Assisted Suicide and the Suicide Stigma

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to argue for the permissibility of assisted suicide in certain cases. Since the practice of assisted suicide involves the act of suicide, I have chosen to focus my arguments on a defense of the act of suicide in certain cases. I then argue that there is no moral difference between suicide and assisted suicide, so that in most cases if it is permissible for a person to take his or her own life then it ought to be permissible for him or her to receive suicide assistance. I accomplish this first by critically analzying the psychological view of suicide, which gives to rise to the incompetency argument, and by refuting numerous other arguments offered to demonstrate the unconditional moral impermissibility of suicide. I then defend suicide as being morally permissible if 1) the agent is competent; and 2) the suicide does not violate any overriding obligations that would not otherwise be violated. I also defend a notion of 'full permissibility', meaning an action that a person ought to be free to perform without justified paternalistic interference from others. An action, and thus a suicide, is fully permissible if it is morally permissible as well as rational for the person in question. In the final chapter I make the move from defending suicide in certain cases if it is permissible for a person to take his or her own life then it also ought to be permissible for him or her to receive assistance.