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I remember from my intro to ethics class the principle of doing and allowing. Committing suicide is an act done on oneself but assisted suicide is an act done by someone else with the same goal. My guess is that the question wants you to think about circumstances that makes us say that suicide might not be immoral. Or circumstances where assisted suicide is moral. If I say that suicide is wrong because taking one's life is wrong, then what makes assisted suicide any different? After all, pushing the fat man or pulling the lever sounds like not that different [1].
If we think of scenarios where assisted suicide might be permissible, or even the right thing, we might come up with examples like people with incurable diseases and under intense suffering. We can make a case that if this is permissible, then if someone is under intense suffering due to an incurable disease and has no one around, then suicide is permissible (no distinction between doing and allowing). On the other hand, if someone takes their own life because they lost in a tournament of some kind, then if we say that this is forbidden, then asking someone to assist on the suicide sounds more like murder. In all, I think that we can be generous and say that the question, is assisted suicide wrong? is broad on purpose so that we can expand on its nuances. [1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tro. . . |
answered on Monday, Nov 26, 2018 02:57:02 PM by Jorge |
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