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I think the widespread acceptance of the idea that assisted suicide is a legitimate option that people ought to consider is a society giving up on humanity. I t
by ETH_start 2y ago
I think the widespread acceptance of the idea that assisted suicide is a legitimate option that people ought to consider is a society giving up on humanity. I think that there is never a case where there is no hope at all. Even in cases of the most severe illness, with all of the advancements in technology and innovation emerging seemingly every day, you cannot say there is no chance of a cure or a recovery. And even in a failed attempt at such a cure or recovery, there is much to be learned that can be shared with the rest of humanity.
To just focus on avoiding suffering instead of striving to live is not consistent with the attitude that is conducive to the flourishing of life and the advancement of civilization. It is precisely humanity raging against the light — the endless quest for survival and flourishing — that has driven humanity thus far and that will always drive life in general. The assisted suicide philosophy, if you want to call it that, is fundamentally a deviation from the civilizational and biological imperative.
All of this being said, a free society is one where people own their own body, meaning have a right to destroy themselves, with any drug or dangerous behavior, and to even commit suicide. So I cannot see an argument for prohibiting suicide or the provision of assistance in committing it. What's peculiar about countries that have legalized assisted suicide is the bevy of laws they impose to protect people from much milder forms of self-harm, like consumer protection laws that protect people from their own bad consumer decisions. You're not allowed to buy raw milk, but you can get a doctor's assistance in ending your life due to depression!
- LorenPechtel 2y agoYou thinking there's never a case with no hope doesn't make it so.
- ETH_start 2y agoThere's always hope because we don't know everything. And there are cases where there is a lot of hope, even if the person themselves doesn't believe it, yet people are not being discouraged from suicide.
- LorenPechtel 2y agoYou seem to be seeing only one side of the situation while there are actually costs to both sides. As I see it suicide should only be considered when the expected average future quality of life is negative. For the sake of argument let's consider a healthy person to have a quality of life of 100. A dead person inherently has a quality of life of zero. Health problems and disabilities lower quality of life. The fact that anyone chooses suicide implicitly is saying that their perception of quality of life (and it has to be their perception, everyone has their own yardstick) has gone negative. It's not just whether it's *currently* negative, but what is the sum of future expected quality of life? Let's take a patient who considers their quality of life to be -10, with an expected lifespan of a year. I'll take the unit as days, so they have a total expected quality of -3650. I'll be generous and figure a miraculous save occurs 1 in every 100,000 cases and that a save returns them to full health (very unlikely) and gives them another 20 years (again, unlikely--people typically have other processes at work that would in time kill them.) Total expected quality is 730,000. 100,000 people. One is +730,000, for a total gain of 730,000 99,999 are -3650, for a total loss of 364,996,350 Clearly, hoping for the miraculous save increases suffering.
- ETH_start 2y agoIf that were the calculation that we had used throughout history, humanity would have gone extinct. Suffering was extremely common and widespread pre-modernity.