1st Online Comment (Due Saturday, July 6th)

Respond to one or more of the readings so far assigned. You may respond to the abstract moral theorists (Kant, Mill, Nietzsche, Foote, Strawson, Van Inwagen, etc.) or to one of the moral philosophers attempting to deal with a specific contemporary issue, such as euthanasia, abortion, or capital punishment.

In your comment, you should:
Quote a passage from the reading and criticize it or explain it more fully.
Give an example of a hypothetical situation, or a situation from your own life, to help explain your points.

Essentially, I want your own analysis of one of the readings. Your comment should be roughly 200-500 words.

“In order to state the argument of the opponent of assisted suicide and euthanasia in its strongest form and to avoid unnecessary complexity in exposition, I shall focus in this section on euthanasia. The claim that any individual instance of euthanasia is a case of deliberate killing of an innocent person is, with only minor qualifications, correct. Unlike forgoing life-sustaining treatment, commonly understood as allowing to die, euthanasia is clearly killing,understood as depriving of life or causing the death of a living being. While providing morphine for pain relief at doses where the risk of respiratory depression and an earlier death may be a foreseen but unintended side effect of treating the patient's pain, in a case of euthanasia the patient's death is deliberate or intended even if in both the physician's ultimate end may be respecting the patient's wishes If the deliberate killing of an innocent person is wrong,euthanasia would be nearly always impermissible.
In the context of medicine, the ethical prohibition against deliberately killing the innocent derives some of its plausibility from the belief that nothing in the currently accepted practice of medicine is deliberate killing. thus, in commenting on the It's Over Debbie"case in which a resident deliberately gave a patient a lethal dose of morphine, four prominent physicians and bioethicists, led by Willard Gaylin, could entitle their paper "Doctors Must No Kill. The belief that doctors do not kill requires the corollary belief that forgoing life-sustaining treatment, whether by not starting or by stopping treatment, is allowing to die, not killing. Common though this view is, I shall argue that it is confused and mistaken. Typical cases of stopping life-sustaining treatment are killing, not allowing to die, although they are cases of ethically justified killing. But if so, that shows that an unqualified ethical prohibition of the deliberate killing of innocent persons is indefensible and must be revised.” Page 194, “assisted suicide and euthanasia are deliberate killing of an innocent person.”


Comment:
The writer claims “euthanasia is clearly killing, understood as depriving of life or causing the death of a living being”. He stands for the argument that euthanasia is deliberate killing of an innocent person. Life is not so sacred that it must never be taken. It depends on different situation. If a patient get a unbearable suffering from a terminally ill, and he can't live for a long time because it is incurable. He would like to choose euthanasia, then euthanasia is not killing but an act or method to end suffering painlessly. This is the patient’s own will. If euthanasia is not permitted by the patient, then it is not right. It also allows the patient to retain their dignity. It gives greater weight to respecting the patient’s right of control or self-determination regarding his or her own life. Last year, a famous host in Tai Wan choose to end his life by euthanasia. He asked both his families and doctors’ permission. Then he drink the medicine with his families company and died in peace. This news triggers a lot of attention in Tai Wan’s society, got supporting from many people. It shows that people have a great understanding on euthanasia. The host can't afford the suffering and the huge money of medical care, and his ill is incurable, so his family respected his decision to end his pain by his own willing.
The writer also mentioned the case of “It’s over Debbie”. A resident deliberately gave a patient a lethal dose of morphine which caused death of Debbie. Using morphine is moral if the aim of this resident is reliving the girl’s pain. But he knew that over dose of morphine will cause death, it is killing on purpose and against the girl’s will. Also her ill is curable. It’s murder, not euthanasia.
In the case of euthanasia, the choice rests fully with the patients and it will not take place without patients desire. But in the case of Debbie, she didn't choose euthanasia and she wasn’t told the truth.

- Chris Wang (Yipeng)
Should abortion be legal. “open-textured and flexible… but intolerable that a creature is not a person simply because it is in the interest of others [to regard it so]” (Devine 243-244) in page 234 Devine talked about why abortion should not be allowed, as it is killing a fetus, same as killing a person. I would not agree with that. abortion should be banned after a certain time the woman got pregnant. the way of not given woman a choice to keep or not keep the baby is not fair in certain situation. What if the woman was being raped and get pregnant. What if the girl was too young to have a baby. What if there is a very high risk to for the mother to birth the fetus. Even now some of the countries has the rule of illegal to do abortion after 20 weeks. i would think when it risk the mother's life to birth the fetus. The family should still have the choice to do abortion. Also about Warren's idea: Abortion is “no different from cutting one’s hair”, because a fetus is not a person. I would not agree with him either. This idea is too heartless and cold blood. If you choose to have a baby. just killing it with no reason would be unaccepted for most people, which is inhumanity. Devine's idea was too extreme as well. as my personal opinion, there was no right, right are created by people's benefits. therefore we should not have something affirmed. I mean what we have now the law of abortion might be the best way for society's benefit, even you are in a states in USA that is not allowed abortion can still go to another state to do it. Things are always flexible only if you reach the bottom line.

Isn’t paternalism just a way to force people. Given it a acceptable philosophy name? How do you determine wether it is beneficial to that individual ? Human are too persist in self benefit. Most people, to be precise. As it says on Google, examples of paternalism in everyday life are laws which require seat belts, wearing helmets while riding a motorcycle, and banning certain drugs. but what I think it is a way to restrict others, it should be belong to some other idea, but not as a individual idea of philosophy. letting other doing things is against individual's negative right. A negative paternalistic explanation of slavery is one that claims that slave holders held slaves because they believed it was in the slaves best interest or an explanation that claims that slaves viewed their masters in a manner similar to the way children see their guardians. which is against human right. How do you define if a person has the ability or not that they need others to take care of them, and to determine for them. Everyone is born free and equal. Society has made them different, and society has conduct paternalism for the moral and utilitarian purpose. I believe human don't even has the real right, right only exist when people are together, there should not be any positive right, only negative rights make sense under a society. Therefore I agree with Mill that Paternalism shall not hold