Three Religious Arguments Opposing Suicide and Active Euthanasia

1. Three Religious Arguments Opposing Suicide and Active Euthanasia 2006 Makoto Suzuki

2. Aims • Introducing three religious arguments • God’s Prohibition argument • God’s Dominion/Gift argument • Suffering as God’s Plan argument • Reconfirming challenges to all three arguments • Pointing out problems specific to each argument

3. Three Religious Arguments (Rachels, 51-4) 1. God’s Prohibition Argument • God prohibits killing a person. It is wrong to violate God’s prohibition. Thus, suicide and active euthanasia are wrong.

4. 2. God’s Dominion/Gift Argument • A person’s life is under God’s dominion: it is for God alone to decide when a person shall live and when shall die. Thus, it is wrong for him or her to ‘play God’ and decide it for him- or her- self. Hence, suicide and voluntary euthanasia are wrong. • The idea of God’s dominion is usually defended by claiming that God creates persons and give them life as a gift. (Beauchamp, 87-9)

5. 3. Suffering as God’s Plan Argument • Suffering is part of life. God has planed that a person suffer. Thus, if a person kills him- or her self or have him killed to avoid suffering, it will disturb God’s plan. It is wrong to disturb God’s plan. Therefore, suicide and active euthanasia are wrong.

6. Challenges to All Three Arguments • All three arguments refer to a particular image of God, who forbids certain actions, decides when a person shall live and when shall die, or has some grand plan. However, believers in certain non-theistic religions (such as Eastern religions, e.g., Buddhism, Confucianism and Shintoism) as well as atheists do not believe in the existence of such a God. • In fact, as Rachels observes on p.36 §6, these non-Western religions tend to allow voluntary death, esp. in the case of hopeless disease. • Even if some theistic religion is shown to be true, there are interpretative disputes about what God forbids, what God decides, and what God plans. • Below we will see the problem of interpretation for each argument.

7. God’s Prohibition Argument (Rachels, 51-2) • The Sixth Commandment (“Thou shalt not kill” or “Thou shalt not murder”) is often used to establish that God forbids killing a person, and hence suicide and active euthanasia. • This appeal to the Sixth Commandment requires prior justification of the Bible as authority. • Even if this point is granted for the sake of argument, there is an interpretative dispute about the Sixth Commandment: Thou shalt not kill …whom? And on what conditions? Suicide and active euthanasia might be exceptions as valid as perhaps self- or other- defense and capital punishment are. • I do not know the correct interpretation. (Surprise?) • However, it must be consistent with the theistic assumption that God is omni-benevolent. On the one hand, if suicide or euthanasia is bad on balance, God might well prohibit it; on the other hand, if suicide or euthanasia is good on balance, it is implausible to claim that God prohibits it.

8. God’s Dominion Argument: Playing God • As it is, this argumentfaces Hume’s apparently devastating objection. (Rachels, 53) • Suppose that it is for God alone to decide when a person shall live and when shall die; deciding it for him- or her- self is ‘playing God’ and thus morally wrong. • Then, we ‘play God’ and do wrongs as much when we cure people as when we kill them, not to mention lengthening their life span by diet, work etc. • Thus, the arguer needs to modify his or her argument so that only the decision of shortening life is up to God and is wrong for us to make.

9. God’s Dominion/Gift argument: Gratitude? • The idea of God’s dominion over a person’s life is usually defended by claiming that He creates the person and gives it to the person as a gift. But some religions do not hold the view that God is a creator. • However, for the sake of argument, suppose that God (exists and) is a creator and gives us life as a gift. How does this support the view that it is for God alone to decide when a person shall live and when shall die? • Presumably, it is the appeal to the obligation of gratitude. Because we owe God a life, we have the obligation to feel and express gratitude to Him. It is the act of ingratitude to end our life voluntarily.

10. Gratitude? • There are two difficulties in this reasoning. • First, it is controversial whether one is obliged to feel and express gratitude for a thing that he or she does not voluntarily accept when he or she receives. • Consider: if your mother-in-law is a busybody and sends you things which she thinks are good for you but which you do not care for, are you obligated to feel and express gratitude for that to her? • Because we do not voluntarily accept life, it is controversial whether we owe God gratitude for that. (Don’t confuse this with the question of whether He deserves our worship; if He exists and is omni-benevolent etc., He will deserve our worship or greatest respect.)

11. Gratitude? • Second, even if one owes gratitude for a thing to a person, it is not necessarily wrong to dispose of it however he or she pleases. • It seems that it is wrong only when you can know that the benefactor intends you not to use the gift in a certain way, but still use in that way. • The arguer thus needs to show that God has willed that you not take your life in virtue of your misery. (Beauchamp, 91) • Further, even in such a case, a significant reason can justify the action, given that thanks (and perhaps apology) are sincerely expressed. • Consider the case you sell a ring your mother gave you in order to start a business • Suppose you accept this point. Then, as Hume suggests, even if God has willed that you not take your life in virtue of your misery, taking your own life to remove the misery might be justifiable given that thanks (and and perhaps apology) to God are sincerely expressed. (Beauchamp, 91)

12. Suffering as God’s Plan Argument • It is said: “God has planed that a person suffer.” • Even if we suppose God’s existence, this interpretation of God’s plan is extremely controversial. • This claim is hard to reconcile with the theistic assumption that God is omni-benevolent. • Further, if this claim is true and it is wrong to disturb God’s plan, it will be wrong to relieve a person’s suffering by any measure: e.g., listening to his or her story, showing compassion, counseling, medicine, giving pain-killers, giving compensation etc. (Rachels, 54) • Thus, the arguer might rather claim that God has a limited plan: that a person suffer if taking his or her life is the only way-out. Whether this claim is supportable is another question.