In this Module, you have learned about utilitarianism and spent time thinking about an article written on your applied ethics topic from a utilitarian perspective. In your initial post,

Notes on Rule-Utilitarianism and Euthanasia by Brad Hooker.html

Notes: Utilitarianism and Euthanasia

*Remember, you only need to read these notes if you have chosen euthanasia as your applied ethics topic

In “Voluntary Euthanasia: A Utilitarian Perspective,” Peter Singer argues, according to utilitarian reasoning, that voluntary euthanasia should be legalized. Before moving on, you should understand the distinction he is making. When we talk about euthanasia, we mean killing or passing up opportunities to save someone, out of concern for that person. 

• Passive Euthanasia – allowing someone to die by removing (or not administering) life preserving treatment or medication from someone who is suffering from a terminal condition.
• Active Euthanasia – administering medication to kill someone who is suffering from a terminal condition.

In addition to the method taken, we can make a distinction in kinds of euthanasia based on the individual's perspective toward the action. 

• Voluntary Euthanasia: the patient requests to be killed or allowed to die.
• Non-Voluntary Euthanasia: the patient has not expressed a desire on the issue (and they are unable to do so now – e.g. in a coma).
• Involuntary Euthanasia: The patient requests that they not be killed or allowed to die.

When Peter Singer focuses on voluntary euthanasia, he is restricting his argument to the legalization of euthanasia (both active and passive) when the person requests that they be killed or allowed to die.

Utilitarianism – Some Distinctions

Singer begins “Voluntary Euthanasia: A Utilitarian Perspective” by explaining that there is not only one utilitarian perspective. There are different kinds of utilitarianism and each kind might think about the morality of euthanasia differently. First he discusses the difference between act and rule utilitarianism:

• Act-utilitarianism: an action is the right action if it has the best consequences of the possible actions open to the agent.
• Rule-utilitarianism: the right action is the one that is conforms to the rule that, if generally followed, has the best consequences compared with any other rule that might be followed in that situation (p. 527).

He states, however, that since his argument is an argument to change the law, the distinction between act and rule utilitarianism is not relevant, both act and rule utilitarianism will focus on whether changing the law has better consequences than not changing it.

There are also differences in how one evaluates consequences. Singer distinguishes between classical, or hedonistic, utilitarianism and the kind of utilitarianism that he prefers, preference utilitarianism.

• Hedonistic utilitarianism – weighs only pleasure and pain, or happiness and suffering.
• Preference utilitarianism – weighs whether preferences are satisfied.

Singer prefers preference utilitarianism because, as he says, “Many people prefer to live a life with less happiness and pleasure in it, and perhaps even more pain and suffering, if they can thereby fulfil other important preferences. For example, they may choose to strive for excellence in art, or literature, or spot, even though they know that they are unlikely to achieve it, and may experience pain and suffering in the attempt.” For a preference utilitarian, the “right act is the one that will, in the long run, satisfy more preferences than it will thwart, when we weight the preferences according to their importance for the person holding them” (Singer, 2003, p. 527). 

How does this apply to euthanasia?

Singer first considers what makes it wrong to kill any being. As a utilitarian, he states that it is wrong to kill someone because when one is dead one is no longer happy or one is no longer able to satisfy any preferences. However, in that case, if one’s life would contain more unhappiness than happiness than there would be a reason in favor of killing someone rather than against killing them. While this consideration is relevant to euthanasia, further issues arise. 

1.  Who decides when a being’s life has a higher likelihood of positive features in the future than negative?
2.  If a being is killed, what are the consequences on the lives of others?

In answer to (1), Singer refers to Mill’s judgment that individuals are the best judges of their own interests. So, if one is capable of making their own choices, then they should be allowed to decide whether their lives are worth living, according to Singer. Since Singer is focusing on voluntary euthanasia – which focuses on cases where individuals have the capacity to choose – he need not consider who would be responsible for making these decisions when the individual is not or no longer capable (e.g., young child, in a coma, etc.). So, before considering the second question, utilitarianism supports the legalization of euthanasia when one is suffering from a terminal condition. As Singer states, 

…if the goods that life holds are, in general, reasons against killing, those reasons lose all their force when it is clear that those killed will not have such goods, or that the goods they have will be outweighed by bad things that will happen to them. When we apply this reasoning to the case of someone who is capable of judging the matter, and we add Mill’s view that individuals are the best judges of their own interests, we can conclude that this reason against killing does not apply to a person who, with unimpaired capacities for judgement, comes to the conclusion that his or her future is so clouded that it would be better to die than to continue to live. Indeed, the reason against killing is turned into its opposite, a reason for acceding to that person’s request (Singer, 2003, p. 530).

Of course, (2) must still be considered when engaging in utilitarian reasoning. Will there be negative consequences for others? Singer argues that the impact will range in severity based on the circumstances. However, the fact that he is focusing on voluntary euthanasia would mitigate negative effects:

Once again, however, the fact that killing can lead to fear and insecurity in those who learn of the risk to their own lives, is transformed into a reason in favour of permitting killing, when people are killed only on their request. For then killing poses no threat. On the contrary, the possibility of receiving expert assistance when one wants to die relieves the fear that many elderly and ill people have, of dying in unrelieved pain and distress, or in circumstances that they regard as undignified and do not wish to live through (Singer, 2003, p. 530-531).

After presenting this argument in favor of voluntary euthanasia, Singer considers potential objections to his argument. One common objection that he considers is the slippery slope argument. This argument contends that legalizing voluntary euthanasia would lead to patients being pressured to consent when they do not really want to die. They would be killed without their consent due to financial issues or unethical family members. However, Singer argues that the practice of voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands and physician-assisted suicide in Oregon do not support the idea that legalization of euthanasia would lead to a slippery slope. As a result, Singer concludes that the utilitarian case for legalizing euthanasia is strong. 

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written by Heather Cipolletti Perez shared with permission under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.