A life not worth living?
Studies in Christian Ethics 16 (2):1-20 (2003)
| Abstract | The work of Dan Brock and Helga Kuhse is typical of the current stream of thought rejecting the validity of sanctity of life appeals to instill objective inviolable worth in human life regardless of the quality of life of the patient. The context of a person's life is supremely important. In their systems life can have high value, yet the value of life can be outweighed by the force of other disvalues. The notion of quality of life has increasingly come to signify the measurement of the worth of a person's life itself. Having a life equals personal life. Any objectivity to life resides in 'personal', 'biographical', or 'creative' life, not mere biological life. Personal life represents the minimal threshold for any objective worth. In responding to this challenge, John Finnis has argued extensively that life is an intrinsic good – a basic human good. Following from our grasp of human life as a basic incommensurable good, it cannot be practically reasonable both to affirm that (a) 'human life is a basic human good', and (b) that 'human life qua human life can be intentionally acted against to its destruction'. Yet, if the good of human life can be considered self-evident, the self-evidence of the basic human good qua good does not mean that dialectical reasoning cannot be engaged in to indirectly support the practical reasonableness of respecting the good of human life in the deliberative choices that persons make concerning their actions. It is to the use of such dialectical reasoning, supportive of the status of human life as such a basic human good, that the article is primarily concerned to draw out and articulate. | |||||||||
| Keywords | Killing and Letting die Worth of Life Intrinsic Good Sanctity of Life Natural Law Ethics | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesPeter Singer (1996). Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics. St. Martin's Griffin.
Brooke Alan Trisel (2007). Judging Life and Its Value. Sorites (18):60-75.
Dena S. Davis (2001). Is Life of Infinite Value? Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 11 (3):239-246.
Thaddeus Metz (2013). Das Sinnvolle Und Das Lebenswerte: Zur Klärung Ihrer Gemeinsamkeiten Und Unterschiede. In Matthias Hoesch, Sebastian Muders & Markus Rüther (eds.), Glück-Werte-Sinn. Walter de Gruyter.
Helga Kuhse (1987). The Sanctity-of-Life Doctrine in Medicine: A Critique. Oxford University Press.
Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred Dycus Miller & Jeffrey Paul (eds.) (1992). The Good Life and the Human Good. Cambridge University Press.
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