The human person

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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There are in my opinion three errors with regard to patients who are ill at the end of their life: affective abandonment, life support and euthanasia.

All three are in vogue at the present time, and concerning Europe, Holland, Belgium and France are leading the pack.

Euthanasia in particular has a merit which is economic. It is expensive to protect the end of life, whereas a mortal injection is free… To invest without profit in personnel and expensive medication to soothe the dying is obviously not as profitable as other investments. The problem is analogous to that of refusing medication against aids in Africa. What are they on about? They have no more dignity… so we may as well assist them in dying in a dignified way, before they lose it… 

The debate is in fact not just medical, it is more radical. It plays out in the redefinition of the “human person”.

The Western World, considering that the Judaeo-Christian culture could not be the norm anymore given the multiple convictions ranging form atheism to all sorts of different positions, has decided to renounce the two pillars defining heretofore the “human person”, i.e. that each human is the image of God on the one hand (and thus sacred regardless of race, convictions, origins, social status…), and having a soul which resists to death on the other hand.

A number of American philosophers, lawyers and doctors pondered over this problem which constitutes the redefinition of the human being putting aside these two dogmatic points: soul and image of God.

Here is what they arrived at: man is man when he is autonomous on the one hand, and conscious on the other hand. They have thus substituted the notion of autonomy to that of image of God, and the notion of consciousness to that of immortality of soul.

Thus, is considered a “non person” (that is the term employed) any new born infant, any handicapped person, any senile person, any human being assisted in one way or the other, medically and even socially, any individual not integrated, not desired, not loved, etc.

On this matter, one of the principal proponents of this redefinition is called Tristam Engelhardt, and his book “The Foundation of Bioethics” is a worldwide reference.

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to define human by conciousness and autonomy one would need to include wolves, dolphins, wales, aswell as an intensive mass of animals who posess both these traits, to not do so would be hypocritical.

In regards to such an approch to death shouldn’t the person decide his own fate if he can, being able to make that choice would certinally bring me a peaceful end, after all if you cant choose how you face death what can you choose.

If not shouldn’t those directly involved choose since they are the ones who need to live with that choice. otherwise they may end up hating those who decide in their sted.

odd…Their truly is no one sidedness to this concept is there?

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True! And apparently Tristam Engelhardt speaks of a handicapped person as “a non human person” whereas Peter Singer speaks of an animal as “a person that isn’t human”. Therefore on the one hand the status of man is lowered and on the other hand that of the animal is raised, which would necessarily lead to a quantifiable point of contact, i.e. to a juncture where the “non human person” and the “person that isn’t human” are identified, in other words and more clearly, we are heading towards a measurable equivalence between an impaired human being and a healthy animal. From what I understand, in western countries ethics committees any reference to “nature’s law” is not accepted.

I am not a religions person, but when I compare the two systems, I definitively prefer the first one.

If everyone considers you as a liability then your natural tendancy would be make that choice at one point or another. If someone feels abandonned, his natural tendancy would be to leave, isn’t it?

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Faced with death personally I would choose to die rather than linger, My family knows this and they would not like me to remain incoherant since my greatist joy is to learn and grow. Knowing this I would choose to die, but still knowing that it is my choice and not the choice of some person in government brings me a great relief in knowing this.

There is a fair diffrince in doing something because you are forced to and doing something because you choose to. that choice can make all the diffrince.

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Could this be a harbinger?

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article1956609.ece