1. In those cases where Jack Kevorkian performed assisted euthanasia on patients confirmed to be terminally ill
and who were fully autonomous in seeking euthanasia, was Jack Kevorkian's action morally excusable? Why or why
not.
For patients that were terminally ill, i would say that jack kevorkian's action is morally excusable in all cases,
provided that they were confirmed to be really terminally ill. People who are terminally ill undergoes torment
every single day and whenever they voluntarily decided to have their lives ended, then we should give that right
to them. Coming from the side of the terminally ill patient, it was his choice to have his life severed because of
too much pain or trauma that he experiences at this moment. Most people would say that euthanasia should not be
done because there could still be hope for recovery or further treatment and all that jazz. that what makes the
future so problematic, the future is still the future and the only thing we could be sure of it are its
uncertainties. In my case, i would rather work with the concrete situations that i have right now rather than
expecting something from the future, and what i have right now are people who are terminally ill, who wants to
have their lives ended. they feel misery at this moment and they want to be relived from this misery and so
assisted euthasia is morally permissible.
On second note, the fact that these people were fully autonomous in seeking euthanasia makes it more justifiable,
because they were in control of their choice. they want to do something without any external pressure coming from
the environment.
The act that jack kevorkian performed was termed "assisted" because his patients voluntarily went over to get his
services. This means that the person really wanted to have his life severed and that jack only assisted in the
process. i'm not sure about the exact motivation for seeking the assited euthanasia of those people. Perhaps these
people could not bear the idea of getting suicide or they are too weak to do it on their own. what I'm trying to
say is that when somebody wants to have his/her life ended, then he or she must be given the right to do so, when,
where, how he wants it to be. The same is true in cases where in a soldier is captured by the enemy forces,
naturally the opposing force would torture that soldier in order to get something from him. the soldier is bound
feel so much pain that he would rather have his life ended that going through that pain every single day. Now if
you were given the power to alleviate him from that misery, (as in the case of Jack Kevorkian), would you choose
to see him suffer or just end his life, when you know that he is begging for it. Some people would say that they
would rather not cast the first stone and just let him suffer, thinking that they are being moral. i personally
dont think that they were being moral, its more of being a coward. in Jack's case, what he's doing is something
that is courageous and the fact that these people were terminally ill and they were only practicing their free
will makes it morally acceptable.
2. After careful considerations of the various ethical theories/views we discussed, what “personal moral system or
code” can you come up with and which you can adopt? Be sure to talk about the values, precepts/ideas, and other
elements that should comprise this “personal moral system or code”. Include your conception of freedom and
accountability in this given moral system and your view of what it means to be a moral individual
its not really a grand ethical theory that i would choose to adopt as my one, its just a simple conception coming
from emmanuel kant. his formula of universilizability is the greatest lesson that i have learned in our philo
class. the mindset that "do only if you could imagine a whole world doing the same thing" has been the greatest
lesson so far. its an evaluative measure wherein i could evaluate the goodness of my act on the basis of its
applicability on other people too. whats good about this "personal moral code" is that every action is
applicable or not applicable to everyone and there will be no double-standards. for example, before doing
something, i should think first if that action could also be done to me by other people. if i think that there is
nothing wrong with it, then go. if otherwise, then i should not push through with it.
in this personal moral code, the concept of freedom goes hand-in-hand with being able to make a choice in the
action that you would take part. at the very least i am given the choice of what should i do and what should not
be done. or there could be times that i may be limited in making choices but the fact that i am already thinking
about what makes it limited means that i still have some sort of freedom to think about it, and maybe to change
that already limited situation. since everything that i have done is governed by this "do only if you could
imagine a whole world doing the same thing" principle, then i (we) should also be accountable for everything that
we have done. we have full control of our choices and we should be held responsible for all the repercussion of
that same choices.
Sun Mar 29, 2009 11:50 pm