Maybe he was just making a film criticism claim, paralleling Eastwood's classic westerns. Regardless, it's a horrible and stupid analogy which actually misses the point of the whole movie.

Which is what?

Parental love is important. Tough decisions suck.

"Parental love is important. Tough decisions suck."

From what I've heard & read, the point was not that tough decisions suck, it's that life lived as a quadrapalegic isn't worth living. Nice message.

The message of the movie was not that life lived as a quadrapalegic isn't worth living anymore than the message in a Dirty Harry movie is that criminals don't deserve miranda rights or the message in The Shawshank Redemption was that people who aren't sure of their guilt should break out of prison and that criminals should commit suicide (the warden) or the message in Saving Private Ryan was that war is nothing but a waste of human life.

It was the story of three characters and the decisions they make and the effect of those decisons. If you saw the movie, the movie did not glorify the decision made by those characters. I'll concede that it did make you feel empathy for them and portrayed them as decent yet flawed people stuggling with a horrible choice. Maybe that counts as 'advocacy' - but I see that line of thought as rather simplistic.

For those on either side of the issue that say this movie advocates euthanasia, I disagree with them and question whether they saw the same movie I did.

It is not about euthanasia, it is about the characters.

One of the details about the (particular) story that I haven't heard mentioned - the character who becomes quadriplegic is, and has always only wanted to be, a boxer. Off the top of my head, I can't remember anything established about her that would make a life away from boxing rewarding, or even bearable.
Contrast - a young man whose whole life is painting, whose unique gift is color and line. On the verge of breaking through as an artist, he is traumatically and permanently blinded. Would his decision that there was nothing left for him in this life be considered equally heinous? The specific dramatic problem in the movie is that the very condition that leads her to her decision makes it impossible for her to carry out her own will. Eastwood's character reminded me (in a very distorted way) of Huck Finn's decision to help Jim escape slavery - he (Finn) had been raised to believe that slavery was right, actually _did_ believe that slavery was right, and that by helping Jim escape he'd be condemining himself to Hell for doing evil.

He decides to help Jim, and damn his own soul. The degree of moral courage needed to make that decision staggers my imagination.

Robert,

Is your point that if one loses the ability to do what one loves, then that justifies ending ones life ?

What about these scenarios:
- a musician loses use of his hands,
- a photographer loses their vision,
- a singer wrecks his vocal cords

Do these cases justify euthanasia ? Not to me.

My point was that the story was much more complex than simply a boxer who could no longer box and therefore wanted to die.

I don’t agree that the decision to either want to die or to assist in that cause is equivalent to “moral courage”. I’m not saying that it is morally reprehensible in all cases either. I guess what I am saying is that that one person’s “moral courage” may be another person’s “weakness”.

Robert,

"Would his decision that there was nothing left for him in this life be considered equally heinous?"

Yes.

"He decides to help Jim, and damn his own soul. The degree of moral courage needed to make that decision staggers my imagination."

It's remarkable that you think intentionally doing something you think is wrong is an example of moral courage. Moral courage is the opposite: one risks personal harm or opprobrium in order to do what one thinks is right. Intentionally damning your own soul is not an act of moral courage - it is an act of depravity.

Your view is the quintessentially modern view of moral philosophy (which is exemplified by the movie, and is also why Hollywood loved the movie): an individual's will is the ultimate source of right or wrong. There is no external moral law, or natural law, that we have a duty to conform to. The moral law is within us - our own will is the ultimate determinant of moral law. If one's will cannot be fulfilled, then life loses its meaning. Human beings do not have intrinsic value, their value depends upon their capacity to carry out acts of will. The painter who cannot paint has no meaning, no intrinsic moral worth. Likewise the boxer who cannot box, the 90-year-old in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's, the person in a vegetative state (see, Terri Schiavo), the unborn, and the newly born with severe birth defects.

Your view leaves you with nothing but Neitzche's will to power. The strong will control the weak, and there's nothing the weak can do about it.

Mark,

"For those on either side of the issue that say this movie advocates euthanasia, I disagree with them and question whether they saw the same movie I did."

I didn't see the movie, but the question is not whether it "glorifies" or "advocates" euthanasia, it is whether it justifies it. You seem to think euthanasia is justified, at least in some cases. I know I won't get a direct answer from you, but I'll ask anyway: what criteria does one use to decide when euthanasia is justified?

Mike S. -
I was counting on the storyline/plot of "Huckleberry Finn" being familiar to the
reader. I apologize.

The point of the scene I referenced was this: Jim is Huck's friend. Jim wants nothing so much in the world as being free. However, Jim is property, in a social system where his role as property is morally and legally justified. In order to help Jim become free, Huck has to assist Jim in stealing private property; i.e., himself.
He can abandon or betray Jim, which is, according to his cultural conditioning, the virtuous thing to do, or he can help Jim, which is athcc the evil thing to do.
He helps his friend, _believing_ that it is evil, but preferring to damn himself to save his friend
rather than save himself by damning his friend to a lifetime of servitude.
"Greater love hath no man. . ." et cetera.

Also, I'm guessing you draw no distinction between euthanasia and suicide - no matter how unendurable or painful your life has become (through disease, incapacity, pain, grief or a
combination of all these and more) what Shakespeare so eloquently called 'self-slaughter' is off the list of solutions. The boxer wanted to kill herself, but was physically unable to do so. As for 'their value depends on their ability to carry out acts of will' - the proposition is that the life of the individual may only have value _for that individual_ depending on that ability. I'm not going to go into the mutilated painter's hospital room and put a pillow over his/her face because _I_ don't believe his/her life still has meaning - are you proposing that a terminally ill person whose next six to twelve months of life will be a circuit from drug haze to intense pain and back again mustn't have the option to 'self-slaughter'?

Actually, yes, I believe that is exactly what you are proposing. The pain and terror may be spiritually beneficial, whereas painless suicide can never be.

"I didn't see the movie, but the question is not whether it "glorifies" or "advocates" euthanasia, it is whether it justifies it. You seem to think euthanasia is justified, at least in some cases. I know I won't get a direct answer from you, but I'll ask anyway: what criteria does one use to decide when euthanasia is justified?"

What exactly do you mean by 'justify' - as opposed to 'advocate' ? It sounds to me as if any scenario where euthanasia is not treated like cold-blooded murder is 'justification' in your view. Or put another way, there is nothing in between morally righteous and morally heinous. That all acts must fall into one or another.

I guess the movie does 'justify' in that the characters involved are not portrayed as heinous monsters. But as I said before, that view strikes me as rather simplistic.

To answer your question, there is no *specific* criteria I can think of that one could use to decide whether euthanasia is justified. Yet, I can imagine scenarios where good, decent and yes, even moral people could struggle with such a decision within their own lives.

Familiarity notwithstanding, Robert, I find your reading of Huck Finn to be rather superficial. For Huck, the difficulty is in doing that which is "morally and legally justified"; he has no difficulty breaking rules throughout. It's his defining trait. Within the first few pages of the book, Huck mulls over his preference for going to Hell (less boring and where Tom Sawyer will be).

What the reader understands, but what Huck has no ground to understand, is that he's operating according to a higher morality in deciding to set Jim free. Conspicuously, he ends that profound scene exactly as he begins it: intending to do what he wanted to do, regardless. Of course Twain compounds the analysis magnificently thereafter with the controversial ending. And he does so, I believe, specifically to comment on a species of moral vanity that creates a fictitious opposition in order to make one's desire seem a matter of bravery.

In other words, one who helps another by "damn[ing] his own soul" actually knows, on the level that is important, that he's doing no such thing. It's interesting that you cast "his conditioning" as such an indomitable force. I'd say that Huck Finn stands in opposition to the modern liberal view that conditioning has any overarching effect on anything of true importance in the human being.

If Huck had truly believed that the theft of Jim would send them both to Hell (and that Hell wasn't a place that one wanted to be in order to hang out with friends) — and, I imagine, if Clint Eastwood's character truly believed that he risked anything transcendent by assisting in suicide — then it was an act of moral cowardice to choose the easier earthly path for one or both of them in the face of an eternity of suffering.

Mark,

I'm not sure that you and Mike are using "justify" to mean the same thing. The closest you come to what I believe Mike's usage to be is with this:

To answer your question, there is no *specific* criteria I can think of that one could use to decide whether euthanasia is justified. Yet, I can imagine scenarios where good, decent and yes, even moral people could struggle with such a decision within their own lives.

What, then, do those scenarios that you can imagine entail? What are the circumstances (i.e., criteria) in which "good, decent and yes, even moral people" have good reasons (i.e., are justified) in contemplating suicide? What are the circumstances in which they would be justified in doing more than merely contemplating it?

Justin -
here's one that just occurred to me after a few minutes of musing.
It's 1943, in occupied France. You work with the Resistance, and have memorized your contact list of local operatives.
A 'friend' betrays you to the local Gestapo office. You know they are coming for you, you cannot escape, and when they arrest you, you will be tortured until they get the information you possess.
Do you
a) kill yourself, or
b) don't kill yourself?

Another factor, not mentioned above, is whether or not you believe that God would object to your 'self-slaughter' in option a). You might deliberately choose b), if you felt that dying in agony and betraying your comrades would be preferable to committing the sin of suicide.
If you believed that God either didn't exist or wouldn't mind option a), then there would be few reasons to choose option b).

If you believed that God either didn't exist or wouldn't mind option a), then there would be few reasons to choose option b).

Well, that's sort of my point. You were saying that doing evil and accepting an eternity of hell would be morally courageous if you believe that's what you're choosing. It would be moral vanity to pretend to be facing off with God in order to do the "right thing" when you actually believe nothing of the sort.

But now rework your example. You're in the cell with a guy who's chained to a table (unfreeably) and who is going to be tortured for information. He asks you to strangle him so that he can't divulge anything. I suspect you'd say "do it," but imagine that you truly believe that your committing the act will damn you to Hell for all eternity, and that his effective suicide (worse because it involves you in murder) will damn him to Hell as well. Is it more courageous to save him some temporary suffering at the cost of eternal suffering, or to face his blame of you and yours of yourself for allowing his temporary suffering in order to save you both from Hell?

Justin,

I agree that Mike and I are not defining justify in the same way.

Yet my original point was never responded to:
- do the events in Dirty Harry movies justify the denial of miranda rights ?
- do the events in 'The Shawshank Redemption' justify people who aren't sure of their guilt should break out of prison and that criminals should commit suicide (the warden)
- do the events in Saving Private Ryan justify the reasoning was that war is nothing but a waste of human life ?

And to answer your question, the relief of a loved ones pain and suffering along with complying with their request in dire circumstances.

Of course, that does not justify all actions but if you cannot imagine that a person of good character may consider that act anything other than heinous, then we have no possibility of bridging our gap on this issue.

At least we're making progress. Now: What form (physical, psychological, etc.) of pain, and how much? And how do you define "dire"?

At least we're making progress.
---- I don't think so.

Now: What form (physical, psychological, etc.) of pain, and how much? And how do you define "dire"?
---- I'm not playing the game. My points remain:
The movie did not advocate euthanasia. Yet it did portray the people who a) wished to die and b) assisted in that wish as less than heinous. I don't see that as the moral catastrophe you do. At least no more morally catastrophic than portraying the main characters in The Shawshank Redemption as good.

Also, I'm guessing you draw no distinction between euthanasia and suicide - no matter how unendurable or painful your life has become (through disease, incapacity, pain, grief or a combination of all these and more) what Shakespeare so eloquently called 'self-slaughter' is off the list of solutions.

It's not that I draw no distinctions, but that I believe both are morally wrong choices. I believe smoking pot and shooting heroin are morally wrong choices, too, but I can draw disntinctions between them. However, I'm wondering what moral distinction you make between suicide and euthanasia.

As for 'their value depends on their ability to carry out acts of will' - the proposition is that the life of the individual may only have value _for that individual_ depending on that ability. I'm not going to go into the mutilated painter's hospital room and put a pillow over his/her face because _I_ don't believe his/her life still has meaning - are you proposing that a terminally ill person whose next six to twelve months of life will be a circuit from drug haze to intense pain and back again mustn't have the option to 'self-slaughter'?

The fact that it is the person making the decision about their own life is irrelevant. Human beings either have intrinsic moral worth or they don't. It can't be conditional upon one being conscious, or on one's own desires. There are numerous examples of people who are not in a position determine their own moral worth (newborns, severely retarded people, people in comas, demented people, etc.). Under your system, who determines their moral worth? It cannot be that all humans have intrinsic moral worth, except if a conscious, sane person, decides that he himself does not. If we all have that value, then we are morally bound to respect it in our own persons, not just others. If we don't, then, under your view, who decides about those people who aren't fully rational?

Mike S. asked:
Under your system, who determines their moral worth?

I'm a little spooked (no pun intended) by this
emphasis on 'intrinsic moral worth'. The primary difference between my "system" and yours is this:
in mine, the individual is fundamentally responsible for determining their own worth as a human being. In yours, you are.

In the case of people who, for various reasons, cannot take care of themselves (children, the infirm elderly, the insane) I believe that they must be taken care of. No, I do not consider them to be 'useless eaters'. They must be taken care of, not because they have 'intrinsic moral worth', whatever that might mean, but because they are human beings.

If you then ask me to explain why I believe human beings are worthy of being treated with respect and consideration, I must beg off. If you need a reason for that, our worldviews are too discordant.

Robert,

You appear to be agreeing with Mike, with the only difference that you would leave as self-evident something that he annunciates: human beings have worth.

I find you system much more chilling, with its implication that a person can decrease his own worth. A separate entity (e.g., you) must remain the judge, for that to have any meaning, and unlike Mike's system, that separate entity would have the option of declaring the person to have squandered his worth.

Justin -
I've read this several times:

"I find you system much more chilling, with its implication that a person can decrease his own worth. A separate entity (e.g., you) must remain the judge, for that to have any meaning, and unlike Mike's system, that separate entity would have the option of declaring the person to have squandered his worth."

I think that by 'decrease his own worth', you mean, e.g., decide to commit suicide. I don't see this as decreasing your personal worth; that concept doesn't parse for me any more than "green thoughts are colorless." If Mr. Smith down the block, for whatever reasons, decides to self-slaughter, I am not 'remaining the judge' except insofar as I can have an opinion as to whether or not his decision was justified by his circumstances. I understand that in your approach to life we (none of us) belong to ourselves, but rather we are God's creatures. In my approach, we (most of us) belong to ourselves.

Is this what you meant by a 'separate entity' remaining the judge of other's actions? I certainly don't believe that some of us have the authority to declare that another human being has 'squandered his worth' - that's why I don't support capital punishment.

Robert,

You wrote: "the individual is fundamentally responsible for determining their own worth as a human being." Unless you're refuting what Mike said about some people's being unable to determine their own moral worth, then you're requiring another person to act as judge — to determine whether the person is competent to decide that they have no worth. (I'd be extremely surprised, by the way, if many of those who wish to be euthanized for arguably valid reasons would characterize their decisions as a refutation of their moral worth.)

I think you're trying too hard to wriggle around Mike's point; there's simply no way to see the argument that we have intrinsic moral worth as an assertion that Mike or any other human being decides a person's moral worth.