A Kantian view of suicide and end-of-life treatment

Journal of Social Philosophy

Volumn 35, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 277-287

  Gunderson, Martin ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ACTIVE EUTHANASIA; ARTICLE; ASSISTED SUICIDE; DEATH AND EUTHANASIA; ETHICS; FREEDOM; GOVERNMENT REGULATION; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; MENTAL CAPACITY; MOTIVATION; PAIN; PALLIATIVE THERAPY; PASSIVE EUTHANASIA; PATERNALISM; PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH; PHILOSOPHY; SUICIDE; TREATMENT REFUSAL;

DEATH AND EUTHANASIA; PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH;

EUTHANASIA, ACTIVE; EUTHANASIA, PASSIVE; FREEDOM; GOVERNMENT REGULATION; HUMANS; MENTAL COMPETENCY; MOTIVATION; PAIN; PALLIATIVE CARE; PATERNALISM; PHILOSOPHY, MEDICAL; SUICIDE; SUICIDE, ASSISTED; TREATMENT REFUSAL;

EID: 33644662381     PISSN: 00472786     EISSN: 14679833     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9833.2004.00232.x     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. Washington et al. v. Glucksberg et al., 521 U. S. 702 (1997);
2. David N. James, "Suicide and Stoic Ethics in the Doctrine of Virtue", Kant-Studien 90, no. 1(1999):40-58;
3. Hilde Lindemann Nelson, "Death with Kantian Dignity", Journal of Clinical Ethics 7, no. 3 (Fall 1996);
4. and Thomas E. Hill, Jr., "Self-Regarding Suicide: A Modified Kantian View", in Autonomy and Self-Respect, ed. Thomas E. Hill, Jr. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
5. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 4:421. Hereafter I will refer to this work simply as Groundwork. I use the pagination of the standard German edition of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences for all of the works by Kant.
6. Groundwork, 4:422.
7. Inconsistencies in willing or contradictions in will occur when one wills a law or policy that generates conflicting volitions. This contrasts with conceptual inconsistencies or contradictions in conception, in which one cannot even coherently will something without falling into conceptual confusion or outright contradiction. For an elucidation of this distinction, see Onora O'Neill, Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant's Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), chap. 5;
8. and Onora O'Neill (Nell), Acting on Principle: An Essay on Kantian Ethics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), chap. 5.
9. For a concise criticism of Kant's argument here, see Allen W. Wood, Kant's Ethical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 85-86.
10. Hill, "Self-Regarding Suicide";
11. and Nelson, "Death with Kantian Dignity"
12. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, in Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 5:122-23.
13. Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, in Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:385-94.
14. For an excellent discussion of the difference between perfect and imperfect duties, see Allen D. Rosen, Kant's Theory of Justice (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), 95-103.
15. Metaphysics of Morals, 6:394.
16. For an elaboration of Kant's views on this point see O'Neill, Constructions of Reason, 90-91
17. and Acting on Principle, 92.
18. John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, ed. Barbara Herman (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 2000), 188.
19. Barbara Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1993), 155, 238.
20. Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Peter Heath, ed. Peter Heath and J. B. Schneewind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 27:372-73, 376-77, 629. It should be noted that the Lectures on Ethics were written by Kant's students and may not reflect verbatim what Kant said in his lectures.
21. Lectures on Ethics, 27:377.
22. Critique of Practical Reason, 5:155.
23. Similarly, Herman suggests that compassionate euthanasia may "rebut the deliberative presumption against killing persons", but she does not explore the issue of euthanasia. See Herman, Practice of Moral Judgment, 117.
24. Kant, "On the Common Saying: That May Be Correct in Theory, but It Is of No Use in Practice", in Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8:290. Hereafter this work will be referred to as "Theory and Practice"
25. "Theory and Practice", 8:291.
26. Thomas A. Mappes, "Persistent Vegetative State, Prospective Thinking, and Advance Directives", Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 13, no. 2(June 2003):119-39.
27. See also the Multi-Society Task Force on Persistent Vegetative State, "Medical Aspects of the Persistent Vegetative State", part I, New England Journal of Medicine 330(1994):1499-1508
28. Rosemarie Tong, "Duty to Die", in Is There a Duty to Die? ed. J. M. Humber and R. F. Almeder (Totowa, N. J.: Humana, 2000), 135-57;
29. Susan M. Wolf, "Gender, Feminism, and Death: Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia", in Feminism and Bioethics: Beyond Reproduction, ed. Susan M. Wolf (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 282-317;
30. and Mark C. Siegel, "Lethal Pity: The Oregon Death with Dignity Act, Its Implications for the Disabled, and the Struggle for Equality in an Able-Bodied World", Law and Inequality Journal 16(Winter 1998):259-88.