Immanuel Kant On Euthanasia

Introduction

The controversy over euthanasia has been and still is monumental. Coming from the Greek word euthanatos, meaning good death, good being a technical philosophical term. Euthanasia is the termination of a very ill(usually terminal) patient’s life for the sake of ending their suffering. Weather it be euthanasia or not, the debate on whether this subject is right or wrong has been going on for decades, even centuries. People during the 5th Century B.C, the ancient Greeks and Romans tended to be more lenient with euthanasia, “Throughout classical antiquity, there was widespread support for voluntary death as opposed to prolonged agony, and physicians complied by often giving their patients the poisons they requested." (Ian Dowbiggin,

Ethics is always trying to define, what is ‘good’ or ‘right’ with different philosophers having different theories. Immanuel Kant is no exception. Kant believes that the only thing that was truly good is a good will. “It is impossible to conceive anything in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without limitation, save only a good will“(Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals). This is possible because things that are seen as good are not always, because it will always be possible to conceive a way in which they are not good

To end ones life, is to not truly respect, and appreciate your inner worth. In terms of euthanasia, it is assumed that Kant would not take into consideration the persons suffering or even their relatives. He would be concerned with what is the ‘right’ thing to do, not what is merciful or what is the loving thing to do. Some modern day philosophers, say that if a person loses the will to live due to the pain and asks to die, then person’s ends are served, by ending their life and in turn their suffering. Of course this seems quite drastic, because the body has ways of dealing with the pain i.e. endorphins, and if that is not enough, than there are painkillers available. This is easily contradicted, when applied to the Categorical Imperative, because if we decide that every person who is in a certain amount of suffering should die, then everyone, even a certain individual doesn’t want to end their life, should die. This is a contradiction to the will, since the person has not chosen to die. Another way you would be using a person as an end to your own means, is if you end a person’s life, because medical bills are to high, and the patient is seen as a burden. If this is done, the patient is not seen as an end, but merely as an end to a