If someone you love has a chronic illness and wants to die peacefully,
would you let them pull the plug in a suicide pod?
According to Dr. Philip Nitschke, machine inventor and euthanasia activist, he created the suicide pod for anyone who wants to “tow it off and have it overlooking the Alps or the lakes. When you're ready you say goodbye, use the code to get in, pull down the canopy, press a button and you die in a few minutes. It's a very peaceful death."
Called Sarco, this device kills you by releasing a flood of
liquid nitrogen in the pod, lowering the oxygen levels in a short amount of
time. It’s designed to be open-sourced online, which means anyone can download
these design files and create their own chamber with a 3D printer.
However, as you can predict, this machine has been extremely
controversial ever since it was announced in 2017. Some people are afraid mentally
ill patients might obtain this without knowing what they’re getting into or
that criminals are ending their lives before receiving punishment. Others argue
that it’s a fundamental human right to decide how and when we want to end our
lives, but some also argue that this technology is an assisted suicide, which
is illegal in many countries.
Problem is, how do we regulate what’s moral or not in these
decisions? Does being legal mean it is moral? Who would be responsible for
these actions if something goes wrong?
There are so many ethical questions and
they remind me of what Kant has to say about moral actions - “moral actions
turn on the characteristics of the action itself” and “acts in everyone’s best
interest.” If we were to follow this philosophy,
then an action is moral if it’s harmless to you and others. Or if we were
to follow what Paul Conway said in class, “each person is morally autonomous
and deserving of respect,” then everyone should be respected for what they
think is moral.
So if the person who uses Sarco willingly wants to die,
gives consent to the company, and the technology physically poses no threat to
others, then does this action “act in everyone’s best interest?”
Hi Yuki, really engaging post! I loved your use of questions throughout the post to keep the reader engaged with the ideas you discuss. There is a bit of a formatting issue with your first image, so I would fix that to be consistent in size with your other images. While you do a great job of discussing what we learned in lecture, I would reference who "Paul Conway" is since the blogs are public. Also, it might help to bring in another reading related to agents and morality to provide more insight into whether this practice of a "suicide machine" is ethical or not.
ReplyDelete