Ross Douthat on Euthanasia

Here.

Douthat's not right, so far as I can tell. But maybe there's a point in there that the leftosphere is missing.

Perhaps Douthat's thinking something along the following lines: liberals who don't think a lot about philosophy have a tendency to say--and, at least to some extent, believe--that if an individual has a desire to to x, and x does not harm any other individual, then the first individual should be allowed to do x. But that's not true. Here's the easiest case: Smith wants to kill himself on Monday for stupid--and, let's say, fleeting--reasons. We shouldn't let him do that, and the state shouldn't let him do that. Furthermore, if someone wants to, say, cut off his legs for stupid--and, let's say, relatively non-fleeting--reasons, we probably shouldn't let him do that, either. Suppose, for example, he believes that he'll grow better legs as replacements. Bad reason. No go on that, Sparky.

The liberal idea is that there is a large private sphere, and individuals should be given either total freedom within that sphere, or nearly so. But it's not an entirely unproblematic position. Desire per se is not sacred, and not in and of itself always a good reason to do something.

The case of self-initiated euthanasia is different, of course, because the reasons that motivate it are (generally) neither stupid nor fleeting. They may be sub-optimal or subtly confused--but not likely in all cases. One thing that motivates the liberal view is that individuals are often in a better position to make judgments about their own particular case than are other individuals--or than is the state. And that's likely to be the case in euthanasia cases as well. Ross Douthat doesn't know what it's like to be in unendurable pain with no hope of recovery (and neither do I). One might worry that individuals in such pain are not in a position to make fully rational judgments...but that worry is more than outweighed by the fact that the rest of us are in an even less-favorable epistemic position on account of not having acquaintance with the relevant evidence--that is, not knowing what the pain is like. Furthermore, if Smith is in such pain that he is no longer fully rational, that's yet another plausible reason for thinking that euthanasia is a permissible option; it is reasonable to think that degenerating into a less-than-human state is worse than death. And that view is not grounded in some mistaken liberal over-valuing of desire.

So, in short, the smart euthanasia-is-sometimes-permissible position goes like this: it is wrong to end life for bad reasons; however, not all reasons for which people perform euthanasia are bad.

The case is slightly complicated by the fact that Kevorkian was a lunatic. But it's often the case that the person who ends up leading a worthy campaign is a kook. Kevorkian's lunacy is not entirely irrelevant, but it's only marginally relevant.

Douthat simple ignores all the weighty considerations on the other side of the discussion. When they're added in, the Douthat/Catholic position is hard to maintain.