Bioethicist at The Ohio State University. Certified health care ethics consultant. Creator of The Philosophy Podcast Hub. Host of The Ethical Frontier podcast.
Reasons why Americans choose assisted death:
90% - loss of autonomy
91% - loss of joy
74% - loss of dignity
65% - loss of bodily control
64% - poor pain control
22% - burden on others
4% - financial reasons
Interestingly, according to a survey asking people about their thoughts on MAID, 43% of Asian respondents, 42% of Hispanic respondents, and 34% of Black respondents said they’d consider MAID.
@NathanNobis@shspenxer This example embodies a concern I have when doing philosophy, which is that we're reasoning backwards. We already have our settled intuitions and then try to come up with the best theory to explain them.
Not sure what the best way is to address it. I'm still working on it.
@shspenxer@DNLMDY@NathanNobis But aren't we trying to determine what natural kind an individual belongs to? How can we answer that question by looking at what they are?
My question is: what determines the natural kind of x?
Your response is: by what x is and what x does.
But what is x?
@shspenxer@NathanNobis Got it.
So what if there were a chimpanzee that had the cognitive capacities comparable to typical humans. Would you say that that chimpanzee had a rational nature despite belonging to that species?
@shspenxer@NathanNobis Sorry, I should've said that it seems like you think that since the nature of human beings is rational, every individual human has a rational nature.
@shspenxer@NathanNobis Thank you for that clarification.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you think the nature of an individual is determined by the species it belongs to. So, since the nature of human beings is rational, every individual human is rational.
Is that correct? And if so, why?
@NathanNobis@shspenxer I believe the conventional view doesn’t make the person-body distinction. So I believe the conventional view is that these people’s bodies are not biologically alive.
@NathanNobis@shspenxer Organ harvesting would be in a different context because those people are deemed to be dead, not just permanently unconscious.
That said, many organs come from brain dead people, and there’s debate over whether those people are actually dead.