Euthanasia is justifiable but the modern day practice of it (e.g. in the netherlands) needs to adhere to stricter criteria. And you imagine for a minute that it will? Criteria are only excuses to expand the range of admitted cases. That is human nature. Nobody who is told: "You are allowed to commit this action only in the following circumstances" will ever admit that the circumstances did not apply to him/her and to his/her particular case; and they will always find a lawyer who will argue their case and a judge who will agree. End of story.
Furthermore, and that is really the core of my attitude, principles are not things that you uphold only when it's nice and easy. Principles - such as that human life is sacred - are only proved to be principles when you go right down to the wire with them: when you defend the human life of murderers, of hopeless morons, of anyone who does not look like they are worth it. Otherwise they are not principles, but commodities.
There is an exception, that is war (and that extension of war which is police activity against violent criminals). But in war, you are trying to defend the existence of your whole collectivity. In peacetime, there are no circumstances which excuse the taking of human life, because there are no circumstances in which the value of human life could become a relative rather than an absolute consideration. Otherwise, to make a selfish case, you make your own life a matter of relative rather than absolute value; and what value can your opinion have, if your very life has so little?
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Date: 2007-05-29 06:26 am (UTC)And you imagine for a minute that it will? Criteria are only excuses to expand the range of admitted cases. That is human nature. Nobody who is told: "You are allowed to commit this action only in the following circumstances" will ever admit that the circumstances did not apply to him/her and to his/her particular case; and they will always find a lawyer who will argue their case and a judge who will agree. End of story.
Furthermore, and that is really the core of my attitude, principles are not things that you uphold only when it's nice and easy. Principles - such as that human life is sacred - are only proved to be principles when you go right down to the wire with them: when you defend the human life of murderers, of hopeless morons, of anyone who does not look like they are worth it. Otherwise they are not principles, but commodities.
There is an exception, that is war (and that extension of war which is police activity against violent criminals). But in war, you are trying to defend the existence of your whole collectivity. In peacetime, there are no circumstances which excuse the taking of human life, because there are no circumstances in which the value of human life could become a relative rather than an absolute consideration. Otherwise, to make a selfish case, you make your own life a matter of relative rather than absolute value; and what value can your opinion have, if your very life has so little?