Lecture 21 callahan on euthanasia
- 1. Euthanasia
- 2. Callahan Thesis Voluntary active euthanasia is morally wrong and should be illegal. It is not supported by the value of autonomy (individual self- determination),will lead to bad consequences, and moves medicine beyond its proper role.
- 3. Three Moral Turning Points Accepting voluntary active euthanasia would permit: 1. a form of “consenting adult killing.” 2. self-determination at the cost of the good of the community. 3. the medical profession serving the individualistic pursuit of happiness and well-being, rather than just promoting and preserving health.
- 4. Callahan then explains four categories of arguments in favor of voluntary active euthanasia and responds to each.
- 5. 1. Self-Determination Argument for Voluntary Active Euthanasia: People should be allowed to decide according to their own values how to conduct their lives, including how and when to die. Callahan’s Response: Euthanasia is not just about self-determination because it involves another person. It is a mutual decision between two people. No plausible argument why it should be permissible to give someone the right to kill you. It is against human dignity. Analogies to slavery, dueling.
- 6. Evaluating Callahan on 1) It is true that it is morally wrong, in normal circumstances, to kill someone even with that person’s permission, or to make someone your slave even with that person’s permission. But might voluntary active euthanasia be different, since the person is suffering and will die anyway?
- 7. 2. Killing and Allowing to Die Argument for Voluntary Active Euthanasia: There is no moral difference between killing and letting die. (cf. Rachels, Brock) Callahan’s Response: This argument confuses causality and culpability. Causality=physical or metaphysical responsibility Culpability=moral responsibility C: The disease causes death, not the physician who stops treatment. (cf. healthy and sick person) C: When a doctor should not have stopped treatment, we say the doctor “kills” in an expanded sense of the term, to point out that the doctor is morally responsible for the death, even though the cause of the death is the disease.
- 8. Evaluating Callahan on 2) What would Callahan say about Brock’s greedy son case? The greedy son kills his mother in the extended sense. The disease actually kills his mother, but he is morally responsible for that happening. The doctor who rightly withholds treatment, unlike the greedy son, only lets the patient die.
- 9. Evaluating Callahan on 2) But notice that what causes the death is both the doctor’s action and the disease. After all, in explaining the cause of death, a person would state both factors, as the doctor’s action is part of the causal chain. That is the same for the greedy son. Does that mean that both the doctor and the disease together kill the patient? Or that the doctor uses the disease to kill the patient?
- 10. 3. Calculating Consequences Argument for Voluntary Active Euthanasia: It is unlikely to lead to bad consequences. Callahan’s Response: The experience of other countries suggests that the law will be abused. The confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship makes such abuse easier. If there’s a right of self-determination to choose euthanasia to relieve suffering, then why limit it to relieving suffering? why limit it to the mentally competent?
- 11. Evaluating Callahan on 3) It makes sense to allow limits on self-determination when it comes to death, such as when the suffering is extreme and the person is going to die anyway. Can’t laws permitting withdrawing treatment also be abused? (cf. Brock)
- 12. 4. Euthanasia & Medical Practice Argument for Voluntary Active Euthanasia: Euthanasia is compatible with the aims of medicine. Callahan’s response: Voluntary active euthanasia moves medicine beyond its proper role of promoting and preserving health and into issues about human happiness and well being and what lives are worth living.
- 13. Evaluating Callahan on 4) Even if doctors can’t always know perfectly, don’t we have some idea about what diseases could produce unbearable suffering and when a patient experiences that sort of suffering? And don’t we think unbearable suffering might make life not worth living, such that it is reasonable for a patient to think that their life is no longer worth living?