Note: The ethical judgments on this page refer exclusively to the action — never to the person who carries it out. Every person possesses inalienable dignity, regardless of what they do or have done. Cf. note on ethical judgments.
Euthanasia is the intentional bringing about of the death of a person for ostensibly compassionate reasons. It violates the personalist norm because it treats personhood as bound to functional capacity and disposes over the value of a person’s life.
The objection to euthanasia from personal ontology is grounded in the insight that the dignity of the person is rooted in personhood itself. It does not depend on the capacity to express this personhood outwardly. A person who suffers from dementia, who is gravely ill or dying, loses thereby nothing of her personhood. The first dimension — the sheer existence as a person — remains untouched. This holds even when the second dimension (the unfolding of person-behavior) and the third dimension (free self-realization) are impaired.
Whoever binds personhood to the exercise of certain capacities holds — consciously or unconsciously — an empirical-functionalist concept of person. The dissertation rejects this approach as fundamentally mistaken.
Euthanasia contains an inner contradiction. It claims to act out of compassion — that is, out of an attitude that recognizes the other as a person. At the same time, it denies that personhood by judging the person’s life to be “no longer worth living.” Yet the personalist norm states that the person is to be affirmed for her own sake. Her life has value because it is the life of a person, not because it meets certain criteria of quality.
As an intrinsically evil act, euthanasia is a form of practical oblivion of the person: it forgets that personhood is not a state that can be lost, and that dignity is not a property tied to conditions. Thomas Aquinas argues that life is a fundamental good of the person, over which neither the person herself nor others may dispose (cf. STh II-II q.64 a.5).
Euthanasia is ontologically disjoint from suicide and assisted suicide, although all three actions are classified as forms of practical oblivion of the person. The difference lies in the structure of the action: in euthanasia a third party acts, in suicide the person herself, in assisted suicide both act together.
Ontological Classification
Superordinate concepts: Practical oblivion of the person, intrinsically evil act
Ontological relations:
- violates: personalist norm, right to life
- fails to recognize: personhood as an inalienable ground of being
- disjoint with: suicide, assisted suicide
Chapter assignment: Chapter 5: Oblivion of the Person (German)
Medical Care
Medical care is an interpersonal relationship between caregiver and patient, aimed at the restoration or promotion of health. As an interpersonal relation it is subject to the personalist norm: the patient is a person, not a case. Care is realized as a genuine encounter between persons, in which the dignity of the one cared for is recognized and preserved.
Medical care encompasses various forms, including mechanical life support and palliative care. In every case it aims to support the bodily-spiritual condition of the person in such a way that the actualization of the dimensions of personhood is fostered. It is a concrete form of the affirmation of the personhood of the other.
See also: Palliative care, mechanical life support, personalist norm, personhood, dignity, illness, body
Therapeutic Intervention
A therapeutic intervention is the restoration of a damaged dimension of the fundamental form of reality of the person. It is morally legitimate because it aims to restore the unfolding of personhood impaired by illness or injury. Therapeutic intervention respects the natural order of being of the person and remains within its limits.
Decisive is the distinction from transhumanist enhancement: whereas therapeutic intervention restores a damaged dimension, transhumanist enhancement transgresses the natural limits of personhood. Both are subforms of enhancement as technological intervention in human being, but only therapeutic intervention preserves the integrity of the person.
See also: Enhancement, transhumanist enhancement, illness, personhood, medical care, dignity
- Chapter 4: Personhood (German)
See also
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
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Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 64, a. 5 (the unavailability of life as a good of the person). Transl. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Bros., 1947.
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Singer, P.: Practical Ethics (1979/1993). Cambridge University Press. (Functionalist counter-position to the dignity of the person)