Should Elderly be Saved from Themselves? On Paternalistic Interference with Healthy Suicidal Elderly
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2019-10-19
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en
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The discussion on the permissibility of assisted-suicide has been reignited in The Netherlands following the ‘worthy end-of-life’ legislative proposal. More commonly referred to as the ‘completed life’ (voltooid leven) bill. This legislative proposal aims to provide healthy elderly who consider their lives completed and no longer worth living with the opportunity for receiving life-ending medication. This thesis investigates the legitimacy of paternalistic interference and the limits of personal autonomy with regards to this advanced case of assisted-suicide by discussing three positions within the theoretical debate on paternalism. These are the ‘respect for autonomy’, ‘soft-paternalistic’ and ‘hard-paternalistic’ positions, respectively. First, to investigate the respect for autonomy position, the framework of liberty and autonomy by John Stuart Mill is discussed. Following Mill’s insights on the subjectivity of human experiences, I argue that the autonomy of individuals should eventually be respected in the case of completed life, because in the end, it must be concluded that external actors can never fully understand the pain that individuals experience. Yet, I also conclude that Mill’s framework is inadequate for maximizing individual and societal welfare in the case of completed life. Contrary to Mill, I argue that external actors can, initially, aid individuals in deciding what is valuable to them through paternalistic interference. Secondly, I conclude that soft-paternalistic interference is necessary to ensure elderly are making sufficiently voluntary requests for assisted-suicide. Thirdly, I propose and discuss a theoretical framework consisting of four conditions in which hard-paternalistic interference with healthy suicidal elderly, who consider their lives completed and no longer worth living, should be permissible. Accordingly, I conclude that temporary hard-means-paternalistic interference is optimal for dealing with healthy suicidal elderly who request assisted-suicide in the case of completed life.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen