Abstract for the Kant in Asia International Conference

at Hong Kong Baptist University

20-23 May 2009

Anita Ho, ¡§Personhood and Assisted Deaths¡¨

This paper explores the implications of Kant's concept of personhood on assisted deaths. While many have argued that Kant's prohibition of suicide in the Groundwork implies that medically-assisted deaths are impermissible, since they destroy one's personhood and contradictorily will to end a moral being's reasoning, this paper argues that Kant's writings on personhood, suicide, and moral autonomy do not clearly rule out all medically-assisted deaths. While Kant's discussions seem to imply that rational agents who are experiencing irreversible physical decline cannot will the destruction of their personhood and request assisted deaths, they ironically appear to allow non-voluntary or even involuntary assisted deaths in situations where patients are losing their rational capacity, regardless of their physical condition. This paper ends with a brief discussion on how such Kantian view on assisted death compares to various Chinese understandings of human person and death.

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