Euthanasia

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I've looked back ten pages and haven't seen anything on this topic. I apologize if it's been discussed elsewhere in which case please ignore and this topic will float to the bottom.

Now for the somewhat tabooed topics: how do you all feel on euthanasia? And suicide? Do people have the right to chose when their life ends?

For someone who wants to die, is it selfish to do so, considering they ones they leave behind grieve and suffer?

So what do you think? Should people have the right to push the "off" button?

It's their life. It's a hard thing to prescribe to someone else how much pain (physical/mental) they should have to put up with. Or to what level they wish their bodies to sink to before they would rather die than live.

Euthenasia: a.ok
Suicide: a.ok

Both tragic and sad... but not immoral.

I support it. If someone wants to die, it's their will, no one else can feel their suffering. They should not be forced to live, which is what's happening in most developed countries nowaays.

Cats have 9 lives, humans have how many lives? 50? It seems almost impossible to die. Less than 1 in 10 suicide attempts are successful.

We need more countries like Holland and Switzerland, where the governments are so much more open minded, where euthanasia is legal.

They have the right to choose. I don't agree with suicide or euthanasia in most cases though, but I think it is their right.

It's your life and to dictate what someone can or can't do with it is simply wrong.

Just to complicate matters a bit...what if the person is not terminally but mentally ill?

Then they do not possess the faculties to decide for themselves, like a child.

Well, it depends on multiple variables. I think that euthanasia and suicide go back to ownership. If the man is mentally ill then is he still allowed to own himself? If he is not an owner then he cannot kill himself, but rather the person who owns him can. If he is an owner then he can kill himself.

I disagree with both entirely.

The largest reason of all for that being is absolute truth. If one were to die, they could no longer act. By dying, they have prevented additional progress from being attained, even though they may have suffered.

Once a person dies there is no "turn back" switch. A dead person cannot return to their body.

As a result, any additional advances and labor, that person could have presented are now gone.

This could be as simple as being a hired hand. Or it could have been something extraordinary, should they have waited.

Their pain and suffering have cause them to act irrationally. Given the extremity of the situation they wanted to fastest route out.

Fast and good are generally not on the same page. If they had looked for possibilities or answers to the suffering, they might have found the answer they were seeking.

Choosing the other options, shows that they are unwilling to go the distance to find it themselves. They want OTHERS to fix it for them.

The reason they could not heal their pain was because they were looking in all the wrong directions and doing nothing about it.

Even seemingly inevitable appearances, are not final. A person who doctors claim WILL DIE of highly progressed cancer, will not necessarily die, nor does it mean that they cannot live their remaining days in happiness which may benefit others.

A fast effective treatment or cure could be found. Or they could choose to undergo surgery. Most doctors who say they WILL die...are actually lying. What they are actually saying is that, 'surgery is in fact so risky, that its probably best you live the remaining 6months-1year rather than have us try to fix you.'

However, if the person had mustered the courage, it is possible they would live through the surgery and survived.

I could go into more detail, but I simply do not need to. The answer of "No going back" is good enough. No additional ammunition is required, as those three words are powerful enough to trump any specifics presented by the opposing views. One capable of answering them all.

Please don't. At least don't until you can consolidate your postings better.


Obviously the holders of other views disagree. I'd say that finality does not trump the right to act. Destroying any property is final. If I destroy my house then there is no moving back to it. This is not different, just a different property. I'd say that the individual belongs to themselves and gets to dispose of themselves however they wish, and I'd say that this is the same as other forms of property.

Euthanasia I support for the terminally ill or for those who are suffering extreme pain or have lost all capability to do anything with their body to be able to recover themselves or their mind.

I dont support suicides where its a person who is emotionally troubled because all they can see is the now and dont think far enough past it. There is still hope for these people and they need to be shown this.

Hey, theres nothing wrong with long posts...they just get tiring to read.



Holders of other views disagree, but still do not trump the "no going back policy."

You could destroy a house, but you can also rebuild a house. The house, given enough time, could be rebuilt to its former glory.

Now you could argue that their is different wood that made the house, but that is different than the house being the house itself.

People change and evolve all the time...and breathing in and out oxygen and using other supplies are constantly changing in our bodies all the time. As a result, we are constantly changing the material of ourselves regardless.

However, you cannot REBUILD a person. And if you could, there is no guarantee we could rebuild the conscience that was previously there before.

Regardless of whether or not someone considers themselves their own property is moot. There is no sane reason why a SANE person, would simply destroy their property for the hell of it. They might do it for entertainment. They might do it to prevent someone else from acquiring it. They might do it for some other relationship.

However, a mass destruction for the sake of it, would be so backward, and regressive, that onlookers not participating would either consider the people insane...or they would see that there is no benefit to it. In either case, people would want the items in question or stop the people involved.

If the person has no use for the item, and does not care for it, than why do they need it? Stealing such property in such a case would not be immoral or unethical. If the people destroying their items for which they did not care and had no use for, were to become angry at the people for grabbing their "PROPERTY", they would be contradicting themselves.

They would be holding opposing views at one time, and therefore could be considered unable to decide for themselves(at least in regards to the property), and therefore could have it taken from them.

If you don't CARE about it, and don't need it, than when someone decides to TAKE it, you should not care about them trying to do so.

Arguing in any other method such as wanting to destroy it for the sake of destroying, not bound to desire, entertainment, prevention, or any other means; Is a form of of logic, we would often equate with similar strawman arguments.

Since when you destroy the item in question it leaves your property anyway, because it no longer exists...than it should not matter in what form that property leaves your position. If someone should choose to take the property, than it should not matter to you, who does not care about the item.

However, by saying that you Don't want them to take the item since it is your property, you are being irrational. This is because the item is going to leave your property soon anyway. (remember we are assuming that person is IN FACT, going to destroy it, and not to make a spectacle or for any other reason)

In other more generic words, "You are being a baby."

The same goes for suicide/euthanasia. You are being a baby about yourself. You want the property of yourself, or perhaps a better word would be choice of yourself. However, knowing that you will not return, and all modes of progress from yourself with thus be extinguished, you can no longer give benefit to society.

In other words, you are about as useful as those shattered items in the above description.

And since you do not care about yourself, or need yourself, and simply Want to END it, you are being irrational.

The reason you are irrational has to do with the pain you are feeling. Pain in great amounts, causes a large amount of irrational thought in a person.

You do not care or need the property of yourself, so if other people decide to MAKE decisions for you(aka taking you as property), you should have no objections.

Though you may perhaps be seeking to "benefit the self by removing the pain," you in the end are actually going to receive no benefit. Likely you will bring more Pain universally into the world. Pain would have to be scaled accordingly by all beings present. Unless your pain exceeds the pain and lack of progress present from your death,(which I think you will find no case can ever be), than you are given a mathematically negative value. Negative values are undesired in the scenario of progress and happiness(negative for happiness could be labeled as sadness) and to actively DESIRE one...would be irrational.(irrational thought of a totally different type, which Im not going to explain and go into since Im typing long enough as is)

Once you are dead, it doesnt matter. Pain, happiness, anger, love, etc. They do not matter. To a dead person, the fact that they felt pain no longer matters, nor does it matter that their life could or could not have been the most miserable in the universe.

withdrawn (quotes still exist in thread)

Last edited by Izaak on 23 Feb 2008, 11:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think that this point is significant.

You don't have to trump something if you don't agree with its validity in the first place.


No, it wouldn't be the same house, it would be a different house as the original wood and resources would be permanently lost. You are right, all things can be replaced, including people. Heck, if we say that this house were something inherited then it really wouldn't be the same house, as it would lose the emotional ties to it as well.

I don't think so, as we really would have to look at what is actually being lost.


No, you can replace them though.


Sane is arbitrary. Who defines what behavior is sane and what behavior is not? Not only that, but people do destroy property because of the bad memories associated with it. People kill themselves for the bad memories associated with living.


Benefit is subjective. Value itself is a subjective concept and whether another person likes or dislikes something has nothing to do with whether or not it should be valued. A being outside of our species might wonder about our fascination with sex or violence or group behavior, but neither can claim much on the value of the other's ideas.


Nobody actually needs anything, not only that but morality and ethicality are unknowns, you cannot claim knowledge about them. These people would not necessarily be contradicting themselves, they may not use or care for an item, but that does not prevent them from taking utility from having it.


Why not? I don't see why a person "ought" to do anything in regards to it either way.


All actions are bound to desire. By acting we are fulfilling our desires. By what authority can we deem one person's actions right and another's wrong? We don't have access to moral truth, and if we do then what objective source that we can all reference do we have?


Bull crap. How something leaves your hands is very important. If you had pictures of your mother from a playboy magazine, you might very well want them burned and not want others to use those pictures. Frankly, assertions of "should" have very little place unless we have a common moral belief on a matter, and I have not seen that.


Is there something known as a rational desire? I don't think so. Why do men seek to live when it will only end in death? There is no purely rational reason for doing so, and thus even the most basic desire of life is on some level irrational and based upon emotions.


And why should society matter? I own myself, and I cannot stop owning myself until I die, and I don't want myself, so if I own myself then I have the right to dispose of myself. If I do not have the right to dispose of myself then I am not owning myself, and thus am not free. If I am not free but rather society owns me, then I am a slave to society and anything I desire that society does not I then should not have, whether it is drugs, or a lover, or a religion, or anything, period. That conclusion is abominable to me, therefore I assert self-ownership.

Desires aren't rational, but rather subjective.


No, you can very rightly have objections because you can never really stop owning yourself, even if other people become shareholders. As long as one lives, they are a partial owner. Not only that, but continued existence causes disutility, therefore, the rational action would be suicide regardless of what others think, as utility seeking is the proper behavior of a rational man.


You won't be living and that is what you desire, and if life has a negative value then ceasing it must be positive to the individual. Prove that progress and universal happiness are what we should seek. I would argue that the most rational act for a man is to seek their own values. You do type a lot, and I disagree with your definition of rationality, as rationality to me is egoistic.

Ok, which is why people seek death. Once they die, the misery of their lives no longer matters.

If someone's case is obviously hopeless and there is certainly no service to this person to keep him or her alive, I consider forcing that person to remain living both perverse and evil, wrong, filthy in an indescribable way other than to say, simply, NO. Protracted misery is not the same as living...at the point at which continued awareness constitutes such, life has ended, and a perverse, lewd form of torture has begun. I will not tolerate the sort of human being who would engage in such shameful cruelty, such...RAPE.

You act as if those people are absolute they are not, and many generations before us. They had written material based on what they could understand during their time. We know have more information. There is no perversion or denial of human rights in what I say. It is simply making a collected response based on what we now know.



Reread what I said. I did not say people suicide for entertainment. I said thats something people DONT do. If they did, they would clearly be ignorant of what it means or in an irrational state of mind. The analogy was showing how it is drawn very close to doing suicide as response of one's own body being property and thus they simply do it for the sake of it. I also expressed why Doing it to "ease pain" when considering all variables can also be claimed as an irrational thought, and is definitely not progress.



Actually my arguments that I continued given the previous response were more based on property, not on the house. The house was actually mostly only presented at the very beginning of my reply.

However, If you reread what I said, I already have made note that a human being and a house are not the same. Hence the reason why Property is perhaps not the best term used to define oneself. However, I maintained use of the term Property, in to illustrate the variables in a way other people would not be confused...and in ways that would make the argument as concise as possible.



First...One Both CAN and DOESNT NEED TO note a person's worth based on his contribution to society. If we two people were going to die, and you had to save one person, one who had ensured the creation and development of many aspects of life, and the other person was unable to do more than be a poor laborer, even at his best efforts, saving the life of the first individual will be more beneficial. As a result their is a greater NET WORTH.

However, neither individual is more HUMAN than the other. In fact, I would prefer to exhaust all options attempting to save them BOTH before I let either die. However, in the oddly Inevitable scenario where one person must live and the other must die, than the first individual is worth more.

As I said, not as a human remind you. However, for many other reasons.

Additionally What I argued against suicide is not denying a person a lack of rights based upon contribution, but rather, lack of ever contributing at all. There is NO going back when your dead. There can be no change from that persons perspective. Given that scenario, denying them the ability to allow them to commit the action is a plausible scenario. I am saying that the person committing the suicide is ignorant of all variables.

If they were aware of the variables, and knew how to fix their situation, they would not be committing suicide. This is because they would know how to fix it, and would thus have no reason to give up and commit the suicide. They could relieve their pain AND live.



And as I described, there is a reason why suicide/euthanasia is simply backward and unconventional. My arguments did not present strawman or red herrings as you so assume. At best they did not fully describe the reason why suicide/euthanasia is negative and should not be a viable choice.

The only way I could fully describe in reasoning, would be an extralong paragraph, taken step by step through each logical and algorithmic passage and step and attribute the ideas together in one format.

However, I doubt people would read it, or would still be able to understand it all, and thus would make claims that support their own beliefs against it.

And so I chose to make it long enough to get in all the details, in a way that presented the best quality of detail, without a confusing and longwinded passage.



And I have presented why all scenarios of suicide/euthanasia are essentially no different on the whole, as those special case scenarios.

Suicide/euthanasia is an irrational thought. I presented the conclusions in a step by step format, using some analogies to provide the best understanding.

Hence the reason I say, that suicide is never something that is or should be ANYONES choice. They cannot return from death.

IF they KNEW how to fix their problem...they would not be COMMITTING Suicide. Suicide/euthanasia is an escape based upon ignorance and despair. The despair brought about by the lack of answers and suffering they have endured. And the Ignorance of either seeing no end to their suffering, or being told that it cannot be fixed.

Everything can be fixed. However, we must search for the answers. Suicide is the total opposite of that. And the result is most surely negative on the whole.

Anyways...Since I had seen some of your earlier assertions of what I wrote...I suggest you carefully read what I wrote again, and read it a couple of times to remember it. I sometimes use specific words, but I cannot very well emphasize things with only the buttons on the site. I think you have misunderstood greatly what I wrote given your response.

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Ok...now to AwesomelyGlorious. I'll try to not go longwinded, but as you've seen I get carried away very easily.



Ya you kind of do...There are people who disagree with evolution, and other sciences. However, it does not change the fact that they are true and valid in the vernacular. In science you don't claim to know what is, but things labeled law or theory, are what you call FACT in the vernacular.

Theories on things such as...the earth is 6000 years old, are not Theories/law in science...so they are not fact. They are Theories in the vernacular, which in other words means opinion/belief, which basically means they hold no grounds as they are.



It would be the same house given the variables attributed to a changing human body. All of the energy/matter present in your body as a baby is different than the energy/matter present there when you are an adult. However, you are still you.

Since you were using that as reasoning to provide your next argument, I have given you adequate reason, as to why the rebuilt house is still the same house, but with different material.

If you choose to say that You are not still you, given my above assumption, than I can agree that the house is the same.

However, remember that if you argue that, than your argument FOR suicide/euthanasia goes out the window, on the idea that if you committed such an act you would take away the human rights of further Yous.

If you can find another scenario, you can attempt to present it, however I doubt you will find an If-then comparison, that can accurately work realistically OR Theoretically beyond these two instances.



No, You can't. You cannot REPLACE a human. Not unless you can rebuild their body...or even moreso their conscience.

And if we are maintaining the above analogy of a house, than both are required. A house rebuilt to its identical appearance given time, requires that the person be rebuilt to their identical foundations given time, in order for it to be an accurate analogy.



Sane is not arbitary. Though we are not perfect we still can arrive at the answers. Universal law can dictate what is sane, without any motive. We can still define sanity...however, we cannot accurately describe what is the Perfect definition of sanity without being flawless and knowing everything.

However, Using logic, we can still tell what IS NOT sane, even though we may not have a concensus on everyone is is sane/not sane and what that means.

Some answers we have, others we do not.

Additionally, people destroying property because of bad memories assosciated with it, are not the same as people killing themselves because of bad memories and suffering. You can rebuild the property. You cannot rebuild the person.

And even under your idea of "replacement"...a replaced item is essentially identical to what disappeared if you get the same item. You cannot replace a person with an identical duplicate. A lot of that also goes out the window when you consider consciousness.

If the consciousness is not the same, than it is not identical, and therefore, not an adequate replacement.



Benefit is not subjective. Benefit is absolute. How one values the benefit is an entirely different story, and could be called subjective. Regardless, it goes back to what I said. If they do not value or see the benefit because of their inability or ignorance, than they should have no problem with someone taking the property from them, to prevent its destruction and reap the benefits.



Lets both not try to have the other run around in circles with Philosophical b******. One can easily define something find that it fits well enough into a description as a moral or ethics, and have it be absolute.

The reason we sometimes have difficulty with morals/ethics, is because we are not omniscient. We must calculate given the data provided. However, while it may be difficult to determine the best answers...we can easily calculate wrong ones. And in doing so create accurate beliefs which we call morals/ethics.

Finding good answers...hard....finding bad ones, extraordinarily easy.

Allowing destruction of an item that person does not care for, if it clearly has benefit, is irrational. Now, with an item they may be able to replace it, unlike a person, however, there is one less of that item in the world. And thus the net benefit has receeded.



You really need to cut up whole logical steps. Its getting annoying trying to describe each thing step by step twenty times.

But regardless...if they see the benefit, than likely they will. If they do, and the destroyer does not care about it or need it, it is only rational that if the outsider desires it, the destroyer makes no effort to stop them from taking it.



All rational action SHOULD be bound by something(not necessarily desire, but something in the least)...we agree. Which is exactly my reason, why if given the scenario that a person were to destroy something for a reason outside of that paradigm it would be irrational. I don't pretend to know what ALL people do. SImply to state that acting outside of the paradigm is irrational, therefore unprogressive, and therefore should be denied if someone chooses to deny it.

We do have access to moral truth, we simply are not advanced enough to know every variable, or be omniscient on the subject.

Universal law, and everything therein as pertains to logic, is where that truth is located. The reasons we have disagreeing opinions and make mistakes is because we don't know everything. If we did we wouldn't make mistakes.

However, as I said, although I don't presume to know the best answer, or even a good answer, I can most certainly prove a WRONG one.



If you had pictures of a relative in playboy magazine and want them burn, there is a possibly beneficial reason for doing so. That reason is to protect the integrity of that relative. So that they would not be harassed by shady or ignorant persons.

Suicide does not benefit the integrity of your relatives. That would be the most idiotic and irrational reason for suicide ever...and Im not even sure how you would arrive at such a twisted example.

The closest I can presume is japanese seppuku when they have "supposedly" embarassed their superiors. However, that is STILL not the same thing, and was done out of ignorance and inability to understand that seppuku was foolish in the first place. Other reasons are already bad enough, but Shame or embarrassment as means for suicide is even more irrational.



Um yea...actually all desire is in effect rational. As long as we are only arguing on the basis of the desire alone. Desire like other things is a heuristic element meant to drive and motivate a species. Given what was before, the development process involving it, was most successful. Hence the reason people desire. It is more certainly rational.

People seek to live for many number of reasons. It may end in death, but that does not make their life pointless. Unless they did absolutely nothing and died on day 1 they would have caused change to SOMETHING. Even developing in the womb causes change. so they still would've impacted the world.



Society is a collaboration and seeks to progress human existence.

Choice and ownership are two entirely different things. Even if you do not own oneself, you still have choice. And even if you do not own yourself, that is not the same as being unhappy. One could be a slave and happy.

In fact, you are a slave. Everyone is. There are forces stronger than us, that have ownership over us. That fact we cannot change. We are NOT completely free. We never CAN BE.

THe laws of the universe hold ownership over us. WE cannot break above logic and exceed it. We are bound by the logic of what is in place.

Given that, we are never truly free. The best we can do, is use all the variables presented to us to progress to our greatest heights.



See above...Pure mode of desire is perfectly rational.



Um...continued existence causes continued UTILITY. Disutility requires Death. Hence the reason DEATH IS A PROBLEM. One that I have mentioned before...YOU CANT COME BACK FROM. When you die, you cannot contribute, and therefore can utilize nothing.

However, we have both agreed that utility seeking is the proper behavior of rational men.



Life may SEEM negative to you, given what your presented. However, being alive allows you do provide change, and thus the ability to do progress. Positive and negative are not weighed by an individual perspective, but rather absolutes. When you weight everything together and how everyone and every atom of the universe is effective, that determines the absolute.

Death, given the circumstances, will almost certainly be negative. A positive death when assuming all variables...either does not exist, or is so extremely rare, that it could be considered null.

Progress is what the universe enforces through evolution. Even if the human race were to die today, it would continue until something exceeding past where we were. Progress and transformation are the very foundation of our reality.

And the more progress one attains, the higher the quality of life(which is a form of progress), will rise. Hence people will be happier. Regardless of if people are aware of it or not.

Egoistic, is simply a human's attempt at maintaining ignorance of absolutes. Regardless of what you believe, absolutes are how the universe operates. You might choose not to see it, but all things happen for a purpose, and will continue to.

You are claiming absolutism on your ideas...because you do not see a good answer. Given our level of progress, it could possibly benefit you. However, it does not change the fact that there are TRUE absolutes out there, that people do not know about, or choose not to see.



Hence the point of why choosing such a method is an irrational thought. If you review what I said previously, down to this point and quote I attributed earlier, and analyze it, you will see the bigger picture.

If they are dead, the fact they felt pain does NOT matter. The Pain they felt CAUSED them, the irrational thought of suicide. If they could have the feeling of death, while retaining consciousness, they could more accurately understand why it is something they should NOT attempt.

This is why suicide should not be viable.