Assisted Suicide

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Recommended: Ethical theories in euthanasia

1. The slippery slope argument for assisted suicide is a straightforward one to see and prove. In essence, it says that if assisted suicide is allowed without any principled lines or divisions, then we must allow for assisted suicide is clearly bad cases like that of “a sixteen-year-old suffering from a severe case of unrequited love.” First we must acknowledge the assumption that the Supreme Court has made, which is, there are no principled lines they can draw between the different cases of assisted suicide. One can assume that this assumption is made just because the Supreme Court can’t come up with any principled lines in a way that allows them to legalize assisted suicide. Once we know the underlying assumption the Court has made, we can prove the validity of this slippery slope argument using modus tollens. Modus tollens says that if X then Y, and if not Y then not X. And by modus tollens we will prove that it is impermissible to allow for assisted suicide.

In our case X is allowing assisted suicide to patients without having principled lines between good and bad case reasoning, and Y is allowing assisted suicide in clearly bad case. For the first case (if X then Y), it is easy to see how it holds, as not having principled lines between good and bad cases allows for assisted suicide in bad cases, as X allows it. For the second case (if not Y then not X), we can see that if we don’t allow assisted suicide for the clearly bad case, we must not allow it for whatever reason (good or bad) as there are no principled lines that allow it in one case and not in the other. Therefore, we must not allow assisted suicide without having principled lines between good and bad case reasoning.

2. The Philosopher’s response to the above...

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...icide to the terminally ill. This argument gives us the conclusion that assisted suicide the principled line of being terminally ill shouldn’t be allowed as well, because of its moral implications (choosing it because it is cheaper). This is morally problematic as it is implying that a person has a baser value: a use value of a monetary value, and this is morally problematic, as we can’t put a lower value of life, as it then debases life. And a debasement of life is intuitionally wrong.

Works Cited

James, Susan Dolandson. Death Drugs Cause Uproar in Oregon. 6 August 2008. 2 May 2011 .

Debate: Assisted suicide. 2011 4-April. 2011 28-April .

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