How Does Kant Support Euthanasia
Euthanasia of Humans
Ask yourself, if your loved one was suffering from a debilitating disease, causing them pain and heartache, would they be better off lying in a hospital bed, unable to do for themselves or resting in peace! Unfortunately, we as humans will never be able to predict the future, never knowing what joys or tragedies are awaiting either us, or our loved ones! Many people who attempted to escape disease via suicide, and were unsuccessful, were often harshly chastised in open courts, and some were even sent to work camps. It was normal for those who had been successful in their efforts of committing suicide to be buried with stakes in their hearts and the state would come in and confiscate the estate and all property within, …show more content…
If, as James Rachels envisions, “you were given the choice between dying quietly and without pain, at the age of eighty, from a fatal injection, or dying at the age of eighty plus a few days of an affliction so painful that for those few days before death you would be reduced to howling like a dog,” (Bonevac, 460) you probably would not universally will the latter choice. Furthermore, as Roger Sullivan explains “according to Kant, our moral reason recognizes in an objective and disinterested way that we are not only persons having intrinsic worth but also finite beings with needs to be met, and it insists on the strict right of all human beings not only to strive for but to attain that happiness to which their moral worth entitles them” (Sullivan, 220). The capacity to exercise our rationality and reason morally is what makes human existence meaningful. Individuals suffering …show more content…
James Rachels explained the AMA’s philosophy on mercy killing when he wrote, “[they believe] it is permissible, at least in some cases, to withhold treatment and allow a patient to die, but it is never acceptable to take any direct attain designed to kill a patient” (Rachels, 29). Currently in the United States, like most countries, passive euthanasia is legal while active euthanasia is completely illegal. The foundation of this thinking is that passive euthanasia involves only an omission, “letting the patient die,” while active euthanasia involves a direct act of killing
Ask yourself, if your loved one was suffering from a debilitating disease, causing them pain and heartache, would they be better off lying in a hospital bed, unable to do for themselves or resting in peace! Unfortunately, we as humans will never be able to predict the future, never knowing what joys or tragedies are awaiting either us, or our loved ones! Many people who attempted to escape disease via suicide, and were unsuccessful, were often harshly chastised in open courts, and some were even sent to work camps. It was normal for those who had been successful in their efforts of committing suicide to be buried with stakes in their hearts and the state would come in and confiscate the estate and all property within, …show more content…
If, as James Rachels envisions, “you were given the choice between dying quietly and without pain, at the age of eighty, from a fatal injection, or dying at the age of eighty plus a few days of an affliction so painful that for those few days before death you would be reduced to howling like a dog,” (Bonevac, 460) you probably would not universally will the latter choice. Furthermore, as Roger Sullivan explains “according to Kant, our moral reason recognizes in an objective and disinterested way that we are not only persons having intrinsic worth but also finite beings with needs to be met, and it insists on the strict right of all human beings not only to strive for but to attain that happiness to which their moral worth entitles them” (Sullivan, 220). The capacity to exercise our rationality and reason morally is what makes human existence meaningful. Individuals suffering …show more content…
James Rachels explained the AMA’s philosophy on mercy killing when he wrote, “[they believe] it is permissible, at least in some cases, to withhold treatment and allow a patient to die, but it is never acceptable to take any direct attain designed to kill a patient” (Rachels, 29). Currently in the United States, like most countries, passive euthanasia is legal while active euthanasia is completely illegal. The foundation of this thinking is that passive euthanasia involves only an omission, “letting the patient die,” while active euthanasia involves a direct act of killing