Friday, June 1, 2012
Bringing Death into Our Lives
Joseph Raz has posted the text of a lecture he gave recently, "Death in Our Life." The abstract:
[The lecture] examines a central aspect of the relations between duration and quality of life by considering the moral right to voluntary euthanasia, and some aspects of the moral case for a legal right to euthanasia. Would widespread acceptance of a right to voluntary euthanasia lead to widespread changes in attitude to life and death? Many of its advocates deny that seeing it as a narrow right enabling people to avoid ending their life in great pain or total dependence, or a vegetative state. I argue that the right cannot cogently be conceived as a narrow right, confined to very limited circumstances. It is based on the value of having the normative power to choose time and manner of one’s death. Its recognition will be accompanied by far reaching changes in culture and attitude, and these changes will enrich people’s life by enabling them to integrate their death as part of their lives.
I have not (yet) read the paper, but my reflexive reaction is to resist the presumption that bans on euthanasia preclude the integration of our deaths into our lives. Integrating the various components of my existence into a coherent life does not necessarily require me to choose the terms of each component. A natural death can be embraced as part of my life-narrative even if I cannot predict the circumstances or avoid the suffering that may accompany it. I'm not making a broader argument about euthanasia at this point, simply objecting to the tendency to equate integration with choice.
One additional point: Raz is undoubtedly correct that our society fails to support the integration of our deaths into our lives, but that may stem more from our efforts to avoid any meaningful contemplation of our mortality. A more powerful remedy, in my view, can be found in Ash Wednesday than in euthanasia.
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2012/06/bringing-death-into-our-lives.html
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Rob,
I don't think the claim that "recognition will be accompanied by far reaching changes in culture and attitude, and these changes will enrich people’s life by enabling them to integrate their death as part of their lives," need assume or entail "the presumption that bans on euthanasia preclude the integration of our deaths into our lives." Any number of other things might preclude such integration: states of denial, wishful thinking, repression, failure to engage in self-examination, etc., etc. Raz is not claiming the bans necessarily preclude contemplation of mortality into our life narratives, only that the consideration of euthanasia might serve to encourage reflection on our inevitable death(s).
As to your additional point, Ash Wednesday is for those of Catholic faith, is it not? What else might we propose by way of encouraging people of all (or at least many) faiths or none to meaningfully contemplate their mortality? And I certainly agree with you--and I think Raz would to--that "[a] natural death can be embraced as part of my life-narrative even if I cannot predict the circumstances or avoid the suffering that may accompany it." Those identifying, say, with a Daoist worldview or even some forms of naturalism can appreciate that. It's rather and simply the possibility or likelihood that contemplating decisions with regard to euthanasia compels us think about mortality, as does, for example, the reading and signing of Advanced Directives, or perhaps even living in extended families in which grandparents or great-grandparents close to us die within the intimate space of our daily lives....