INTRODUCTION
Kant was a German philosopher (17241804). Born in Konigsberg,
which was known as East Prussia (today Kaliningrad in the former
Soviet Union). Educated at the University of Konigsberg where he
earned the equivalent of a Ph.D. in 1755. He lectured at the
university as a Privatdozent, a private teacher whose salary was
paid directly by his students (Soccio, 320). He eventually became a
professor of logic and metaphysics at the university in 1770. He
probably never traveled 60 miles beyond his home town during his
life. He had a rigid schedule. People could set their clock by
regularly scheduled walks. He died a lonely man, but hisphilosophy
shook the foundations of Western philosophy.1
The contributions of Immanuel Kant to every area of Western
philosophy have really influenced philosophical thoughts and
notions not only in the West but around the world. In short his
philosophy is largely quoted and made use of in different areas of
studies. However his contributions to morality and to ethics cannot
be taken for granted as they were of vital importance to those who
came across them. This German scholar was no doubt a unique man in
virtually every aspect of philosophy. In this work we want to see
his contributions to ethics or morality.
We shall approach this work in the following pattern so as to
fully exhaust our topic and broaden our scope not only on Kant but
on Euthanasia.1. What is Euthanasia?
2. Typology of Euthanasia
3. Kantian Moral Theory
4. Kant and Euthanasia, Any Nexus
5. Evaluation/ Conclusion.
WHAT IS EUTHANASIA?
Originally, the word 'euthanasia' was derived from two Greek
roots meaning 'good death'2. It is the deliberate killing of a
person for the benefit of that person. The AmericanHeritage
Dictionary defines euthanasia as the giving of an easy painless
death to one suffering
1 Kants Categorical Imperative class pdf2 Ted Honderich, The
Oxford Companion to Philosophy,(Oxford University Press Inc. : New
York, 1995) pdf edition, p.252
10from an incurable or agonizing ailment.3 It is a form of
suicide. The term subsequently came to have two distinct meanings:
(1) the act or practice of painlessly putting to death those who
suffer from terminal conditions (active euthanasia); (2)
intentionally not preventing death in those who suffer from
terminal conditions (passive euthanasia). The second meaning came
into usage when technological advances in medicine made it possible
to prolong the lives of persons without hope of recovery.
Eventually, the requirement of a 'terminal condition' was dropped
in many proposed definitions. 4 We shall approach these types of
euthanasia later on, but for now let us concern ourselves with
other conceptualizations of euthanasia and how other scholars view
it.Euthanasia is seen as the deliberate action of a physician or
any other individual with the intent to end anothers life for
benevolent motives such as the relief of suffering. The act is
performed with the explicit consent of a competent adult.5 The
applied ethical issue of euthanasia, or mercy killing, concerns
whether it is morally permissible for a third party, such as a
physician, to end the life of a terminally ill patient who is in
intense pain.6 Andrew C. Verga, defined euthanasia as the causing
of an easy or painless death to a patient who is dying of a
terminal illness7.The euthanasia controversy is part of a larger
issue concerning the right to die. Staunch defenders of personal
liberty argue that all of us are morally entitled to end our lives
when we see fit. Thus, according to these people, suicide is in
principle morally permissible. For health care workers, the issue
of the right to die is most prominent when a patient in their care
(1) is terminally ill, (2) is in intense pain, and (3) voluntarily
chooses to end his life to escape prolonged suffering.In these
cases, there are several theoretical options open to the health
care worker. First, the worker can ignore the patient's request and
care can continue as usual. Second, the worker can discontinue
providing life-sustaining treatment to the patient, and thus allow
him to die more quickly. This option is called passive euthanasia
since it brings on death through nonintervention. Third, the health
care worker can provide the patient with the means of taking his
own life, such as a lethal dose of a drug. This practice is called
assisted suicide, since it is thepatient, and not technically the
health care worker, who administers the drug.
3 The American Heritage Dictionary4 Ted Honderich, op cit p.2525
An Article titled Euthanasia, Pulling the Plug: Two sides to Every
Story6 James Fieser and Bradley Dowden (eds), The Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy 1998, pdf edition. P.3047 James Rachael,
The Right to Die, (New York: Random House,1989), p. 36.Finally, the
health care worker can take active measures to end the patient's
life, such as by directly administering a lethal dose of a drug.
This practice is called active euthanasia since the health care
worker's action is the direct cause of the patient's death. Active
euthanasia is the most controversial of the four options and is
currently illegal in the United States. However,several rights to
die organizations are lobbying for the laws against active
euthanasia to change. 8
The advocates of euthanasia argue that the person will die
anyway, and that the purpose
is not to invade the persons right to life but only to
substitute a painless death for a painful one. 9
Here, death becomes the inevitable, hence they propound such
ideas. They do not term it murder under the plea- volenti non-fit
injuria- no injury is done to one who is willing.10
TYPOLOGY OF EUTHANASIA
There are three types of euthanasia, namely voluntary
euthanasia, involuntary euthanasia and non voluntary
euthanasia.Voluntary Euthanasia
This is referred to as the intentional termination of life at
the patients request by someone other than the patient. It can be
seen as mercy killing that takes place with the explicit and
voluntary consent of the patient, either verbally or in a written
document such as a living will.11 This means that a terminally ill
patient can instruct anybody to take his/her life; because the life
has become unbearable for him or her. The ethics of all these cases
turn principally on the questions of whether or not a competent
individual is entitled to control her own destiny,including the
timing and manner of his/her death, and if he/she is not wholly
entitled to exercise this control whether or not there are some
circumstances in which this may be legitimate.12Involuntary
EuthanasiaThis is another type of euthanasia quite different from
the voluntary one. It is done against the wishes of the patient and
would clearly count as murder.13 The individual who dies chooses
life and is killed anyway. This is a case of murder, but it is
possible to imagine cases where killing
8 Ibid9 Eugene Okoro, Aspects of Philosophy (Achugo
Publications: Owerri, 1999) second edition, p.21510 Ibid11 James
Fieser and Bradley Dowden (eds) op cit. p. 30412 Nicholas bunnin
and E. P. Tsui-james (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy
(Blackwell Publishers Ltd: UK, 2003) Second Edition, pdf p.50913
James Fieser and Bradley Dowden (eds) op cit. p. 304would count as
being for the benefit of the person who dies. However, involuntary
euthanasia is universally condemned and plays no role in current
moral controversies.14Non-voluntary Euthanasia
This type of euthanasia occurs when the person is unconscious or
otherwise unable to make meaningful choice between living or
actually dying, and an appropriate person takes the decision on
his/her behalf. This person might be a very young baby or someone
with low intelligence probably an imbecile. Non-voluntary
euthanasia refers to the mercy killing of a patient who is
unconscious, comatose, or otherwise unable to explicitly make his
intentions known. In these cases it is often family members who
make the request. It is important not toconfuse non-voluntary mercy
killing with involuntary mercy killing.15
There are other forms or kinds of euthanasia, which are active
and passive euthanasia
Active and Passive Euthanasia
We have seen that someone can die on his own accord or with
his/her consent to the doctor or medical practitioner. Now let us
see if it can be active or passive. Active euthanasia is all about
a person directly and deliberately causes the patients death. It
involves taking any direct action to kill the patient or end
his/her agony. This can be carried out by either a nurse or doctor
by giving the patient an overdose of medicine or painkillers to
hasten the death of theperson.16
Passive euthanasia on the other hand involves just letting the
patient die slowly. The patients life is not directly taken. Rather
it can be as a result of omission or withholding or even withdrawal
of treatment. The individual can even refuse medical attention or
administration of drugs to him or her.17 By withholding, it means
not carrying out surgery that will extend life for a short time.
Some people thing that active euthanasia is morally better, thereby
considering passive euthanasia to be less bad than active. Rachels
argues that there is no moral differencebetween actively killing a
patient and passively allowing the patient to die. Thus, it is less
cruel for physicians to use active procedures of mercy killing.
Rachels argues that, from a strictly moral standpoint, there is no
difference between passive and active euthanasia. He begins
bynoting that the AMA prohibits active euthanasia, yet allows
passive euthanasia. He offers two
14 Ted Honderich, op cit p.25215 James Fieser and Bradley Dowden
(eds.) op cit. p. 30416 Philip Edema Lecture Notes on
ContemporaryIssues in Ethics at Don Bosco Institute of Philosophy
andEducation, Ibadan. P.317 Eugene Okoro, op cit p.216arguments for
why physicians should place passive euthanasia in the same category
as active euthanasia. First, techniques of passive euthanasia
prolong the suffering of the patient, for it takes longer to
passively allow the patient to die than it would if active measures
were taken. In the mean time, the patient is in unbearable pain.
Since in either case the decision has been made to bring on an
early death, it is cruel to adopt the longer procedure. Second,
Rachels argues that the passive euthanasia distinction encourages
physicians to make life and death decisions on irrelevant grounds.
For example, Down's syndrome infants often have correctable
congenital defects; but decisions are made to forego corrective
surgery (and thus let the infant die) because the parents do not
want a child with Down's syndrome. The active-passive euthanasia
distinctionmerely encourages these groundless decisions.18
Having considered the nature of euthanasia, it will wise to take
a look at Kants idea of
ethics and his contributions to euthanasia.
IMMANUEL KANTS MORAL THEORY
This philosopher Immanuel Kant is generally credited with much
of the foundational thought in the evolution of deontology and
deontological perspectives. Kant viewed the ability of human beings
to reason as the basis of our status as moral agents. His ethical
theory has been very influential. In his The Foundations of the
Metaphysics of Morals, he presents an account of moral duty.19 For
an action to have moral worth, for it to reflect a good will, the
action must be undertaken for dutys sake- and not for some other
reason, such as fear of being caught orpunished. Thus this is based
on reason alone, which is in contrast to Aristotles notion that
ethics is based on human nature.20 Kant sought moral principles
that do not rest on contingencies and that define actions
inherently right or wrong apart from any particular circumstances.
He believed that the moral rules can, in principle, be known as a
result of reason alone and are not based on observation (as are,
for example, scientific judgments). He believed that reason can be
revealed in the basic principles of morality.21 These principles
are goodwill, duty and categoricalimperative.
18 James Fieser and Bradley Dowden (eds.) op cit. p. 30619
William H. Shaw, Social and Personal Ethics, (Wadsworth Publishing
Company: California, 1993) p.4220 Ibid21 Ibid p.23The Goodwill
For Kant, nothing is good except for a good will. This does not
imply that courage, self- control, intelligence, happiness, to
mention but a few are not good and desirable. What determines the
goodness in all these is the will that makes use of them.22 For
instance, courage is not good when someone has courage in doing
evil things or hurt his neighbour and is proud about it. The same
also applies to intelligence if it is used for evil purpose.
Intelligence is meant to better the environment not for personal
gain or depriving people of what is legally theirs; in this very
sense, it is not used for good purpose.23 It is the same with the
gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honor, health, and contentment
inspire pride, and often presu mption, if there is not a good will
to correct the influence of these on the mind.24 A good will is
good, not because of its attainment of some proposed end, but
simply by virtue of the volition; that is, it is good in itself.
The preeminent good which we call moral can consist in nothing else
than the conception of law itself, insofar as this determines the
will.25Let us see what will is all about. By this Kant meant the
uniquely human capacity to act from principle. In this idea of good
will, he brings out the idea of duty. Moral worth can only be
derived from our actions when we act from duty. As such duty
determines our moral worth, without duty our moral worth is
inconsequential. Thus we cannot have any moral worth if we act out
of feelings, emotions, inclinations, or self-interest.26 Actions
have true moral worth only when they spring from recognition of
duty and a choice to discharge it. In other words, if you donot act
from a sense of your duty to be fair and honest, then your action
does not have true moral
worth.
Duty thus goes hand in hand with goodwill. The salient questions
thus come to mind, what determines our duty? How do we know what
morality requires of us? Kant answered these questions by
formulating what he called the categorical imperative. This
provides Kant with the answer to What makes a moral act right? And
this happens to be what we are looking for,in the sense of what
makes euthanasia right?
22 Ibid23 Cf. Ibid24 Harry J.Gensler (ed.) et al, Ethics:
Contemporary Readings (published by Routledge Taylor and Francis
e-library: London, 2005) p.15325 Ibid26 William H. Shaw, op cit
p.23The First Formulation of the Categorical Imperative: Universal
Law Formulation
Here, we will see Kant trying to tell us why we must have a
universal law or command that will be so useful for the entire
humanity. However, we said in the beginning that Kant believed that
reason is a necessary factor for every man, now he says that reason
alone can yield a moral law. With reason, we can arrive at some
abstract truths as Every change must have acause, so we can arrive
at absolute moral truth through non empirical reasoning.27 This
will help
us to discover what we must do; our duty. An absolute truth must
be logically consistent free from internal contradiction. He aimed
to avoid contradictions in his absolute moral truths.He then stated
that there is just one command or imperative that is categorical;
that is necessarily binding on all rational agents, regardless of
any other consideration. This will thus provide us with abundance
of commands of duty. In other words, with the categorical
imperative at our disposal, we can have different commands of duty.
His categorical imperative states thus: we should act in such a way
that we can all will the maxim of our actions to become a
universallaw.28 An objective principle, in so far as it is
obligatory, is called a command (of reason), and
the formula of the command is called an imperative. All
imperatives are expressed by the word ought, and indicate the
relation of an objective law of reason to a will which is not
necessarily determined by it. They say that something would be good
to do, but they say it to a will which does not always do a thing
because it is conceived to be good. 29 But there is an unanswered
question as to what makes a moral action right? put differently,
when this question is rephrased, it would look like this, is an
action morally right if and only if we can will it to be auniversal
law of conduct. What Kant is searching for is quite obvious, now
can our maxim be a universal law of conduct? That is an action is
morally acceptable if and only if the maxim the individual is
following is morally acceptable. However, a maxim is morally
acceptable if and only if one could consistently will it to become
a universal law. 30 Before we move further, let us understand what
he meant by maxim.A maxim for Kant means the subjective principle
of an action, the principle or rule that people in effect formulate
in determining their conduct. For instance a maxim can be
expressedin this way: I will make promises that Ill break whenever
keeping them no longer suits my
27 Ibid p.2428 Ibid29 Harry J. Gensler (ed.) op. cit. p. 15530
Emmett Barcalow, Moral Philosophy: Theory and Issues (Wadsworth
Publishing Company: California ) p.137purposes. The morality of any
maxim depends on whether we can logically will it to be a universal
law. The above maxim in question has a contradiction of will. This
is because it is possible to make promises and have them honoured,
while if you have the intention to break a promise when you so
desire, then promises would not be honoured in the first place,
because it is in the nature of promise that you be believed. A law
that allowed promise breaking would contradict the very nature of a
promise. So also, a law that allowed lying would contradict the
very nature of serious communication, because communication
requires speaking the truth. He cannot without contradiction, will
both serious conversation and lying. Therefore, with willingpromise
keeping or truth telling to be universal laws there would be no
problem. 31
Furthermore, Kant would not agree with anybody who out of
self-love decides to take his/her life. This is because this is a
system that aims at destroying life; hence this maxim could not
possibly exist as a universal law. For a moral rule to be
universal, it must be categorical not hypothetical. A hypothetical
prescription tells us what to do if we desire a particular outcome.
While categorical aims at providing us with universal law,
hypothetical gives us particular, yet hypothetical imperative is
not the ideal for Kant. Hypothetical imperative is all about the I.
Thus, if I want people to like me, I should be nice to them. Again
hypothetical commands conditional goal, that is, if you want to go
to the seminary, you must take Christian Religious Studies. (CRS).
If we do not go to the seminary, then CRS does not apply to us.The
Second Formulation of the Categorical Imperative: Humanity as an
End in Itself
This second formulation is quite equivalent to the first
version. The first involves universal law, while the second
involves treating people with respect thus bringing humanity as an
end in itself not a means to an end. The second could be said in
this way: Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in
your own person or in the person of another, always at the same
time as an end and never simply as a means. Man, and generally any
rational being, exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means
to be arbitrarily used by this or that will. Non rational beings
have only a relative value as means, and are therefore called
things; rational beings, on the contrary, are called persons,
because their very nature points them out as ends in themselves.32
Trees, insects, fish, snakes and squirrels are living beings but
they are not persons.Human beings are thought to be special.33 This
means that every human being have rationality;
31 Cf. William H. Shaw, op cit p.2432. Harry J.Gensler (ed.) et
al op. cit p.15533Emmett Barcalow, op cit p.143this makes them
unique and different from non-living beings and other animals. We
must therefore always act in ways that do no disrespect the dignity
of our fellow human beings and in ourselves.This brings us closer
to the Golden Rule; which says do unto others what you like done to
you. Rational beings recognize their moral worth; as such they
would never wish to be used as entities possessing worth only as
means to an end.34KANT AND EUTHANASIA, ANY NEXUS?
There are different arguments for and against euthanasia. What
we aim to do is to outline some of these arguments and see how Kant
responds to them. Kants response will determine if Kant is for
euthanasia or against it. Arguments in support of euthanasia say
that it allows people who are terminally ill to be relieved of
their pain and suffering. It also allows a terminally ill person to
die in dignity. Furthermore they argue that choosing when to die is
personal freedom. The response of people who feel that euthanasia
is an abomination of the human beings dignity is as follows. They
hold that death is natural part of the human nature and nobody has
the right to determine when to die or live not even the doctor.
They say that euthanasia can be open to abuse by relatives or
friends who have ulterior motives other than wish the person to get
well. Legalization of euthanasia might lead to assaults on
individual autonomy. What this implies is that if euthanasia is by
chance legalized, it will be abused by a lot of persons; that is
people might be placed in terrible conditions intentionally by
their friends, relatives or families and then suggest to the doctor
that their lives be terminated since the individual cannot function
as a human being.Now, Kant is not happy with all of these ideas
that euthanasia should be legalized or encouraged no matter the
situation. His first formulation of categorical imperative talks
about man being a rational being; since he is a rational being, he
has no right to formulate such a maxim like if I am in a terrible
condition, I have the right to take my life or reserve the right to
the doctor or my family members. This kind of maxim will not form a
universal law; since it cannot form a universal law, then it should
be removed and replaced with a more reasonable maxim. If we will
such maxim, we will end in hypothetical imperative not
categorical.Furthermore, he speaks of humanity as an end not a
means to an end in his second
formulation of categorical imperative. If humanity is an end, no
man has the right to take his life
34 William H. Shaw, op cit p.26even in whatever condition he
finds himself. We must thus act in ways that do not disrespect our
fellow human beings and ourselves. It will be disastrous if we act
in such way as dehumanizing ourselves through euthanasia. This is
the point that Kant wants us to understand.CONCLUSION
Immanuel Kant no doubt is a unique scholar contributing to
almost every branch of philosophy; even his contribution to ethical
issues and to euthanasia in particular is really satisfactory. Kant
believes that we are all rational men and must act as such.
Rationality should define a human being from any other animal and
non-living things. He demands of us to act in ways that do not
contradict our very maxims that will end up being a universal law.
We should know that our maxim will be treated as a universal law;
this should correct whatever abstract or mundane thoughts we carry
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Every Story
