Quote (theCrossbones @ 29 Jan 2023 09:01)
Agreed. with the view that it should be under EVERYONE's free will. This is where religion can go fuck off(again) about the ability or their moral objection for people choose this for themselves.
This goes back to the fundamental disagreement between religious and secular people: religious people believe that our lives ultimately belong to god while a secular person believes it belongs to himself. If someone believes that all life comes from, and belongs to, god, then taking it away is necessarily a sin/immoral.
Quote (Handcuffs @ 29 Jan 2023 08:41)
This subforum has been more political than philosophical over the past several yeas, but I know there's some wicked smart and well-read people in our regulars. So:
Assisted suicide conversations/debate have largely surrounded the utility of such practices in the event of terminal illness of the body; however, I contend that from a existential lens (specifically, Albert Camus' work) that suicide is indeed the one true philosophical question within a meaningless universe/existence and that humanity should operate assisted suicide as a standard practice irrespective of whether one has a terminal illness or not (besides, the fact that we are all mortal means that existence itself is a terminal condition). People should not be forced to feel like they need to die in horrifically painful and lonely ways, and that should someone independently decide that they no longer wish to be conscious in a meaningless world, then they exercise one of the greatest arguments for free will: Nobody, and no entity, can force you to experience conscious existence. It should, of course, operate under regulation; however, laws against suicide/assisted suicide are deeply absurd in their reluctance to acknowledge that suicide/assisted suicide is neither moral nor immoral, but amoral.
Thoughts, contentions, ridicule? What say you, PaRD?
I agree, but would caution that really strong safeguards will be needed, so that only people with an ironclad wish to die can use this option, but not those who are only going through a suicidal phase or a temporary depression. Distinguishing between genuine death wishes and temporary suicidality is of course very complicated and dicey. Therefore, your proposal would imho necessitate psychologists to be handed a lot of power (and extra workload).
To be honest, I think making assisted suicide available for the terminally ill is a lot more important from an utilitarian perspective, and far more realistic.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jan 30 2023 10:15am