HISTORY 199 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Manchester University Press, American Medical Association, Columbia University Press
22 Mar 2016
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I thought that this week"s theme was particularly interesting in the distinctions and clarifications that it drew between suicide, physician assisted suicide, and euthanasia. I thought it was particularly interesting hearing about how the issue of suicide is one that is fundamentally connected to the idea of free will and the autonomy of individuals. It is under this framework of autonomy, then, that many arguments for or against the morality of suicide are made. Kant, for instance, argues the suicide is a crazed behavior because it fundamentally violates the basis of humanity life1. Moreover, i found it intriguing how this debate over individual ownership and autonomy has even carried into today. The slippery slope argument that professor laqueur introduced to us in class was particularly enlightening to me because i felt that i had never seen suicide as having so many different categorizations and nuances in interpretation.
