Should euthanasia on a human be legal?

Sharky

Yes, euthanasia should be legal for people of sound mind to choose if they are irreversibly, terminally ill. We humans often gauge our humanity by our treatment of animals and our pets in particular. When a pet is terminally ill and begins to suffer, our first and most humane instinct is to put them out of their misery. How can we justify reserving this compassion and care for our pets only? Instead we not only allow, but mandate, that people be kept alive as long as possible regardless of the incalculable suffering they must go through? This makes no sense at all. 

Plaffelvohfen

I sometime wonder what are the justifications in making euthanasia conditional to a terminal illness... Can't suicide be a rationally formed position? I don't exactly endorse nihilism myself but I do think it's a rational position... 

piloteer

Plaffelvohfen said:

I sometime wonder what are the justifications in making euthanasia conditional to a terminal illness... Can't suicide be a rationally formed position? I don't exactly endorse nihilism myself but I do think it's a rational position... 

Suicide can be a rational choice if the person is suffering physically and there's no hope of alleviating the pain, but nihilism has nothing to do with that decision, because nihilism is the antithesis of rationality. If someone can "rationalize" suicide through nihilism, they can also "rationalize" mass murder simply for entertainment value. It's a tad thoughtless to try and link suicide with nihilism. The people who are actually suffering don't come to their decision by way of nihilism. People with depression, or mental illness don't usually choose suicide because of nihilism. Although when suicide happens because of mental anguish, it is always irrational, but most of the time it isn't nihilistic reasoning that propels that decision. If a person who was physically or mentally suffering used nihilistic "reasoning" they technically would make a choice that contradicts nihilism, no matter what they choose. If all life is an illusion like nihilism asserts, then so is there suffering, and so is death, and so is the idea that they can ever escape the suffering by committing suicide. Virtually no decisions of suicide are made because of nihilism, and technically ALL decisions of suicide contradict nihilism.  

Plaffelvohfen

@piloteer

You make good points, I should have specified the form of nihilism I was using which is existential nihilism which asserts that existence is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. I'm not using either the epistemological, ontological or metaphysical forms... Morality is the illusion from an existential nihilist point of view, that's why one can indeed justify mass murder through nihilism, but they can only justify it to themselves or maybe other existential nihilists but they could not justify it to anyone else...  

It's quite true that existential nihilism based suicides must be very rare, was there ever even a single one? I'm ready to accept it actually never happened... But theoretically, if one accept the premise of existential nihilism (existence is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.) then it is possible to have a rational reasoning leading to suicide. I think that what makes it so improbable to see nihilism based suicides is the biological imperative to survive, rationality is usually not enough to overcome that imperative, that's why the vast majority of those who did commit suicide acted on irrational reasoning... When death is imminent and/or pain unbearable, it becomes easier to rationally overcome that biological imperative I think...

I'm not advocating installation of suicide booths on street corners mind you, my question is a theoretical one... How can we justify restricting assisted suicide to terminally-ill individuals? I think a true existential nihilist could convince me that his suicide would be logically reasoned, now how many true existential nihilist are there, probably very, very few...