This project will concern itself with crafting an argument in favor of the legalization of assisted suicide as a viable medical treatment. It will do this in two ways; first by comparing the physical and experiential differences between assisted suicide and currently allowed end-of-life practices. With this accomplished, I then hope to demonstrate that for an individual patient there may in fact be a great sense of meaning that comes from giving her control over her own fate. By not granting seriously ill patients the opportunity to commit assisted suicide we are in fact harming some patients for whom the act of taking their own life may be very meaningful. This paper does not argue that the act of taking ones own life will always be a good end for all individuals, but rather it supports the idea that having the ability to choose assisted suicide may give meaning to a time in a persons life when meaning may be hard to come by. The paper also extends its pragmatic analysis of the aforementioned differences between practices to include a discussion of how, in light of work by William James, this added meaning is pragmatically good.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07132011-171051 |
| Date | 25 July 2011 |
| Creators | Accavitti, Michael Joseph |
| Contributors | John Lachs, Michael Hodges, Mark Bliton |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07132011-171051/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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