I think Dementia needs a new title.

Demented is not a nice description for a person with a brain disease.

We also observe the political abuse of the demented; Joe Biden springs to mind.
In this case, decisions based on diseased thinking, lead the West into very dark places: Probably a good euphemism for the living condition of the disease effected.

Looking at the Biden example starkly before us now, obviously the problem of dementia, if left to politicians, the plight of the demented is politically exploitable…back to Canberra Ho Ho. They’ll no doubt find a way to turn another’s pain into a vote!

Is all this cynical? Well its meant to be.

“We are looking forward to educating Canberrans …”.

The arrogance of some people! Always wanting to tell other people what they should be doing and thinking. Brainwashing, tinpot dictators that they are.

I am all for VAD for people who want it.

But, when I hear ‘dementia’ the alarm bells ring. Dementia is the most mis-diagnosed disease out. It is also exploited by people making money out of it: including expectant heirs of old old people they want out of the way.

However, this bloke is windbagging about “Canberrans” only; and who cares about them!

David, you wrote: “No suffering person should be excluded from VAD. . . all people should be able to determine what is right for their own bodies.”

Going on the above quote, you now want there to be no limits at all on who can gain access to being killed upon request.

You wrote, “no suffering person should be excluded from VAD”, without giving any caveats whatsoever as to what that “suffering” may be.

Given your evident very high commitment to personal autonomy presumably you would leave it to each individual to decide what level of suffering was unacceptable. Like Philip Nitschke, would you want it to be made available to, “the depressed, the elderly bereaved, and the troubled teen”? After all, they are suffering.

But again, in view of what you have written, of course you would. You went on to write, “all people should be able to determine what is right for their own bodies”.

Clearly you are saying here that you don’t even require someone to be suffering at all in order for them to be killed upon request. The only thing that is required is that the person themselves determines that death is right for them.

Incredible.

ttbn
I’m sorry that you seem to be opposing me educating people on voluntary assisted dying (VAD).

Please correct me if I have misunderstood your point.

Education is important; it is about training the mind to think.

I’m not telling individual people what they must do, rather I’m arguing that people (with appropriate decision making capacity) should have the right to make decisions about their own lives and choose VAD if appropriate.
In Australia, this right is being denied by politicians. They have been legislating so that all people cannot make decisions about their own lives.

Given that I am the Exit ACT leader, it is entirely appropriate that I comment on the VAD needs of Canberrans.
In particular, I was commenting on the recent ACT voluntary assisted dying (VAD) law.
I’m sorry, but I’m wondering why you don’t accept that I should do that?
Rather than attacking me, it is more appropriate to address the issues in my article.

People in Canberra, and also in Australia, are concerned about suffering from dementia and not having access to VAD.
Why shouldn’t dementia sufferers be able to draft advance care directives or have a VAD power of attorney so that their wishes can be respected?
Your comments on dementia don’t address the issue of individual autonomy.
We should respect all people, Canberrans or otherwise.
Why do you choose to not respect some groups?

You should be able to construct sound arguments in favour or whatever position you hold, including VAD. I would appreciate hearing your argument.

thanks, David

JP
Individual autonomy should be paramount.

I suspect that nobody would like you, me, doctors, or churches, telling them whether they can have an abortion, overrule their choice of sexual partner or reject their choice of voluntary assisted dying (if they have appropriate decision making capacity).

I would recommend that you read the comprehensive Exit ACT submission at https://www.parliament.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/2354456/VAD-Submission-029-Exit-ACT-and-Ethical-Rights.pdf to understand how individual autonomy, in particular the human rights model, should be applied to VAD.

If you reject my call for individual autonomy for individuals with decision making capacity, I would argue that there is no rational alternative.
If it is not each person making decisions about their lives, who should it be?

I am wondering why you think that every person should not be allowed to make decisions about their own body and life?

Can you develop an acceptable and rational alternative to people (with appropriate decision making capacity) making decisions about their own lives?

Rather than making dismissive comments, I would like to think that you could construct sound arguments in favour of your position on any matter. 'Incredible' is not an argument.

I would be interested in your argument.

Thanks

David

David

Thank-you for responding – so few authors engage with the commenters.

Firstly, in your reply, I can see – by reading between the lines - that it is indeed the case that you think that anyone, whether they are suffering in any respect or not, should be assisted to be killed upon their request.

What I don’t understand is, why didn’t you explicitly make that point in your original article?

Are you concerned that parents would not support you if they knew you would want their teenager (let’s say an 18-year-old) to be assisted to be killed if the teens first love broke up with them and the teen then repeatedly said, “I want to die”? At least Nitschke had the nerve to put in writing that he supported the assisted killing of “troubled teens”. (Although he was often very reluctant to publicly admit later that he had done so!)

I know you repeatedly use the phrase, at least in your reply to me, “with appropriate decision making capacity” to provide a suggestion of some degree of limitation to absolute personal autonomy. However, you did not provide any definition to the phrase.

Would you say that a healthy 18-year-old would have appropriate decision-making capacity? Presumably you would. Please say clearly just what it is that you want.

Secondly, you are not simply saying that almost anyone should be allowed to commit suicide. You are saying that society has not only to accept suicide but that we must assist it to happen. It is one thing for someone to want to kill themselves, and if they are determined to do so, there is often little that can be done to stop them. It is quite a different thing to say we have a responsibility to accept and enable their suicide.

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Dear JP,

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According to government statistics, hanging has become the most common method of suicide in Australia and the use of this method increased substantially over the last 25 years. Age-standardised rates of suicide by hanging remain much higher for males than females but have increased for both sexes.

In 2022 there were 3,249 suicides. That’s a rate of about 9 suicides a day, every day of the year.

While the reasons for an individual’s suicide death are personal and often complex, overall peaks and troughs in rates and numbers of deaths by suicide historically coincide – more or less – with social and economic events.

One in 6 (16.7%) Australians aged 16–85 had experienced serious thoughts about taking their own life at some point in their lives.

One in 14 (7.1%) of Australians aged 16–85 years had made a suicide plan and around 5% had attempted suicide during their lifetime.

The International Association for Suicide Prevention indicates that an estimated 700 000 people die by suicide, worldwide, each year, and, globally, suicide is the fourth leading cause of death in 15-29-year-olds.

I think we have to recognise that life and death are two sides of the same coin. There can be no life without death and no death without life. The two are absolutely inseparable. If life is a fundamental human right, then death is too.

It will not happen overnight, but we must prepare for a radical change in our attitude towards life and death. Democracy and justice are solidly anchored in an ocean of inertia by the massive iron chains of archaic religious dogma in a position of opposition to the most fundamental of human rights. Our democracy and justice have been insensitive far too long to the pain and suffering of people wishing to lawfully exercise their right to life and death.

They are left with no other choice but to have recourse, alone with their solitude and in a terrible state of despair, to the most barbaric, inhuman and expeditious methods in order to carry out their macabre enterprise.

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Euthanasia is not something for religion or the medical profession to decide. The role of religion is to provide spiritual solace to those who require it and that of the medical profession to provide the most effective medical assistance possible. Euthanasia, or “good death”, has to be the personal decision of the individual exercising his free will without, or in spite of, any outside influence.

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Banjo

You wrote, “Euthanasia, or “good death”, has to be the personal decision of the individual exercising his free will without, or in spite of, any outside influence”. So, like David Swanton, the author of the article, you also seem to be advocating that anyone, for any reason, should be given assistance to kill themselves if that is what they request.

Please consider this: what if your 18-year-old child were to have a broken heart after their first love broke up with them and your child then repeatedly said they wanted to die. Can you say in all honesty that you would recognise their personal decision to exercise their free will and, without any attempt to influence them, you would accept them being given assistance to be killed?

I find it virtually impossible to believe that you would simply accept this. But given what you have said is your position, why wouldn’t you?

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Dear JP,

.

I had that experience with one of my granddaughters. My daughter (her mother) was divorced and bringing the children up on her own so my role as a grandfather was a lot more demanding than it would have been if the children had had a father.

My daughter called for help when she discovered that her younger daughter, who was 13 years old at the time had been secretly communicating with a 21-year-old guy on the internet for several months with whom she said she was madly in love.

We discovered that the guy had contacted our granddaughter on a site for children of her age in which she participated regularly. We figured he was probably a paedophile predator and warned her of the danger. She listened but was not persuaded. Her mother informed the police who phoned the guy and told him to leave her alone. That was when she attempted to commit suicide and we called the local emergency service and the fire brigade who arrived first.

They rushed her off to hospital and managed to save her. She then spent several weeks under close surveillance in a psychiatric clinic.

She had no further contact with the guy for four years following her release from the clinic. But when she turned 17, she asked her mother to let her see the guy for the first time in her life. Her mother agreed and arranged a meeting not just with the guy, but with the guy, his mother, her daughter and herself.

A year later, when her daughter turned 18, the couple decided to live together which they did and have been doing for some years now. My granddaughter is continuing her university studies and working in a bank at the same time to help pay the rent.

That dramatic affair had a happy ending, but it came from nowhere and hit me like a lightning bolt and forced me to witness the tragic scene of a desperate suicide attempt in the worst possible conditions.

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(Continued …)

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As I indicated in my previous post, suicide is the fourth leading cause of death in 15-29-year-olds.

My granddaughter was dragged back from the brink of death in the most abominable conditions imaginable. Not all 13- or 15–29-year-olds, have that chance.

How could anybody prefer their children or grandchildren to die in the worst possible conditions of pain and suffering ? That is the reality today for all too many individuals. We are not always there to prevent it, or to save them if we can.

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Banjo - I am glad to hear that the situation with your granddaughter did not end in complete disaster with her taking her life.

I am confused though. On the one hand, you have said that such decisions have to be "the personal decision of the individual exercising his free will without, or in spite of, any outside influence" but then you say that when your granddaughter made the decision to end her life you called the ambulance to try and save her.

I believe you did the right thing by calling the ambulance but your calling the ambulance contradicts your claim that people should be allowed to make these decisions for themselves without any interference.

So what is it that actually believe should be done?

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Dear JP,

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The question of life and death is a serious matter, not to be taken lightly. Hopefully, I will not be obliged to make a snap decision one day on whether to leap out the window of some multi-storied building on fire, like the Twin Towers in New York or stay in that building and burn to death.

Having had the time to think about it, I have decided that I would prefer to leap out the window as so many poor victims did, dropping all the way to the ground to my death. Why ?

Because I imagine that smashing to the ground from a great height must be faster and less painful than burning to death – the least horrifying of two atrocious options and the only option I would have the power to choose or reject of my own free will.

Those are the essential features of euthanasia. A “good death” is the conclusion of a deliberate, carefully reasoned decision by the person concerned, implemented with a maximum of humanity and as little pain, stress and suffering as modern science can allow, preferably in a warm, cosy environment, in the company of one’s loved ones if so desired.

That is what I should have liked for my granddaughter if, when all was said and done, she had calmly decided that she still wanted to end her life.

As I explained earlier, that was not the case. She finally managed to achieve what she wanted and what she wanted not only proved to be perfectly safe but brought her much peace and happiness.

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Banjo

I have to say that I find your latest reply very disturbing.

If, the day after your thirteen-year-old granddaughter was taken to hospital, she had again said she wanted to die but this time she asked for formal assistance to do so, would you have simply accepted her decision?
You have previously written that there should be no outside influence on the person’s decision so presumably you would want yourself, and everyone else, to remain silent while she made up her mind.

Then (assuming the law allowed it), if she chose to go ahead with killing herself, so long as she took the government-provided poison in a warm cosy environment, with loved ones such as yourself watching on, you would just stand there and watch her end her life – at 13 years old!

I find it almost impossible to believe that you would actually do so. Grandfathers have a responsibility to protect their grandchildren from harm, not to aid and abet their suicide.

And now even with the benefit of hindsight, with your granddaughter an adult in a happy relationship, you are saying it would have been okay with you if she had killed herself, under the above-stated conditions, all those years ago.

That is disturbing.

JP

Thanks for your response. You have not made an argument on any position, rather you have thrown in strawman/strawperson arguments.

I did not write, as you would like me to have written, that 'anyone, whether they are suffering in any respect or not, should be assisted to be killed upon their request’.
I did not write that because that is not what I am claiming. Strawman argument 1.

You wrote that 'You are saying that society has not only to accept suicide but that we must assist it to happen'. I am not. Strawman argument 2.

Please read the comprehensive Exit ACT submission to the ACT Select Committee on VAD (see link in my previous post), which I suggest you and everybody read, which makes the case for good VAD legislation that respects individual autonomy. There is at least one specific scenario that society might not need to be involved in.

Could you please not misrepresent my arguments.

My On Line opinion article focused on the ACT’s VAD Act. I argued that it is a better Act than that in the states but is ethically deficient as it does not respect individual autonomy.
I made the claim that ‘all people should be able to determine what is right for their own bodies’, with the important caveat that persons should have appropriate decision-making capacity.

In the Exit ACT submission, I discuss the criteria for decision making capacity as discussed in two journals. ‘Troubled teens' would not meet the criteria for VAD decision-making capacity; the criteria are designed to exclude such people.
I am not a psychiatrist, so cannot professionally assess anybody on their VAD decision making capacity.

I will leave you and potential future respondents with a question, related to VAD eligibility and individual autonomy.

Do you accept the claim that 'all people (with VAD decision making capacity) have the right to access VAD so that their quality of life is not reduced below what they consider to be an acceptable threshold’?

It is a yes or no answer.
If no, please make an argument in support of your position.

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Dear JP,

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You wrote :

1. « If, the day after your thirteen-year-old granddaughter was taken to hospital, she had again said she wanted to die but this time she asked for formal assistance to do so, would you have simply accepted her decision? »

No, she was in a terrible state of despair very shaken-up and incapable of rational thought. She needed time to rest and recover before making decisions on anything.

If you read my previous post carefully, JP, you will see that what I wrote was :

“That is what I should have liked for my granddaughter if, when all was said and done, she had calmly decided that she still wanted to end her life.”

By “when all was said and done”, I don’t mean, as you suggest, “the day after [she] was taken to hospital”. I mean long after she left the hospital and returned home from the psychiatric clinic where she remained under close surveillance for several weeks.
.

2. « Grandfathers have a responsibility to protect their grandchildren from harm, not to aid and abet their suicide. »

That’s correct, JP. As soon as I discovered she had attempted to commit suicide, I called the ambulance and the fire brigade and they rushed her off to hospital.

I can’t imagine myself ever wanting to “aid and abet” anyone to commit suicide. Please be assured that I have the utmost respect for every human being’s right to both life and death. – neither more nor less.

As you are possibly aware, committing suicide, or attempting to do so, is no longer an offence anywhere in Australia. However, there are offences relating to assisting or counselling someone else to commit suicide in every state and territory.

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(Continued ...)

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(Continued ...)

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The point I was making was that, as I indicated in my post on page 2 of this thread, people wanting to commit suicide today “are left with no other choice but to have recourse, alone with their solitude and in a terrible state of despair, to the most barbaric, inhuman and expeditious methods in order to carry out their macabre enterprise”.

That is not what I should have liked for my granddaughter. If, when all was said and done, she calmly decided she still wanted to end her life, I should prefer it be a “good death”, i.e., by euthanasia as described in my previous post – not some cruel, painful, inhuman, degrading and terribly sad form of death.

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David

Could you explain to me what the essential difference is between, “No suffering person should be excluded from VAD. . . all people should be able to determine what is right for their own bodies” (your words) and “anyone, whether they are suffering in any respect or not, should be assisted to be killed upon their request” (my paraphrase of your words).

I cannot see any meaningful difference, so no, I do not accept your claim that I have misrepresented you.

I have read the Executive Summary of your Submission and that only confirms that I have not misrepresented you, “4. . . . all people have the right to access VAD” and “12. . . . (VAD) should not be denied to anyone”. Point 12 makes it very clear that includes children and as no age limitation is indicated it must be presumed it is intended to apply to children of any age.

You say that my writing, “You are saying that society has not only to accept suicide but that we must assist it to happen” also misrepresents you. Once VAD is legalised, yes, all of society is required to accept people killing themselves and yes taxpayer funding is used to pay for the poison and its provision, so we are all being made to assist with the suicides. Again, you have not been misrepresented.

You say, “that persons should have appropriate decision-making capacity” is an important caveat yet I do not recall you mentioning that in your OLO article or seeing it in the Executive Summary. So how important is it? (Please correct me if I missed seeing it in either place.) The only mention of it that I remember is in your comments to me.

Where in the body of your submission do you mention it and the criteria surrounding it? (No, I can’t read all 117 pages.) I’ll be interested to see why “troubled teens” do not qualify – how discriminatory can you get!

Regarding your last question, my answer is, no. Murder, including self-murder/suicide is simply wrong.

Banjo

Okay, so you would not have wanted your granddaughter to have been formally given the poison the day after her informal suicide attempt, but after a few weeks when she had calmed down, it would have been okay with you for it to be done then (under the conditions you specified) if that is what she wanted?

It seems to me that you are saying that suicide is terrible if it is carried out messily, but that it is quite acceptable if it is done neatly?

That is where we strongly differ. For me the issue is not whether suicide is neat or messy, but the fact that a life is deliberately ended, and in this instance it would have been the life of a child.

You say that you agree that a grandfather has a responsibility to protect their grandchild from harm. Yet you would be willing to stand silent while your granddaughter took lethal poison in your presence. How is this not aiding and abetting her suicide?

JP

You did not provide an argument against the claim that 'all people (with VAD decision making capacity) have the right to access VAD so that their quality of life is not reduced below what they consider to be an acceptable threshold’?

You responded with ‘no. Murder, including self-murder/suicide is simply wrong’. That statement is a conclusion. It is not an argument. You need to provide supporting reasons/premises for an argument. Ethically and legally, VAD is not murder or self-murder, so you haven’t even broached the issue. VAD is consistent with a person’s wishes, murder is not.

I reject your conclusion as an unsupported opinion.

The Exit ACT submission is 117 pages long. Reading the Executive Summary alone (which summarises; it does not include details, exceptions and caveats, they are in the submission) will not provide insight into the specifics of issues, and the exceptional scenarios that might arise.

For the rest of your comments, where you tried to argue that you did not misrepresent me, I offer the following.

The Exit ACT submission discusses a scenario where a suffering terminally ill criminal has not cooperated with police. Does that person have a right to die? Yes, as every person does. Does that person have the right to have society help them? You said that I would say ‘yes’. In this instance, I and others can make compelling arguments for ‘no’. If we acknowledge a social contract—that you must cooperate fully with police before you can ask the state to assist you—then society has no obligation to assist with VAD in this instance.

That one example shows that you have misrepresented me. A person has a right to die, but I have never said that means that society must help in all instances. Please be aware that there are more complex scenarios than your conclusion, ‘self murder/suicide is simply wrong’, might allow.

Until you can develop a sound argument against VAD, I cannot accept your conclusions.
I will offer no more until you can develop a sound argument against VAD

David

Humans are created in God’s image and God has forbidden the murder of humans. That is the basis for saying that the killing of oneself is wrong.

Now you can dismiss this, as I expect you will, however, I would be very interested to see how you can justify the moral claims you make from a secular standpoint. For a start, you place a very strong emphasis on respecting personal autonomy. You obviously have a preference for that position but why, in a secular/material universe, should anyone care what your preference on that is, or indeed, your preferences about anything else?

In such a universe there are no objective values and if it is in someone’s interests to trample your preferences, and they have the wherewithal to do it, there is no moral basis for deterring them.

You appeal repeatedly to “rights”. Again, what is a “right” in a material universe? There is no intrinsic force to a “right”, rather it is just something made up as a means to try and coerce others to go along with the preferences of some.

Of course, laws can be passed to see that certain preferences are enforced but there is no equivalence between laws and morality. Laws can be whatever a majority of people (or the most powerful or influential) want them to be, but that doesn’t make them morally “right”. Did legalising slavery make it morally right?

So, if you want an argument from me to justify my position, then equally you should be prepared to justify your position with an argument.

JP

Before we move on, you must make a sound argument. You have not done so. Your argument 'Humans are created in God’s image and God has forbidden the murder of humans. That is the basis for saying that the killing of oneself is wrong.’ is not valid or sound and should be rejected. There are no reasons to accept your two stated premises and there are too many unstated premises that must be justified. These include does the god called God exist, why its/her/his command is important, is its command right and why should we accept it anyhow.

Can you demonstrate that your god called God exists? If you cannot, can you see why we have no basis to accept your argument (or previous commentary)?

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Dear JP,

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You wrote :

1. « It seems to me that you are saying that suicide is terrible if it is carried out messily, but that it is quite acceptable if it is done neatly? »

It’s interesting, JP, to see that you interpret what I wrote in terms of order and disorder. I shall keep that in mind.

And you add :

2. « That is where we strongly differ. For me the issue is not whether suicide is neat or messy, … »

Quite the contrary, JP. That is where we strongly agree. For me too, “the issue is not whether suicide is neat or messy”.

3. « You say that you agree that a grandfather has a responsibility to protect their grandchild from harm. »

No, I didn’t say that JP, but, naturally, I do consider that a grandfather should and would undoubtedly do whatever he could to protect his grandchild from harm if he were in a position to do so.

4. « Yet you would be willing to stand silent while your granddaughter took lethal poison in your presence. How is this not aiding and abetting her suicide? »

According to the latest statistics of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, in 2022 :

• deaths by suicide represented 0.9% of all deaths in children aged 14 and below.

• there has been a greater than 3-fold increase in the rate of intentional self-harm hospitalisations in females aged 14 and below (from 19 hospitalisations per 100,000 population to 72)

There were approximately 5.5 million children aged 14 and below in Australia in 2022, composed of roughly half and half of each sex. This means there were about 2,000 girls aged 14 and below, like my granddaughter, hospitalised in Australia for intentional self-harm that year.

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(Continued …)

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The average success rate of suicides is 7%. Therefore those 2,000 girls represented roughly 93% of the total girls who attempted suicide. In other words, about 2,150 girls aged 14 and below attempted suicide and 150 succeeded.

It is illusory to think that parents and grandparents can totally control and protect their children and grandchildren. If a child wants to commit suicide, he or she will find a way to do it.

What I am saying is not that I would help them do it, but just as I would prefer to jump out the window of a skyscraper on fire rather than burn to death, I would like them to have a “good death” rather than an atrocious one by employing whatever means they can lay their hands on in a terrible state of despair.

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David

I agree with you that we need to justify our foundational beliefs as best as possible in order to be able to justifiably build further beliefs that are based upon those foundations.

This requirement however must apply to everyone.

I therefore find it odd that you are saying that I must do this “before we move on” while you seem to think you are exempt from having to do so.

To go back to the absolute basics, we must make one of two choices in deciding how this universe and everything in it came into being – either it was deliberately brought into existence by a greater being than the universe itself or it just unintentionally happened into being.

When I look at the world about me I have no trouble in seeing evidence for incredible design in the fantastic complexity of things right down to the molecular level. Design points to a designer.

The alternative is to say that a secular miracle took place with everything having come from nothing: “ . . . the universe evolved out of literally nothing” Richard Dawkins. Then further secular miracles took place as life, consciousness and intelligence allegedly arose spontaneously from dead matter.

Even if you want to assert that that is what happened that still does not help you when it comes to morality. If the universe just happened into being, then it follows that there is no intended purpose for its existence and that there is no particular state that it is meant to be in. A universe with whales is no “better” or “worse” than one without whales. The same would be true for humans. Words like better, worse, right and wrong would be meaningless.

Of course anyone can say that they prefer a universe with whales or where people can receive VAD but that preference does not make them “right”. Dawkins again: “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”

Please justify your foundational position.

Banjo

I continue to be confused by what you write, In your last post, in response to my earlier comment, “You say that you agree that a grandfather has a responsibility to protect their grandchild from harm”, you replied, “No, I didn’t say that JP”. However, if you look back to I think your fourth comment you did in fact write, “That’s correct, JP. As soon as I discovered she had attempted to commit suicide, I called the ambulance and the fire brigade and they rushed her off to hospital.”

Then at point 2 in your last post you said, “For me too, “the issue is not whether suicide is neat or messy” but your last paragraph seems to contradict that: “I would like them to have a “good death” rather than an atrocious one by employing whatever means they can lay their hands on in a terrible state of despair”.

Anyway, I think that any adult, especially a close relative, should take deadly poison away from a child, not simply stand there and watch them take it (regardless of how congenial the circumstances of the situation may be).

JP

You have not addressed my question to demonstrate that your god called God exists, which is a key element of your argument against VAD. You are now avoiding answering that question and raising issues unrelated to VAD (the origin of the universe). This is an example of the red herring fallacy.

I don’t want to be deceived and I hope you don’t want to deceive me. So could you please give me the courtesy of providing a sound or cogent argument for the existence of your god called God? You are now avoiding developing any such arguments by fallaciously throwing red herrings.

Alternatively, could you be so kind and honest to acknowledge that (a) you misrepresented my position on issues, and (b) cannot justify the existence of your god called God and so cannot justify your opposition to VAD?

Or, can you say why you are avoiding the question, why you are not acknowledging that you cannot provide such an argument, or whether I can assist you if there is something about demonstrating the existence of your god called God that you don’t understand.

I can’t address your issues until you provide an acceptable response to mine

.

Dear JP,

.

You wrote :

1. « I continue to be confused by what you write, In your last post, in response to my earlier comment, “You say that you agree that a grandfather has a responsibility to protect their grandchild from harm”, you replied, “No, I didn’t say that JP”. »

The responsibility to protect from harm you were referring to in the first instance, JP, was “not to aid and abet their suicide”. That is what I agreed to.

Whereas, it is impossible for grandfathers to assume general responsibility for protection from harm to their grandchildren, especially when they don’t live together, which happens to be my case.

That is why when you wrote in your next post « You say that you agree that a grandfather has a responsibility to protect their grandchild from harm », I replied :

« No, I didn’t say that JP, but, naturally, I do consider that a grandfather should and would undoubtedly do whatever he could to protect his grandchild from harm if he were in a position to do so ».

I hope that clarifies matters for you.

2. « Then at point 2 in your last post you said, “For me too, “the issue is not whether suicide is neat or messy” but your last paragraph seems to contradict that: “I would like them to have a “good death” rather than an atrocious one by employing whatever means they can lay their hands on in a terrible state of despair”. »

For me, JP, the distinguishing feature of a “good death” versus an “atrocious death”, is not that of order versus disorder, but of pleasure versus pain and kindness versus cruelty.

To me, your criterion of "order versus disorder" is cold and rigid. It is administrative. It lacks sensitivity. It lacks the human touch. It lacks humanity. It reveals a vision that is completely different from mine.

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(Continued …)

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3. « Anyway, I think that any adult, especially a close relative, should take deadly poison away from a child, not simply stand there and watch them take it (regardless of how congenial the circumstances of the situation may be). »

That is an opinion that is shared by many if not most people in this day and age, JP. Mine is more nuanced. I am inclined to consider that it depends on the child. Some are more mature than others at the same age, some are even much more mature. My granddaughter is one of the latter. Her judgement of the guy she fell in love with on the internet proved to be better than that of her mother and her grandfather. She was right and we were wrong.

We inadvertently provoked her attempt to commit suicide by trying to protect her from what we perceived as a danger.

That is why, despite her young age at the time, I consider, in hindsight, that if, when all was said and done, she had calmly decided that she still wanted to end her life. I should have liked her to have had the possibility of carrying out legal euthanasia.

Having given this a lot of thought, it also occurred to me that if we had happened to be together in a skyscraper on fire and I decided it was best to jump out the window, I doubt that she would want to stay. I would not have left her alone to burn to death. I would have taken her in my arms and jumped out the window.

The fact that she was only 13 years old would not have been a consideration. Nor would I have sought to apply your criterion of utmost respect for good order.

But, not to worry, JP, I respect your preference for good order.

Most people remained in the Twin Towers in New York and perished in the flames - but, who knows, perhaps they were not able to do otherwise.

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David

You are an “ethicist” and yet you say that you “cannot” independently show what is the foundation for your own ethical pronouncements.

Certainly you can say that I have not justified my position but why would that failure on my part prevent you from being able to demonstrate that your own position is valid and sound? That does not logically follow.

You want to claim that my reference to our origins is a red herring. Not at all. If you have a materialist view of the universe then ethically speaking moral relativism is as far as you can get. If moral relativism is all we have then one moral position is no more “right” or “wrong” than the opposite moral viewpoint. Effectively, moral talk is meaningless. Please show me where that is wrong. Please do not use my apparent failure as an excuse to hold you back.

If you refuse to defend your position then it makes it look like your position is indefensible.

I have reread your article and there can be no dispute that your categorical statements, “No suffering person should be excluded from VAD. . . all people should be able to determine what is right for their own bodies” are made without any qualifications whatsoever.

So when I paraphrased those statements as, “anyone, whether they are suffering in any respect or not, should be assisted to be killed upon their request” there is no misrepresentation of what you wrote in the article: “all people” cannot mean anything other than “all people”.

Banjo

I wonder if you have talked with your granddaughter much about this. Have you been willing to say to her what you wrote in your last post, "I should have liked you (her) to have had the possibility of carrying out legal euthanasia" (at the age of thirteen)?

Given that you say that she is now in a good place in life, obviously she couldn't be experiencing that now if she had been able to legally end her life back then. Much joy in her life, her present partner's life, and your own life would have been irretrievably cut off with her intentional death.

If your granddaughter has a child of her own, would she want that child to be able to end their life legally at thirteen?

JP
You wrote ‘Certainly you can say that I have not justified my position but why would that failure on my part prevent you from being able to demonstrate that your own position is valid and sound’. JP, if you have not justified your position, developed a sound argument or even demonstrated that the god called God exists, there is no basis for your further opposition to VAD. I reject your unsubstantiated claims and thank you for the discussion.

In contrast, my ethical position on VAD has been quite rigorously justified in the comprehensive 117-page Exit ACT submission to an ACT Select Committee on VAD, which I referred you to in my first response. Which you wrote that you ‘can’t read’.

The Exit ACT submission details my ethical position on VAD, based on respect for individual autonomy in the human rights model, that ‘all people have the right to access VAD so that their quality of life is not reduced below what they consider to be an acceptable threshold’, with the details and caveats noted in that submission.

My OLO article was an overview of the ACT’s laws on VAD and did not include details. Similarly, a summary article discussing a ‘right to freedom of speech’ might not discuss all possible exceptions, such as slander, libel, vilification, censorship. Given the OLO article’s objective and length, it did not include VAD specific eligibility criteria, caveats, exceptions or other detail. For the details that were not in the OLO article I referred you to the submission that you did not read. Without that context, you cannot represent my positions accurately.

However, you hold a position that you cannot justify. If I were to respond to anybody’s questions with unjustified nonsense, that would be disrespectful to them. But that is what you have provided to me. We cannot conduct an intellectually respectable discussion if you expect me to justify my positions (see submission) when you are not justifying yours.

I will write more on religion, ethics, science and thinking in an upcoming book, and possibly in future OLO articles

David

You will be happy to know that I have now read right through your submission.

You have been dismissive of me because you say that I have not presented arguments to support my case.

I must say that I was rather surprised then to see the absence of argumentation for your position.

You repeatedly make bald assertions, eg. “59. VAD is ethically right because it is an expression of individual autonomy” and “individual autonomy is a human right”, without providing any argument to support them. In these instances you need to provide justification for why the expression of personal autonomy makes something ethically right or why it is a human right. (Indeed, what a “human right” even is.)

How do you know what is ethically right? Please provide a clear answer.

Yes, I know that you quote Mill and the UDHR, almost like someone might quote the Bible(!), but in turn how do Mill and the authors of the Declaration know what is ethically right?

Do you and Mill have access to a particular source of knowledge that enables you to make irrefutably true moral pronouncements? If so, what is that source? If not, are you just making them up according to your own preferences? And if you are just making them up, why should anyone prefer your preferences over their own?

You will probably say that lots of people agree with you and to some extent that may be true, but so what? Is that how moral truth should be determined, by a popular vote? If that were so, then if a vote were taken and your moral preferences were voted down, would you then accept that you were indeed morally wrong after all?

This is why I come back to saying that how we have come into being is of absolutely crucial importance for understanding morality. If materialism is true and we have just unintentionally happened into existence for no purpose then moral talk is meaningless. The universe would not be meant to be in one state rather than another, thus nothing could be “right” or “wrong”.

JP
A quick commentary on the last two issues/fallacies in your 16 July post.

You have again misrepresented my position, writing that I would probably adopt a populist position. I’m not sure how you could draw that conclusion given that I’ve been repeatedly urging you to construct sound arguments. Ethical, logical, mathematical, scientific, academic and consequential issues (opposed to some political issues etc) must be assessed on arguments and evidence. Popular support is irrelevant. That is another strawman argument. Why do you keep doing this? It is disrespectful. Does your god called God want you to be dishonest in our discussion?

You seem serious with your argument ‘If materialism is true and we have just unintentionally happened into existence for no purpose then moral talk is meaningless’ before making another bizarre argument involving a state of the universe.

I’ve asked you to construct sound arguments, yet your argument is clearly invalid and unsound. The premises do not lead to the conclusion; the argument is clearly nonsense. I don’t accept the demonstrably false conclusion, which you have not shown is dependent on whether something happens into existence.

On the contrary, if we talk, think and act ethically, we can make a person’s life better, and improve their well-being and make the world a better place. A person would not think it is meaningless if their suffering were mitigated and their well-being were improved. Ethical talk, then action, is highly meaningful. And it is independent of how we have ‘come into being’.

JP
Thanks for reading the Exit ACT submission.

I determine what is ethically right or wrong through reason and argument. Everybody, including Mill, you, and me should be using their brains to think and construct arguments supported logically by premises and evidence. We would be deceiving ourselves if we accepted any arguments, including about what is right and wrong and how we ought to behave (ethics), that are not sound or cogent.

We might subscribe to a utilitarian philosophy (achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number); to Kant’s moral philosophy; or acting to make the world a better place; or something else, but only if we can justify it. This has nothing to do with the origins of the universe, unless you’re arguing that a god is involved. But you failed to demonstrate any god’s existence. So that argument is rejected. Please have the courage to demonstrate your god’s existence or admit that your belief is unfounded. Don’t leave us hanging.

In my first response to you I wrote ‘individual autonomy should be paramount’. That is supported by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but probably not Kant. If people have individual autonomy, the right for people to make decisions about their own lives and futures, then they will be happier and that makes the world a better place.

I accepted individual autonomy and that UDHR position axiomatically in my OLO article and the Exit ACT submission to the ACT Government on the ACT’s VAD Act. That was appropriate as I was agreeing with the Act’s claim that it should respect individual autonomy.

I am uncertain where you stand. If we agree on individual autonomy, then we can move on. If not, please state your objections and we can discuss. I’ve also asked you to construct an argument: ‘If you reject my call for individual autonomy for individuals with decision making capacity, I would argue that there is no rational alternative.’

So let’s reset. Do you accept that a person (with appropriate decision-making capacity etc) has individual autonomy? If not, please develop a rational argument against it.

Thank you.

David

I note that you don’t think that morality can be determined by popular vote.

No, I was not being disrespectful to you. I thought that by having questions such as this in your survey: “Q 2. Do you agree that every adult of sound mind has the right to implement plans for the end of their life?” you must have thought that numbers matter. Why ask the question though if it is irrelevant as to whether or not more or less people believe that such a “right” exists?

You say that you accept personal autonomy axiomatically. According to the dictionary, axiomatically means self-evidently or unquestionably. This is where I take issue with you. Is it really self-evident? Surely all things are questionable?

For this discussion now let us take it as true that there is no God/god.

If there is no God that has deliberately made the universe then the only alternative explanation for our existence must be that everything has unintentionally happened into being.

If our existence is unintentional, then there can be no intended purpose for our existence. Agreed?

Of course, any individual or group of people can make up purposes or goals but that is all they can ever be, made-up goals to suit their own preferences. It would also be the case that other individuals or groups of people could make up their own goals that are different to the first ones. However, neither group can meaningfully say that their goals are “right” and the others’ goals are “wrong” in an objective sense, given that both sets of goals are just made up.

The same would be apply for morality. In an unintentional universe each person or group can make up their own moral values. One person/group can say that they believe that personal autonomy must be given almost absolute respect while another can say that it shouldn’t. Depending on our preferences we may want to say that one group or the other is “right” but simply saying that does not make it so. (continued

(continued) And that would be true for any moral issue, including torture, rape and murder. I expect you will say that a world without torture, rape and murder, and with personal autonomy, is a morally better one than the opposite.

Of course you are able to express that preference, but it doesn’t make you “right”. It is not as if a universe that has just happened into existence is supposed to be one where murder and torture do not exist.

An unintentional universe without murder and torture is no “better” than an unintentional universe with torture and murder, and vice versa. There would be no objective standard against which they could be measured. All that can be said is that they are just different.

Now I am not saying that I don’t think that almost everyone would prefer to live in a world where there is no torture and murder, I’m sure they would, as would I, but you have already said that you don’t think that morality can be determined by popular vote.

What then are you left with to make your case for personal autonomy or any other moral value? In a materialist universe, anyone who disagrees with you can simply say, ‘I have a different preference to you. Your preference is no more “right” than mine. Indeed, neither of our preferences are “right”, they are just different”.

In a materialist universe no one has any responsibility to improve anyone’s well-being or to make the world a “better” place. If you think there are such responsibilities, please explain why that is so. (That is, beyond you preferring it that way.)

From what you have written I believe you are a caring person and I am not suggesting you are not. All I am trying to do is show that if materialism is true then all weight or authority is removed from any moral claims. You can hold whatever moral values you want but so can anyone else and neither of you can establish who is “right” because absolute moral truth does not exist in such a universe.

JP

You have raised too many fallacious red herrings (divorced from VAD), strawman issues and issues I’ve already addressed or rebutted.
You have been using a nonsense Gish gallop strategy, regurgitating multiple nonsense arguments.
You’re again avoiding the questions I’ve asked you from the beginning.

I’ve written repeatedly that ethical claims, e.g. on VAD or slavery are assessed by argument (I relate moral claims to widely shared community norms, ethical claims to individuals).
Sound arguments are not subjective as you suggest.
We should be intellectually flexible and honest and accept arguments if they are sound and reject them if they are not. You have not done so.

Ethical arguments are how we (rational people) know VAD is ethically right and slavery is ethically wrong.
Indeed, we can argue successfully that slavery has always been ethically wrong, despite the Bible sanctioning slavery and detailing its rules in Exodus 21 (verses 20 and 21 particularly abhorrent), which was morally acceptable 2000 years ago.

You have not been engaging with VAD issues I’ve raised.
You have not developed sound arguments for your beliefs.
You have not acknowledged that your belief in the god called God (that underpins you opposition to VAD) cannot be demonstrated.
You have not developed an argument against individual autonomy, which I’ve repeatedly requested since my first post.
You have continued to mispresent my position.

Unfortunately, I must classify you as a disingenuous interlocutor.
As you are unwilling or unable to acknowledge problems with your arguments or change your beliefs based on argument, there is no point discussing issues with you.

I’d be pleased if you could demonstrate that your god called God exists or acknowledge that your belief in the god called God is unfounded and be prepared to change your beliefs.
I’m surmising you can’t and won’t.

David

I expect that I have nothing to say that would prove to you that God exists. That obviously is a huge problem for you.

However I regard your materialist/atheist position as being equally fatally flawed when it comes to talking about morality.

Since you are called an “ethicist” I presume you have studied philosophy. If so, you would be familiar with the most intractable issue in moral philosophy/ethics: how can an “ought” be derived from an “is”?

If you believe that you have successfully answered that question, have you had it published in a peer-reviewed journal? If you have not had it published I would encourage you to do so, because if you have successfully answered that question, fame awaits you.

Every attempt so far that I have seen invariably smuggles in an unjustified moral value, thus begging the question. In terms of the present discussion, you seem to be saying:

- A person who has appropriate decision-making capacity and who is suffering more than they want, wants the suffering to stop

- We/society therefore ought to do whatever is needed, including providing them with lethal poison if necessary, to make their suffering stop

It can then be legitimately be asked, why ought we stop suffering?

Because suffering is wrong.

Why is suffering wrong?

Because it is bad for people and can make their lives miserable.

It is probably true that everyone, except masochists, do not want to suffer more than they want but how does that show that society has a responsibility, an “ought”, to stop the suffering?

All people have a right to be relieved of any suffering that is more than they want to experience.

What is a “right”? Where does it come from? What gives a “right” the authority to compel others to do certain things?

This can go on, but my point is that in a materialist universe, ultimately there is no justification for a moral “ought”. Of course, you personally can believe you ought to do certain things, but there is no way to generalise that “ought” to everyone. Moral talk is meaningless.