Death Within Morality: Ethics of Euthanasia in Medicine

Introduction

Medical professionals are guided by a set of moral and ethical standards centered on the principle of doing no harm. However, the medical world is faced with questions and controversies surrounding the issue of death. Generally, life and death are complex subjects in the field of medical practice. Controversies exist over whether keeping someone alive can actually be harmful and whether death can be a more ethical choice than continued life. These debates are fueled by the widespread view that living long, happy lives is the highest good. For medical professionals, determining when to keep someone alive or allow them to die remains deeply debatable — a dilemma intensified by the philosophical premise that the heart and function of philosophy is to prepare humans to die (Wassmer, p. 759). While death is at the center of the human experience, this paper argues that death within morality is an impossibility.

Overview of the Issue

Life and death are two difficult subjects that have attracted the attention of medical professionals and philosophers alike. Life and death decisions are primarily moral issues at the core of ethical theory. According to Wassmer, philosophers have always been interested in public discourse on death, particularly its implications for both the deceased and the living (p. 759). Philosophers' interest in death is fueled by the idea that the heart and function of their discipline is to prepare humans for it. When considering death, philosophers often attempt to apply mysticism or metaphysical reasoning. From a philosophical perspective, views of death are primarily contradictory: on one hand, many people try to push death out of their daily consciousness; on the other hand, some people are constantly preoccupied with it, which is itself considered a normal human experience. This suggests that death is simultaneously viewed as larger than life and as something life transcends.

Philosophical arguments on death are based on the concern of whether death annihilates life altogether or is in some sense larger than life (Kokosalakis, p. 402). These contradictory views have contributed to problematic arguments about the concept of death within an existential and philosophical context. Even though death is deemed ordinary and inevitable, its occurrence generates profound questions about what it means within the human existential condition. As a result, philosophical debates have emerged over how humans should cope with death and whether moral justifications can negate the existential experience of dying. From a philosophical perspective, the issue of death involves more than the complex question of biological life — it encompasses human consciousness, existence, and transcendence.

From a medical perspective, death primarily means the cessation of all bodily organ functions. Kokosalakis notes that human death essentially entails the cessation of an individual's consciousness (p. 403). The intersection between medicine and philosophy on this concept is evident in their shared concern with human existence and consciousness. Medicine seemingly utilizes philosophical ideas to define death by viewing it through the lens of human existence, while also grounding that definition in biological life as the premise for consciousness. Therefore, medicine considers death in terms of its precedence over biological life. Death is not only a threat but also an eliminating force upon human life — a force that medicine regards as something sacred and worthy of protection.

Medical professionals face moral dilemmas about death because of their duty to patients, including those at the end-of-life stage. That moral duty is centered on the principle of doing no harm, one of the fundamental ethical tenets governing medical practice. When medical professionals encounter patients who seek voluntary euthanasia, they face dilemmas about whether their actions would violate this principle and whether such actions could ever be morally justified. The dilemma is further complicated by the fact that modern medicine sometimes treats terminal illness as a de facto justification for death, since the condition cannot be cured regardless. Consequently, the issue of death remains an ethical and controversial problem in medicine, compounded by the underlying philosophical arguments and moral views at stake.

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