A Kantian moral duty for the soon-to-be demented to commit suicide

American Journal of Bioethics 7 (6):37 – 44 (2007)
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Abstract

It has been argued that, on Kantian grounds, pedophiles, rapists and murderers are morally obligated to take their own lives prior to committing a violent action that will end their moral agency. That is, to avoid destroying the agent's moral life by performing a morally suicidal action, the agent, while he still is a moral agent, should end his body's life. Although the cases of dementia and the morally reprehensible are vastly different, this Kantian interpretation might be useful in the debate on the permissibility of suicide for those facing dementia's effects. If moral agents have a duty to act as moral agents, then those who will lose their moral identity as moral agents have an obligation to themselves to end their physical lives prior to losing their dignity as persons.

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Dennis Cooley
North Dakota State University

Citations of this work

Kant on euthanasia and the duty to die: clearing the air.Michael Cholbi - 2015 - Journal of Medical Ethics 41 (8):607-610.
Alzheimer disease and pre-emptive suicide.Dena S. Davis - 2014 - Journal of Medical Ethics 40 (8):543-549.
Suicide and Homicide: Symmetries and Asymmetries in Kant’s Ethics.Suzanne E. Dowie - 2022 - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 25 (4):715-728.
Dignity, Dementia and Death.Samuel J. Kerstein - 2023 - Kantian Review 28 (2):221-237.

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References found in this work

The metaphysics of morals.Immanuel Kant - 1797/1996 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Mary J. Gregor.
Lectures on ethics.Immanuel Kant - 1930 - London,: Methuen & co.. Edited by Louis Infield.
Lectures on ethics.Immanuel Kant - 1980 - International Journal of Ethics (1):104-106.

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