ABSTRACT
This part discusses the justifiability of the legalization of euthanasia (understood as participation of a doctor in the joint action of ending a patient's life). Chapter 9 reconsiders the principled arguments for and against, Chapters 10–12 consider the question whether it is possible to design a regulatory framework that effectively minimizes the dangers of abuse and error.
It might seem that it is only a short step from the recognition of a general right to end one's own life to the recognition of a right to permit someone else to end it. But it is a structural element of the law everywhere that consent isn't accepted as a defence in any case of homicide. The right to life is an inalienable, even unwaivable right. One possible reason could be that violating such rights is wrong even when it wrongs nobody. I discuss some variants of this idea, in particular the view that killing a person is always a violation of her dignity, just as enslaving her always is.
But perhaps the right to life cannot be waived because it does not only protect a person's freedom to dispose of her life, but also her interest in survival. This is a paternalistic rationale, but the paternalism is of a special kind: indirect paternalism. I argue that indirect paternalism is not open to the standard moral objections to its direct counterpart: it doesn't necessarily compromise the value of self-governance, and it doesn't necessarily show disrespect of a person's moral status as a free and equal being.
