait a couple of years would no longer have been suicidal. Some stats [1]. In 2013 among students in grades 9-12 in the US, 11.6% of males and 22.4% of females seriously considered attempting suicide in the previous 12 months. 19.6% of females and 10.3% of males made a plan about how…

Yes, many people who attempt suicide are later happier and glad they didn’t die. That’s why it was more of an idea or concept, not meant literally / too seriously.

But for those people that really had enough there is no legal, clean way to end their life. Not even in The Netherlands, where euthanasia was first legalized.

Especially people with severe psychological issues will have a hard time proving that they suffer tremendously and that there is no hope of recovery.

Re: Do we have a moral obligation to live for as long as possible?

#66

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

achillesheels wrote: post #64
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just like, his opinion, man. :) The concept that what is natural is moral is just a higher authority in another guise. (Or a redefinition of morality away from what it means to me.) It's also inconsistent in many cases with what most humans would label as moral and immoral behavior.

Your speech is presupposed by biologically scientific ergo naturally scientific principles. And who cares what most humans think is moral and immoral? Human record testifies to the average persons indecency.

I don't know what you're getting at in the first sentence. If you restate it in the active voice, it goes: "Biologically scientific ergo naturally scientific principles presuppose your speech." That sounds pretty incoherent to me, but maybe it means something to you. I don't see how these principles could presuppose my speech given that my speech came after.

I would argue that any system of morality that is divorced from what humans think is right is of at best questionable utility.

Re: Do we have a moral obligation to live for as long as possible?

#67

Post by achillesheels »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #66
achillesheels wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your speech is presupposed by biologically scientific ergo naturally scientific principles. And who cares what most humans think is moral and immoral? Human record testifies to the average persons indecency.

I don't know what you're getting at in the first sentence. If you restate it in the active voice, it goes: "Biologically scientific ergo naturally scientific principles presuppose your speech." That sounds pretty incoherent to me, but maybe it means something to you. I don't see how these principles could presuppose my speech given that my speech came after. I would argue that any system of morality that is divorced…

Is not your speech an extension of your biology? Thus it is ordered according to natural principles. This is the fundamental point Cicero makes. So while, yes, it is his "opinion", to deny a natural foundation to any morals is itself incoherent and not worthy of entertaining for dialogue, because dialogue itself presupposes the pursuit of the correct mode of living: wisdom.

And please make the distinction between "most humans" and exceptional humans. No doubt we all have a sense of right, but it is in its fulfillment - there's the rub!

Re: Do we have a moral obligation to live for as long as possible?

#68

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

achillesheels wrote: post #67
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you're getting at in the first sentence. If you restate it in the active voice, it goes: "Biologically scientific ergo naturally scientific principles presuppose your speech." That sounds pretty incoherent to me, but maybe it means something to you. I don't see how these principles could presuppose my speech given that my speech came after. I would argue that any system of morality that is divorced…

Is not your speech an extension of your biology? Thus it is ordered according to natural principles. This is the fundamental point Cicero makes. So while, yes, it is his "opinion", to deny a natural foundation to any morals is itself incoherent and not worthy of entertaining for dialogue, because dialogue itself presupposes the pursuit of the correct mode of living: wisdom. And please make the distinction between "mo…

I agree that morals arise from nature, in the same way that all things do, since there is nothing that does not arise from the physical. In that sense all things are natural.

I don't think that's what natural principles or natural law mean, and some brief wikipedia reading confirms my suspicion -- this is equivocation. For example, communism and authoritarianism also arise from speech and reason and ultimately human biology, so they are also natural in the sense you referenced. But Cicero would not have endorsed either of those forms of government and would not consider them part of his natural law.

Re: Do we have a moral obligation to live for as long as possible?

#69

Post by DanBC »

derbOac wrote: post #18
Cilvic wrote: post #9

I'm reminded of/intrigued by Star Trek episodes. How much of our attitude towards end-of-life is "learned" and result of "we have always done it like that"? It's easy to imagine a planet/culture where people chose to go voluntarily and on their own terms and then everybody celebrates around that. I do think it's a high burden on younger generations to pay "up-keep" for older generations, especially when technological…

There's a certain danger in framing life continuation in terms of value to society though. I don't say this flippantly because I've wrestled with these things in a very real sense, and appreciate the argument you're trying to make. I'm not trying to trivialize it. However, it's ethically a slippery slope in the strongest sense: There's the argument that older people don't have an obligation to live as long as possibl…

> Why is there so much focus on preventing suicide rather than improving people's well-being?

There isn't a focus on merely preventing suicide while not improving well-being. Anyone working in suicide prevention or public health will talk - at length - about the wider determinants of health and mental health.

If it appears that there's a focus on preventing death over other measures that's because the work has focussed streams of activity. General health and well being does get discussed on HN.

Re: Do we have a moral obligation to live for as long as possible?

#70

Post by throw0101a »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #62
throw0101a wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_euthanasia#United_... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-voluntary_euthanasia > I've no doubt that someone is but it is far outside of the mainstream […] Your comment seems like more than a little bit of a strawman. For now perhaps, but sometimes the inclined plane has a low coefficient of friction: > Evidence of widespread evasion of such safeguards in Belgium and the Net…

The miniscule risk of a slippery slope in some remote and unlikely future cannot serve as a reasonable justification for violating the bodily autonomy of adults in their sound mind today. Nor am I much impressed by the existence of an organization that advocated involuntary euthanasia eighty years ago in the US. There was all kinds of insanely messed up stuff going on in our country at that time. Involuntary euthanas…

> The miniscule risk of a slippery slope

The slippery slope is occurring right now in Canada:

> Had you predicted [in 2015] that the right to an assisted suicide would soon come to apply, not only in cases of physical pain but psychological, and not only to patients in the last agonizing stages of death but those who were nowhere near it – had you predicted, indeed, that a patient’s request to be killed would not even have to be repeated and persistent for a doctor to act on it, that the whole process could be telescoped into a single day – you would have been accused of “slippery slope” thinking.

> Had you predicted that, by 2019, just the third full year after it was legalized, nearly one in 50 deaths in the country would be by assisted suicide, even on the (almost certainly underreported) official numbers; and that, this having been accomplished, talk would turn to extending the procedure – not just to competent adults, but the mentally ill and even children – you would have been carted off.

> Yet that, incredibly, is where we are. The cautious, limited exceptions that people understood the issue to involve at the start – what most people understand it to involve even now – have been overtaken by an accelerating drive toward death-on-demand. Had the public known this was where we were headed, they might have objected. Instead it has been done in stages, a series of bait-and-switch routines in which the courts and legislatures have taken equal part.

> The irony is that the very foundation of the Supreme Court’s decision in Carter was that there was no such slippery slope.

* https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-our-cautious...

* https://archive.is/s5bPu

Would you consider killing newborns "involuntary euthanasia"? If so, then that would be an example advocation. Per Jerry Coyne:

> If you are allowed to abort a fetus that has a severe genetic defect, microcephaly, spina bifida, or so on, then why aren’t you able to euthanize that same fetus just after it’s born? I see no substantive difference that would make the former act moral and the latter immoral. After all, newborn babies aren’t aware of death, aren’t nearly as sentient as an older child or adult, and have no rational faculties to make judgments (and if there’s severe mental disability, would never develop such faculties). It makes little sense to keep alive a suffering child who is doomed to die or suffer life in a vegetative or horribly painful state.

* https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2017/07/13/should-one-be-allo...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Coyne

If not "involuntary euthanasia", do you have an opinion of it 'should' be classified (if at all)?

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