| Commentary by Joe Esposito |
| One objection to the moral legitimacy of euthanasia is the tradition of doing all that can be done to prolong a person's life. It's a tradition built on the assumption that life is inherently valuable. An assumption which, if true, would seem to either prohibit euthanasia, or at least make it much more difficult to defend. |
| But why should we accept the premise that life is inherently valuable? It certainly has an intuitive appeal, but does it stand up to scrutiny? |
| I don't think it does. Life does not have inherent value. An object's value, any object's value, arises solely because a person autonomously chooses to value it. Value isn't something that's floating around somewhere, nor is it something that arises out of thin air. The value of an object resides in the minds and hearts of human beings who have autonomously chosen to accept, embrace, or somehow affirm it. |
| Think about something you value: say, your best friend. Why do you value your best friend? Probably because he or she is someone you can confide in, go to the movies with, someone who makes you laugh, etc. But why are these things valuable? You can keep up this line of questioning until you end up saying, "because it makes me happy." |
| So, you value your best friend because he or she makes you happy. We finally have an answer to what is inherently valuable: happiness. Because being alive is a prerequisite for being happy, life must also be inherently valuable, right? |
| Wrong. For some people, including many people in poor health, ending their lives in what they consider to be a dignified manner is what will make them happy. |
| A person who no longer wants to live no longer finds happiness in being alive. Granted, the happiness they will have derived from ending their lives won't last very long, but if you truly believe that happiness is the only inherently valuable state, you'll also believe that their last moments of happiness outweigh all the pain and misery they'll experience if they continue living. |
| So what does this have to do with autonomous choice? We choose what we value, because we choose what makes us happy. Different people value different things, because different things make different people happy. |
| Like everything else in the world, life has a different inner value to everyone, but it has no inherent value. |
| If life is not inherently valuable, people would have to condone killing of any sort. After all, if life isn't inherently valuable, why should there be a prohibition against ending it? |
| We can maintain that life is not inherently valuable, but still maintain that murder be prohibited, if we 1) define the inner value of life as arising from a person's own choice to continue living his or her own life, and 2) stipulate that one cannot, except in cases of self-defense, end a life with inner value. |
| Notice I use the term "inner value" a personal term, rather than "inherent value," a universal term. Why waste time splitting hairs between them? I believe there are two important, pragmatic reasons for doing so. |
| First, there is the current moral dilemma surrounding euthanasia (and possibly abortion). If life is inherently valuable, it would seem to prohibit euthanasia, or at least make it significantly harder to gain acceptance for it. |
| Second, maintaining the difference is important for understanding the interlocking relationships between our happiness, our values, and our autonomous choice. Without proper understanding of the ways in which they interact, it will be difficult, maybe impossible, for us to find meaning in our lives. |
| Which wouldn't make us very happy. |