Few debates elicit as much moral discomfort as the question of legal voluntary euthanasia. The practical objections—fear of coercion, societal pressures, the risk of mistakes—are serious. But beneath them there often lies something deeper: a belief that life has an intrinsic, absolute value and that death is always a harm. I submit neither assumption stands up very well to scrutiny.
The idea that life has ultimate value, no matter what, seems plausible in the abstract. And yet human history tells a more complicated story. Across cultures and epochs, the great majority of societies treat life as fundamentally valuable, but not unconditionally so. The ancient Greeks and Romans, for instance, accepted suicide in cases where existence brought nothing but suffering. In the west today, we glorify those who sacrifice their lives for values they cherish, treating them as noble, not irrational. Think of the parent who runs into the burning building for their child, or the soldier who dies for his country, or the activist who risks their life for justice—such as the late Alexei Navalny of Russia. “Live free or die” is a common rallying cry, celebrating the idea that some things matter more than individual survival.
But among opponents of legal voluntary assisted dying, this principle is often inverted: life must be preserved at all costs, even when this does great damage to things a dying person may care about more, such as dignity, autonomy or freedom from pain. If the value of self-determination, say, can trump survival in some contexts, why assume an absolute inversion of these values for the dying? If a person’s willingness to die to preserve their way of life can be admirable on the battlefield, why not on the deathbed?
Irrational yet widely held moral attitudes to pain may begin to explain it. There is a pervasive belief—often unspoken but deeply entrenched—that enduring suffering is noble and builds character, and that conversely giving in to pain amounts to moral failure. As a result, those who seek euthanasia are often treated as morally suspect, as though it would be wrong for society to “indulge” them. This is misguided. Willingness to endure suffering for the sake of noble ends may be a virtue, but willingness to endure pointless suffering is not.
Of course, individuals can mistakenly conclude their lives are no longer worth living, and legal voluntary euthanasia should safeguard against such error to the greatest extent possible. But military volunteers can also err about which causes merit the ultimate sacrifice, just as society might err in imposing continued existence on competent individuals who, in extremis, express an enduring wish to be helped to die. Why assume that those who seek death in extremis do so out of error, weakness and confusion, instead of moral clarity and strength?
This brings us to our second assumption, that death is always a harm for the one who dies. There are clear instances in which this intuition fails. For those in extreme suffering, death may be a welcome release. Socrates, drinking his hemlock with equanimity after being condemned by an Athenian court, saw his death as a final act of justice and self-determination. For some, death is not a tragedy but a culmination, an assertion of dignity when all else has been lost.
Humans like moral absolutes, and we especially like to impose them on vulnerable others who may see things differently. Many religious opponents of assisted dying, for instance, believe the moment of death must lie strictly with God, though religious traditions have long debated where exactly the boundaries of divine will and human agency lie. Needless to say, moral uncertainty—and the need to weigh fundamental values against each other—can be terrifying. For many, it is intolerable. And so, could it be that at the heart of resistance to euthanasia is not just an abstract commitment to life’s ultimate value, but a deep-seated cultural discomfort with the idea that an individual should be free to weigh fundamental values for themselves?
A close look at human practice shows that we do not in fact treat individual existence as an absolute good, nor death as an absolute harm. If we allow there may be some wisdom in this, then much of the moral resistance to voluntary euthanasia begins to erode.
The law must guard against coercion and error in cases of assisted dying. But if we are to take seriously the rights and dignity of individuals we must recognise that people can make profound, rational and deeply moral decisions about the end of their own lives. Instead of treating life as an unquestionable, abstract good, we should acknowledge the complexities of human experience—including the possibility that, under certain circumstances, a person may choose death as an act of freedom and even grace.
For Prospect’s “A Good Death” series, including Mark Mardell’s rolling coverage of the UK assisted dying bill, go to prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/a-good-death
