Jitao Tang
PHIL 1120-002
Jeffrey M wood
14 December 2015
Final
Against all forms of euthanasia
I am opposed to euthanasia, yes. Let a man painfully afflicting by the disease is extremely
inhumane. In particular, by the name of religion and belief of letting a person in pain and suffer,
let him slowly lost their lives. Which for individuals, families and society, is even a kind of
torturing for human spirit rather than life of happiness and future of unlimited good memories.
However, the responsibility of unnatural end of a person's life is important, and perhaps even the
legalization of euthanasia symbolizes an important step in the concept of human rights' progress,
but there are many practical problems surrounding the euthanasia need to be resolved.
On the patient level, whether a patient with severe illness can clearly express their will? If not,
whether euthanasia can be allowed? This problem is not resolved yet, if the guardian wishes to
allow euthanasia. we cannot ignore the risks of exist murdered. Some people have intermittent
mental difficulties, such as split personality. for their cases it is hard to determine whether the
proposed intention from his language is truly effective.
In addition, in the aspect of social perspective, from the perspective of economic efficiency.
Oppose euthanasia stance is reasonable. I can assume that once euthanizing patient is allow by law.
there will be social decline in the overall efficiency: for example, the high cost of implementation,
there circumstances by numerous "euthanasia" in the name of property disputes caused by the
murder, and the patient's irrational judgment that damage their own interests and so on.
For doctors, willingness of impose euthanasia to doctors is unfair. The doctor's responsibility is
to do the maximum possible medical treatment for patient, if they are given an option: if you
cannot cure him, euthanize him. This is a great challenge of ethics. Because if the doctor should
not help to implement, then who will? Who will arbitrate whether the patient is up to the standard?
Most importantly, I do not think the most cherished life preserve expression of a human is
through the law that allows the end of life, good laws safeguard the rights of living, irrational law
gives and even encourage some sense of equity which come out of equality. The legal recognition
of euthanasia would become the basis for the legalization of euthanasia. I am opposed to
euthanasia, especially the legalization of euthanasia. The subtext of the legalization of euthanasia,
in social recognition, means you can use the resources of society to end a person's life. But rely on
the law, can a decree conferred on certain organizations or individuals to end a innocent person's
life? An innocent, priceless life which cannot be violated by any forces, paradoxically turn to be
an subject that can be taken away by law. Lines behind the legalization of euthanasia is worth deep
reflection. And even contrary to the law of life.
With above point of view, I am opposed to euthanasia.
Question a:
Autonomy means independence or freedom, it is the principle of respect for persons, in Mill's
utilitarianism, autonomy is important if it helps others to achieve greater good, autonomy's
importance is judge by the consequence. In Kant's Deontology, autonomy means the ability to
choose the moral dissection, which is not being judged base on consequence by rather by duty and
rationality. One moral issue involve the utilitarian notion of autonomy is that utilitarianism takes
moral responsibility out of personal autonomy. The agent is not able to choose his/her own moral
decision (like in 'Trolley Problem', the correctness of your autonomy must be judge according to
the principle of utility, the only morally good dissection is to save the four instead of one,
consequence trumps the will). One moral issue which relate to Deontological notion of equality is
the problem of cheating, although we are free to make dissection, but it has moral value only if we
do this as the result to respect someone as an end and that dissection must speak out for our duty.
Be autonomous means to be rational with respect to others.
Question b:
Equality, in utilitarian's social ethics perspective, is the design of social conduct to make people
be equal, they concern how to make equality. On the other hand, the deontological notion of
equality is the metaphysical notion of moral value, it is the question of why equality matters.
Taking an example as a moral issue of equality in utilitarian view, in United Nations Climate
Change Conference, That the rest of the developing countries should be the same as some
developed countries to reduce carbon emissions, but the conference usually fail to indicate why
these countries should do the same as part of the developed countries.
About whether to abolish the death penalty involved deontological notion of equality，Because it
involves thinking about why human equality is important per se.
Question c：
Virtue ethics emphasizes the role of one's character and the virtues that one's character
embodies for determining or evaluating ethical behavior. Virtue means excellence of function and
it is the necessary unit of eudemonia. problem of steeling involves the notion of virtue ethics more
than action ethics, because it is more focus on ones' characteristic itself.
Question d:
Nietzsche believes that the' genealogy of morals' came from the will of getting power, it is
possible that we as species seeking triumph, the nature of seeking power challenge the virtue
theories if all we said was just merely the seem-rational justification of our actions. Maybe
morally never exist if we all lie.
Question e:
Marx thinks that human nature is to create, by adapting Marx's view on human nature, it is
possible that gender inequality as well as unequal treatment towards poor and rich are the result of
human intellectual design for particular interest.
Question g:
'The Ring of Gyges' tells a story of what will happen if one gains the power so great that
morality does not restrict his will or action. It challenges the point of ethics that moral value might
just speak for the limited people and offer us another way for moral reasoning.
Question h:
From Darwin's article, Darwin defines the moral sense as fundamentally identical with the
social instincts (p.98) or: our moral sense is ultimately derived from social instincts (p.97). Social
instincts are directed towards 'the good of others'. (p.93) It is all depends on what the society we
are in and the influence for it, in a word, ethics is really relative.
Question 1:
In these three ethical issues, we can see mainly three fiction of reasoning, deontological
argument, teleological argument and ontological argument. I think it is good enough to understand
the different approach of reasoning, but it is hard to say at what level makes someone rationally
consistent, because learning is a infinite process, you will never know at what point defines you a
" true rational being".
Question 2:
Typical American living is unethical. First, profit and interest always define who are you
instead of your intrinsic worth. Second, Heroism style ignore differences of groups, a person'
needs determine what others want. Huge consumption of meats projects the problem of lacking
animal rights concern.