Orf wiv their 'eads [2]

[davywavy]

My post on capital punishment the other day appears to have sparked a fair old debate, which is always gratifying. It's interesting to note that the pro/anti camp on the poll seems fairly evenly split, which surprised me considering that LJ tends to be the natural environment of the woolly lefty and led to me thinking that the atavistic human desire for revenge is quite strong across the population.
After consideration, my own opinion of the death penalty is that I'm against it; not because I consider people inherently worth saving or because I'm worried about ethical concerns of turning the state into a murderer, but simply because I reckon that giving the state the power of life and death over it's citizenry is a really bad idea which historically has gone badly wrong so often that it simply isn't worth the risk and the death penalty is just the thin end of the wedge. Let's face it - I wouldn't trust Tony and Gordon with my phone number* and so any suggestion that a legal structure giving a state with them in charge the authority to kill its people is just plain laughable.
I think that most people wouldn't argue that there are some people out there who just plain have it coming and if they were kiled by a falling piano tomorrow then the world would be a better place for it - whether or not we should go out and kill them, however, is another matter.

Last Sunday I found myself in the happy position of rowing a remarkably attractive young lady across a lake (this hasn't got much to do with my point, I just wanted to boast) and this topic of conversation came up. "Ah", she said. "What about euthanasia?"
Good point, thinks I, and the more I think about it, the better it gets, especially as the people who oppose the death penalty tend often (in my experience) to be pro-euthanasia, and vice versa.
By way of comparison: The death penalty is a system whereby highly trained (legal and medical)professionals are given the option of ending the lives of people who by any reasonable moral standard have really got it coming. Euthanasia is a system whereby highly trained (legal and medical) professionals are given the option of ending the lives of people who have, at worst, just been unlucky. The question is: is it legitimate for the state to allow the legal killing of people who've just been dealt a bum hand, but not to allow the legal killing of people who can reasonably be said to have it coming?

^{*Because they'd sell it to telemarketers to try and pull the Labour party out of the £14m black hole it finds itself in. Either that or John Prescott would make dirty phone calls to my sister.}

Comments

Re: Soylent green is made of people

[(Anonymous)]

What if someone wanted to take their own life as a form of political protest? We often hear that people become suicide bombers, for instance, out of despair. Suppose that, in terms of realpolitik, there was no likelihood, at any foreseeable point in the future, that their political grievances would be addressed. Should a caring State provide sponsored detonation chambers, so they could remove themselves from society without potential harm to others?

H

Re: Soylent green is made of people

[elbly.livejournal.com]

If you're doing something as a protest you want to be seen - or at least taken notice of in some way - a state detonation chamber would be the most patronising thing in the world! It would be the equivalent of a pat on the head and a cookie. Well maybe not the cookie.

Re: Soylent green is made of people

[(Anonymous)]

Well, yes, I suppose it would be patronising, sort of.

But on the other hand, in principle, the suicide bomber, the terminal patient who takes an overdose, the bankrupt who throws himself off a building, are all the same in one fundamental way ... they have all decided that their world has failed them (whether it's by not introducing Sharia law on demand, poor health, bad call on the stock market ...) and they can see no possibility of change, either in themselves, or from the world around them. If there was any chance of hope, they wouldn't kill themselves.

Any society that actively condones suicide, as you suggest, is admitting its own failure.

H

Re: Soylent green is made of people

[elbly.livejournal.com]

I think there's a fairly deffinate line between 'protest suicide' and 'despiration suicide' or 'chosing to die with dignity' . Indeed there's a a fairly strong line between the latter two too.

If you're coming to the end and you don't want to wait, opting to end it quietly with your family and friends not having to have the memory of you being a drooling mess - you don't need to to be recognised or witnessed by anyone, though you may need physical help.

As for the desparate ones - they need treatment and time as I've said in several comments. If they still feel the need to end it after, for example, 2 years of help and support, then who am I to say they shouldn't?

In both these cases I don't think society has failed them, the first case is just damn bad luck, and the second - well it's debatable as to whether that is society or just again, damn bad luck - I'm not sure they know exactly why we can suffere depression as badly as we can do and for so long... It's easy to blame society for not looking after someone who's gambled all their money away, but we all have free choice and we would be the first to complain if society told us we COULDN'T do what we wanted to with our money etc...

A protest death, however, is a very strange way of voting really - you want as many people to be affected by your statement as possible - the last thing you want is to go away and not disturb anyone, that's really not the point. Yes they feel that the world has failed them, but they also believe that their death will help them bring about a future change which they feel will benefit their kin.

Re: Soylent green is made of people

[(Anonymous)]

I agree that suicide bombers are also hoping to change the world, but I'm trying to separate out the "trying to change the world" and the "self-destruction" aspects of the impulse, if that's possible. If someone thought they could change the world more effectively by living, they wouldn't kill themselves.

In the end I would have a very deep repugnance for a system that maintained that people have a right to kill themselves. That philosophy seems to me to be humanism carried to, effectively, an inhumane extreme, with the concept of a "right" being used chiefly to cover the malaise.

Have you read any Iain M Banks? He's created a science-fiction society called "the Culture" where there is no want, no intolerance, no crime ... but even so, it still throws up the occasional misfit who wants to fight in alien war zones or relocate to feudal-level planets; effectively, to take suicidal risks. In this they are not opposed, but even assisted as far as possible - it's seen as a basic freedom.

Imagine doing a thought-experiment, where that philosophy is taken one stage further. Imagine that you lived in a society where very nearly everyone, the vast majority of people, were satisfied with their lives, but that one day you met a dissident who talked about angst, or nihilism, or depression, or Weltshauung, (or even martyrdom) and this person felt that they could never adjust to the society in which they found themselves (despite state of the art psychiatric treatment) and was therefore determined to kill themselves ... would you really accept that resolve as a sign that they were just exercising "the ultimate freedom"?? Would you even want to live in a society that condoned, perhaps even assisted such a suicide? Personally, I'd find it very disturbing.

H

Re: Soylent green is made of people

[elbly.livejournal.com]

would you really accept that resolve as a sign that they were just exercising "the ultimate freedom"?? [...] Personally, I'd find it very disturbing.</>

Well I guess here is where we have to allow for "differences in temper" because I would be quite happy to help them if they were that keen to do it and asked for my assistance. And the reason I would is because I would want to know that someone would be prepared to help me in return.

I'm not maudline, I don't particularly have a death wish, I don't believe in a life after death, I just believe that we should have the right to not exist if we decide, after very careful consideration, that we don't want to.

Re: Soylent green is made of people

[(Anonymous)]

What if the dissident was called "Bernard Marx?"

H

Re: Soylent green is made of people

[elbly.livejournal.com]

S/He could be called Jesus Christ or Muhammed or Martin Luther King or Emily Pankhurst or Rosa Parks or any of the other names which have been linked with change... if it's what they wanted I would support them.

I would suggest options to them, I would ask them to think about what they truely wanted and whether they felt that this was the solution - if they felt it was I would support them in their choice.

You have already stated though that everyone else in this hypothetical society is blissfully content with their situation - so taking that as a consideration (which until now I've ignored) why should I encourage someone to bring about change which would make more people unhappy in the long run? I'm not talking about making things fair/equal - if someone is happy with being down trodden, who has the right to say "you're down trodden! you shouldn't be happy!" only for them to become unhappy after the interference? Is it better to be enslaved and truely happy? or free and utterly miserable?

Re: Soylent green is made of people

[(Anonymous)]

But in that case, if I were a totalitarian dictator, all I'd need to do would be to keep my people satisfied (with soma and control of the media if necessary). As soon as any dissenters despaired enough of their situation to find it unbearable, their fellow citizens would allow them to kill themselves without impediment.

That's not utopia, it's dystopia.

H

Re: Soylent green is made of people

[elbly.livejournal.com]

As soon as any dissenters despaired enough of their situation to find it unbearable, their fellow citizens would allow them to kill themselves without impediment.

But that would not allow for the lengthy descision period during which someone is more than welcome to change their mind (they may decide that life's actually good, or they may decide that it's better to fight than die).

Nor does not allow for that fact that we are all different and react to situations - some become depressed, some become violent, some become frustrated and try to bring about change, etc. You are suggesting by your argument that everyone who became disatisfied would kill themselves because it wouldn't be worth it, but I would have thought that anyone likely to fight for change in what ever way would be more likely to only be depressed for a short periods rather than a very long one.

Of course a dictator would most likely not allow for the lengthy descision process or the extensive and impartial treatment which I believe should be given to someone who initially makes the choice to die rather than live. Thus this situation would not fit with my belief. I have never said that I believe that if the person is not helped to live first they should not be helped to commit suicide.