🚀 go-pugleaf

Peter Merel <pete@zip.com.au> writes:

> d-moss@adfa.oz.au (David Moss) writes:
> 
> >> Hindus and Islam all consider
> >>>euthanasia wrong, you do not have to be religious to oppose it.
> >>No, but it helps.
> 
> >_Any_ form of education regarding humanity, values and morality helps.
> 
> 
> As I understand it, David's side hold that metabolism is life: so long
> as you're breathing, you're living.

Peter's "understanding" derives from his own view that the metabolism
can be suspended by cryonics in the belief that he can at some time in the
future be rescusitated, repaired and begin life anew.  It is hardly
surprising that Peter understands that those who oppose VE/PAS see life
in the same blinkered terms. 

                                         Folk on my side generally seem to
> feel that it's only freedom of choice that is life: the ability to decide
> what you're going to do for yourself. 
> 

Freedom to make responsible choices is a part of life but hardly the
totality of it.  As regards our own lives each of us *has* that freedom
and responsibilty. VE/PAS = voluntary euthanasia/physician assisted
suicide a better word for "voluntary" is "consensual", that is to say
with the consent of the subject, this requires *someone else* also to
make a choice and that choice is whether or not to kill.  It is *not*
a choice which affects no-one else.

[snip] 

> Tolerance.
> 
> What does tolerance mean here? It means letting the other fellow do what
> the other fellow wants to do, so long as it doesn't stop you and yours
> doing what you and yours want to do. Plainly the highest morality is to
> refrain from imposing your beliefs on others who do not share them.  I
> think this is the real moral question here - not pro or anti VE, but pro
> or anti Tolerance.

The "morality" of VE/PAS derives from its potential harm to others.
in the Netherlands it is no longer just a potential but a reality.

Let me quote from J.S. Mill (often considered) the founder of utilitarianism.
From "Utilitarian defence of Individual Liberty" where he
puts it so well.

"The distiction here pointed out between the part of a person's life
which concerns only himself, and that which concerns others, many
persons will refuse to admit.  How (it may be asked) can any part of
the conduct of a member of society be a matter of indifference to
the other members? .....
....
I fully admit that the mischief which a person does to himself may
seriously affect, both through their sympathies and their interests,
those nearly conected with him and, in a minor degree, society at
large.  When, by conduct of this sort, a person is led to violate
a distinct and assignable obligation to any other person or persons,
the case is taken out of the self-regarding class, and becomes
amenable to moral disapprobation in the proper sense of the term.
....
Whenever, in short, there is definite damage, or definite risk of
damage, either to an individual or to the public, the case is taken
out of the province of liberty, and placed in that of morality or law."   

Peter refuses to admit that VE/PAS affects society at large to
a major degree, rather than a minor one.  It affects society because
it permits *and* expects the medical profession, on whom our society
dependent to a large extent, to violate their obligation to protect life,
and in its stead actively take it.  It is therefore, unlike suicide, no
longer a matter of a choice or action of an individual and it carries
with it a risk.  It is societies decision whether to take that risk. 

Consequently, since freedom to individuality, or liberty, is implicit in
"tolerance", it is also not a simple question of tolerance.  There are
moral limits to it.

[snip]

> >Enacting a law which legalises deliberate homicide under certain
> >conditions is a fundemental change to the fabric of society. It is a
> >huge step to take. 
> 
> Deliberate homicide has been legal under many circumstances in our
> society, including warfare, execution and self-defence. Obviously our
> society is nowhere near a perfect one, but, so far as it is worthwhile,
> it is a tolerant one. Shouldn't we expect that perfecting society's
> tolerance will go a long way towards perfecting its fabric?

To protect individual rights we have the rule of law.  Rule of law implies
a means of coercion exists, that is the means of legitimate violence.
This means of legitimate violence is monopolised by government in a liberal
democracy through the consent, of the members, of the society it governs. 
VE/PAS legislation shares the means of violence with people, who are 
members of the medical profession and, are subject neither to the same public 
accountability nor the same scrutiny as the government, or those arms of the
government which administer it.

Perfecting tolerance is a fine ideal, but what is perfect tolerance?  It has
some obvious limits: we cannot tolerate non-consensual human sacrifice
and in the Netherlands, taking the kindest possible view of the available
statistics, one person is sacrificed for every three who ask for and
receive assistance to die.

> 
> >Further changes are much simpler, merely a widening
> >of the conditions under which killing can take place. The removal of
> >the vital first bastion (all deliberate killing is illegal) affects
> >_everyone_. 
> 
> Now we seem to have left the issue of morality, and rejoined the old
> debate about convenience.

The debate NEVER leaves the issue of morality.

[snip]

Jan