In healthcare, the decision whether or not to allow a patient to die can present the most acute of moral dilemmas. In many instances, the patient expressly declares his wish to refuse medical treatmentùto be allowed to dieùin the event that his or her breathing or heart stop. In these cases, the ailing party can ascribe "Durable Medical Power of Attorney" to a loved one, entrusting that person to act in his or her stead and ensure that the hospital staff withholds the specified treatment(s) (Hospice Patients Alliance (HPA)). Is this right? In liberal societies, the right of every individual to act autonomously is highly valued. In this, each of us enjoys a sphere of non-interference in which we are thought to be safe from those that would encroach upon our autonomous right to do with our lives as we wish, provided that our wishes do not involve causing harm to others. However, when our wishes involve causing harm or death to ourselves, the issue over autonomy becomes challenging. Do we not have a duty to preserve our own lives? Do othersùhealthcare specialists in particularùnot have a duty to prevent death wherever possible? Are we morally bound to accept that another's wishes to die must be respected? Does the right to die trump the right to spare death? For the terminally ill, the desire to be happy can become conflated with the need to be released from life. In such cases, the ethics of death are immediately brought to the fore.
Immanuel Kant speaks directly to the ethics of duty on many occasions, intrinsically linking it to his overarching categorical imperative. According to Kant, the categorical imperative states simply that one must "Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become universal law (Kant, 1988, p. 49). In this, a right action should contain no wrong; that is, all things being equal, it cannot be both right and wrong to commit a specific act.
By refrac...