A Critical Outlook on Rosenberg’s Theory of Euthanaisia

• Main Authors: Reza Akbari, Seyyed Ali Reza Hodaei
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: University of Qom 2017-06-01
• Series: Pizhūhish/hā-yi Falsafī- Kalāmī
• Subjects: Euthanasia; Passive Euthanasia; Prima Facie Right to Life; Imposed Suffering; Exercise of Moral Autonomy; Jay Frank Rosenberg
• Online Access: http://pfk.qom.ac.ir/article_925_a26b3418cafc9cd8ebea4751b36678ec.pdf

In his book, while referring to anti-euthanasia arguments such as "prima facie right to life", "possibility of arbitrary encroachments", and "venerability of moral independence", Rosenberg draws a careful sketch of pro-euthanasia arguments including "possibility of preventing any potential abuses" and "necessity of eschewing incurable sufferings". For him, this challenge has been given rise not out of realities but out of the two sides' different perspectives upon human rights; the challenge lies at the core of the fact that whether "moral" species of human individual derives from her "natural species" or from "functional species". Considering the fact that haecceity in all human beings is justifiable, Rosenberg comes to realize the two sides as mainly different in responding to the question whether the human haecceity is a stable/permanent degree or a transient one. He himself takes it for granted that the individuals' "moral" species, just like their "legal" species, comes true as an acquired phenomenon irrespective of reality to the extent that he treats the individual as having absolute, negative, and passive right to life. By indicating the confusion lied between moral "permissibility/permission" for and moral "desirability" of euthanasia, he deems analytic philosophy to obviate all of these challenges. However, he finally assumes the problem of the moral agreeability of euthanasia as unendingly controversial, and sees any judgments pertaining to the problem as originating from common sense as well as scientific shifts thereby becoming exposed toward gradual changes. Rosenberg's view grapples, as his own theory's blind spots, mostly with such problems as begging for the question fallacy, relativism, and contradiction all of which gain their own roots in his materialistic standpoint on the nature of humankind.