Monday, February 12, 2018
One Man's Meat Is Another Man's Poison
On March 26. 1997 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult committed suicide in an attempt to catch a ride with a spaceship hiding in the wake of the Hale-Bopp comet. Had authorities known of these plans would they have been justified in arresting the cult members to prevent their deaths? After all, police officers forcibly prevent suicides all the time? What about a Jehovah Witness who refuses a blood transfusion for a life saving operation? Should the state force him or her to have the operation to save her or his life? What about a mountain climber who wants to ascend a dangerous Himalayan mountain peak in the middle of winter? Would authorities be justified in arresting her or him to prevent such a foolhardy ascent? Or do individuals have a right to engage in harmful behavior that is meaningful to them?
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Firstly, before delving into certain scenarios, one must fathom that I am an ardent believer of the ideology that if one’s actions do not harm others, those actions should not be illegal; therefore, my sentiments regarding most or all of these scenarios will be in accordance with my belief in this ideology. I do not know for certain why I believe this way, but perhaps it has something do with moments in my life when people have told me not to do something that blatantly did not affect or harm them in any way imaginable. In response to the Heaven’s Gate Cult incident in March 1997, which entailed all its members committing suicide, I believe that had authorities been made aware of the members’ intentions, nothing should have been done to prevent the suicide; I believe this for many reasons. First, the individuals whose chose to end their lives did not, to my knowledge, harm anyone aside from themselves while in the act. Second, in my opinion, suicide is a personal decision and, once again, if the individual committing suicide is only harming himself, it is not the place of an authority to interject. Third, I, personally, would rather the member of this cult be dead than be alive, harming society. All in all, I believe it is not the position of an authority to prevent a suicide, a personal decision. In the matter of a Jehovah’s Witness member in need of a blood transfusion, a medical procedure purportedly against his religion, I believe it is his right to defer the transfusion suggested by medical professionals, thus resulting in his death. This instance is similar, in my opinion, to an individual with a terminal illness, who wishes to end his life instead of slowly and painfully dying, and leaving hefty hospital bills to be expensed by loved ones. I believe an individual should have every right to make such a decision, a personal one not harming others, without the interference of authorities. Regarding the final instance of the daredevil mountaineer, I think he should be able to decide to scale Mount Everest during a blizzard, a stupid decision to you or me, but a decision to them that is somehow wise and full of excitement, without being subjected to arrest or authority-interference. As long as the mountaineer will not land on a crowd of people in a small Nepalese village after plummeting from an elevation of 29,000 feet to his death, I believe he, or anyone for that matter, has the right to engage in activities you or I may deem harmful, as long as no one else is harmed; I think Mill would agree.
ReplyDeleteJohn Stuart Mill is adamant about individual liberty as long as the individual is the only one affected, but while the individual should have the right to choose what happens to themselves, the law should be allowed to intervene if the individual's actions affect the immediate family, friends, and other close relatives in any strong psychological or emotional way. Mill's principle claims that as long as the individual does not affect those around him, no direct personal harm like injury, then the individual should be able to do anything. There are certain predicaments where the individual's actions are not in agreement with society; suicide is a good example because the physical harm is only to one person yet the emotional and psychological harm can impact many around the individual. Suicide is a complex topic though because suicide of those not in their right mind is not in the individual's or in those around them's best interests, whereas suicide from someone who is biologically unwell. People who are terminally ill, their bodies have no chance of recovery or their bodies are deteriorating, should be allowed to commit suicide because to remain alive is not in their best interests. Families of those terminally ill are subject to intense emotions but the families often are aware that the pain felt by the terminally ill individuals is overpowering, many terminally ill people are in pain until their death. With consent, individuals under these circumstances should be allowed to take their own lives. The death of these individuals should also be consented upon by their families. This type of suicide should be accepted by the law whereas suicide of individuals that does not relieve them of any pain because while respect for one's beliefs is important, people who jeopardize their health or the health of others, through lack of care or fiscal support, provide a disservice to the dependents of that person. Despite the liberty of an individual's beliefs, if there are residual effects of the death that give the dependents trouble the law should act. These dependents must be able to function the same in society. Mill provides a foundation of a principle for that individuals have a right to personal freedom but if it costs those close to them physically, mentally, emotionally they should be stopped.
ReplyDeleteEmploying Mill’s arguments from On Liberty, I contend that the government is absolutely justified in preventing mass suicides as exemplified in the Heaven’s Gate Cult incident. First, Mill’s harms to others principle would mandate a dissolution of the cult. Mills explains that "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." The leaders of these cults directly violate such principle, as they actively tried to recruit members to eventually commit suicide. It has to be recognized that death is the worst form of suffering, as it not only prevents any future pursuits of pleasure, it is one act of irresponsible liberty that ends any possibilities for future liberties. Second, the cult fails to engage under public scrutiny, failing to fulfill Mill’s standard for legitimate liberty—truth is only robust if it is under constant contestation, as the clash between viewpoints will reinforce ideologies warranted by logic. The cult went underground after it was exposed on national television (Wikipedia). This means there is no opposing side to disprove the false ideologies of the cult, making those who are uninformed susceptible to joining the cult under false lures of a life in an alternative world by suicide. Without public debate, falsehoods amplify and go undetected. These cult leaders, without any public contestation, used blatantly false information to recruit people, fundamentally violating the legitimacy of liberty. Liberty is good, mal-informed acts of liberty is nothing but dangerous. This argument is proven, as soon after the mass suicide incident, the public condemned it, forcing the termination of the cult based on ideologies of mass suicide being awful (Wikipedia). In conclusion, the government is allowed to intervene under Mill’s logic. First, because the liberty of cult leaders directly compromise the lives of other individuals. Second, because members who joined the cult were mal-informed, and hence exercised liberty on falsehoods. One must come to recognize liberty and truth must act hand in hand. Lacking one or the other, truth loses its grip, liberty loses its legitimacy.
ReplyDeleteOn September 30th, 1978, the Belmont Report was published in the Federal Registrar. This document enshrined every modern notion of medical ethics ranging from informed consent to transparency in medical and research practices. Today, the Belmont Report is almost universally accepted as the moral framework medical decisions must meet in order to be legitimate and in the best interest of patients. I believe that in reviewing a document such as the Belmont Report in connection with Mill’s On Liberty, an answer to the right to death and risk can be found. It could be argued that government intervention in suicide or risk prevention could be warranted; however, I believe that this case more strongly falls outside of government coercion and into the realm of government influence. Mill frequently argues that rather than force an individual into a course of action, the individual should be argued with and persuaded into alternative action. I believe that this principle should be strongly tied to suicide and risk. What are the typically the roots in suicidal tendencies? Usually, the causes range from stress, anger, severe depression, or pain. While suicide or self-harm is definitely not the correct remedy for these issues, I fear that government intervention can exacerbate these issues. When people are in these vulnerable states and positions, they generally feel that they have no control over the course of their life, a sense of hopelessness. The only thing that they retain autonomy over is their condition of life or death. If the government were take away the one thing they believe they can control, I fear that these people’s condition can be further exacerbated. Rather than forcefully intervene in these issues, the Belmont Report can offer many insights. By adopting the informed consent standard that governments “Respect for persons requires that subjects, to the degree that they are capable, be given the opportunity to choose what shall or shall not happen to them,” authority can better respect the reasoned choices of individuals. Instead of forceful coercion, the government can and morally should provide every possible reason to persuade individuals into avoiding suicide or risk as Mill argues “[a person’s] own good … is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forebear because it will be better for him … These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him” (9). Whether ranging from suicide hotlines to focus groups to advertisement, the government must find a way to persuade away from suicide or risk rather than coerce away. In doing this, a person maintains autonomy over their own life choices while governments actively persuade people away from harmful behavior. If an individual is completely informed of the risk they are undertaking, the government should not infringe on a person’s ability to take risks in their life. Obviously, the government still has a moral imperative to preserve individual life, but the government must balance that against an equally important standard of individual freedom. If life trumps liberty, the government can potentially make total encroachments on individual freedoms for empty standards of “preservation of life” such as placing every individual under house arrest because of the risk UV radiation has to their health. Through the free exchange of ideas guaranteed by an informed consent standard, risk can be mitigated without encroachments on freedom. If a right to life is so heavily guaranteed by all, is it not illogical to assume that that right extends to an individual’s self-determination? It is dangerous to entirely strip a person’s autonomy over their life as that may result in the erosion of our standards that each and every human has a right to their life and a choice to abandon if not persuaded by provided reasons. The final decision on how one lives or ends life should be left to the individual who is most invested in their decision.
ReplyDeleteNo matter the meaning or significance of an action to the actor, I believe that there is no valid reason to restrict actions that cause harm to no one but the actor themselves. To do otherwise would be a violation of the equality of humans, and undermine human worth. If we believe that all humans are created equal, that must also mean that the ends humans set for themselves are also equal. Thus, to respect this inherent equality, we must respect the ends of all humans equally. The only logical exception to this would be to restrict those actions that infringe on those of another; this would prevent the affected person from exercising their own ends, and thus undermine this person’s equality. Say, for example, that I believe that protecting my personal health is the best possible thing to do for myself, and I work out religiously, eat a diet tailored to my personal needs, and take precaution against potential health and safety risks. And, say that I know another person who is sedentary, lives on junk food, and constantly takes risks. Though this person may not be healthy, I have no moral high ground over this person; I have no reasonable warrant to claim that my choices are morally superior to theirs. If we look at this at the legal level, the issue becomes even clearer. First of all, by following the preceding logic, if law-makers were to view (and enforce) their own ends as being superior to those of the citizens, it promotes the idea that law-makers are superior to regular citizens and that not all people are equal. Second, standards of a healthy lifestyle that does no harm to the self are constantly changing. In the 1800s, organ-damaging corsets were thought to be helpful back supports for women. Not too long ago, through the 1950s, doctors endorses cigarette use as harmless; some brands were even said to improve cough. If the government were to regulate things that were supposedly better or worse for citizens’ health, there remains a great chance that they might ban something beneficial or endorse something harmful. As Mill explains when discussing the governmental regulation of opinions, “If the opinion is right, [citizens] are deprived of the opportunity for truth; if wrong, they lose … the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth provided by its collision with error” (Mill 16). If the government can restrict ways of life they deem ‘bad,’ and that could reasonably only cause harm to the actor, they eliminate any discourse and discovery of the best way to live. Though the examples in the prompt are clear examples of harmful things to one’s health, creating this as a standard for lawmakers is inherently problematic, since it creates a slippery slope wherein the government can make poor regulatory choices that increasingly infringe on the rights of individual and eliminate truth testing.
ReplyDeleteFinally, even if the government did know that one way of life was objectively better for citizens than another, it would not have the right or duty to enforce it. The government was established to be an arbiter of rights, by protecting citizens from infringing on those of another. By allowing the state to prevent poor decision-making by citizens that only hurts themselves, the state becomes paternalistic, with a excess of power over the people. Citizens can lose more and more rights in the name of their own safety, thus becoming less individuals than puppets of the state. Trusting the government to make decisions in one’s best interest prompts the development of an authoritarian state with control over citizens’ self-affecting behavior solely because it could be bad for them. What began as preventing loss of life could easily become banning junk food, riding on roller coasters, driving, or literally any activity that possesses some risk. As the prompt shows, this “protection” doesn’t just stop at actions with a death as a definite outcome, it extends out to those actions which could cause death to occur (mountain-climbing, etc.). This paternalism is not only fundamentally problematic, but negatively affects citizens in the long term, as they no longer possess sufficient practiced autonomy to make decisions for themselves, diminishing their own cognitive abilities. Mill agrees, stating “He who lets the world … choose his plan of like for him has no need for any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation” (Mill 56). Essentially, though taking actions like committing suicide to land on a spaceship might be pretty stupid, restricting them sets a harmful precedent for an excessively authoritarian government that devalues the worth of citizens by deeming their ends less meaningful than those of the state, has the potential to make the wrong decisions law, and is paternalistic to the point of damaging an individual’s ability to make autonomous choices. So, no matter how one may personally feel about individuals taking self-harmful actions, it is unjust for the government to restrict them.
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ReplyDeleteAny government would be absolutely justified in preventing a mass suicide by any group to prevent their deaths. Actions like these should be deemed illegal because life is not something you should be able to just give up on and throw in the towel. Sometimes people think that it will never get better and then do not give themselves a chance to try to get through a tough time and just end their lives. If suicide was completely legal and ok in a society, that would prompt many more suicides or attempts because it is viewed as just. Furthermore, by committing suicide you are not only ending your life but also hurting everyone who knew you and could cause more damage to the people around you. For the Jehovah Witness scenario, no child of any age under 18 should be able to have a say in a medical scenario if it is life and death. In addition, no parent should be able to decline medical practices because it goes against their religion for their children. If a child would die if it did not have a certain thing performed, then the hospitals should be able to take over a case and shut out the parents from decision-making. However, once the child turns 18, they should be allowed to make their own decisions. Young kids do not really know what they believe in and nothing really matters about what they think or say because they are young, so why should they be able to make those kinds of decisions?
ReplyDeleteLooking at the ‘Harm to Self’ principle, it says that we should help prevent people from harming themselves. However, Mill comes up with an objection saying that these individuals should be able to do what they want, because that individual knows what is best for themselves, better than anyone else. However, I believe that there are some prerequisites that need to be met in order for Mill’s objection to have any weight. For instance, these individuals who are harming themselves need to have all of their mental faculties in order, and not have their judgement clouded. This is the make sure that these people know what they are doing in a perfectly healthy state and mind. Also, they need to show a sort of maturity; a kid is able to have all of his faculties, but he is still not as mature as an adult, and therefore should not be allowed to make his own decisions. The individual cannot hurt anyone else in the process of hurting themselves, because then it would be objecting with the harm to others principle. If an individual has all of these requirements, then they should have all the rights to know what is best for themselves.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Mill, the Heaven’s Gate cult should be allowed to do as they please, so long as they are not affecting those around them. However, I do not believe that we should completely abide by his principles. In this specific situation, the members of the cult have a belief that this Hale-Bopp comet would help take their souls to heaven. To respect their beliefs, we should not forcibly prevent their group suicide, especially since they have the freedom of belief from the first amendment. Any form of prevention would mean that their constitutional rights would be violated, meaning that preventing their suicide would be completely immoral. However, this does not mean that the authorities are not able to persuade some of these people into seeing that this belief may not be entirely safe or favorable. Although, if the persuasion is not enough to stop their suicide, then the authorities have no right to stop them. However, if there was a different case, such as a mountain climber trying to reach the peak of the Himalayan’s, then the authorities have more jurisdiction in preventing that individual’s death. Since a trek up the mountains is a type of leisurely activity, there is no reason for this individual to be engaging in such activities. However, the authorities are still not able to directly prevent them from doing this activity, if the individual has all of the prerequisites needed to agree with Mill’s objection to the ‘Harm to Self’ principle. Instead, the authorities are able to use persuasion or prevention to dissuade them from hiking up the mountains. For example, the authorities could prevent people from acquiring the proper equipment needed to hike a mountain, or they could set laws in place, forcing the individual to nit hike until there are safer conditions. Besides these prevention techniques, the authorities do not have the jurisdiction to prevent an individual from completing an activity that they want to do.