Personhood & the Euthanasia debate

1. Personhood & the Euthanasia debate Non Religious Arguments

2. Read the sheet carefully and answer the following Qs: • Explain why Singer says it is worse to kill a “self conscious being” than a “merely conscious being”. • Why should voluntary euthanasia not cause people to be fearful? How can voluntary euthanasia ease peoples’ fear? • According to preference utilitarianism, why is it wrong to murder? What would preference utilitarianism say about voluntary euthanasia? • What point is Singer making about “rights”?

3. Peter Singer’s argument • Voluntary Euthanasia = a person’s desire to die • People have no reason to fear something they do not have to consent to. • VE can have a positive impact on the community as they are re-assured that they don’t have to endure a long & painful death • To not kill someone who wants to die is to thwart their desire for death • A right to life implies a right to die • VE is necessary in order to respect my status as a rational & autonomous person

4. Qualities of personhood: • Ability to reason • Rational • Self conscious – includes having a preference about continued existence. • Communicate Qualities of personhood make human life instrumentally valuable. It is having these qualities that makes life worth living (a good quality of life)

5. The Argument from Personhood • The wishes of a person opting for Voluntary Euthanasia should be respected because: • They are rational so they’ve thought it through carefully • They have the ability to communicate their wishes • They are aware of their situation • They have a preference about their continued (non) existence. To deny a person the right to Voluntary Euthanasia is effectively to deny them their status as a person altogether.

6. However… PARADOX • Persons who opt for Voluntary Euthanasia have a good quality of life (they still possess all the qualities of personhood) and so Voluntary Euthanasia should not be need to be an option for them. • Individuals whose quality of life is so poor that voluntary euthanasia would be an option are no longer considered to be persons and so their views don’t need to be trusted or respected.

7. Written task: • Imagine a conversation between a strict Catholic Christian, a fundamentalist Christian, a more liberal Christian like Joseph Fletcher, and Peter Singer debating whether voluntary active euthanasia should be legalised in the UK • How do you think their conversation might go?