On March 26. 1997 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult committed suicide in an attempt to catch a ride with a spaceship hiding in the wake of the Hale-Bopp comet. Had authorities known of these plans would they have been justified in arresting the cult members to prevent their deaths? After all, police officers forcibly prevent suicides all the time? What about a Jehovah Witness who refuses a blood transfusion for a life saving operation? Should the state force him or her to have the operation to save her or his life? What about a mountain climber who wants to ascend a dangerous Himalayan mountain peak in the middle of winter? Would authorities be justified in arresting her or him to prevent such a foolhardy ascent? Or do individuals have a right to engage in harmful behavior that is meaningful to them?
While respecting individual autonomy and freedoms is crucial in a society, the moral obligations of the government are not to each individual but rather to the betterment of society as a whole, and allowing suicide in a society leads to loss of life, grief, and a worse economy. The negative effects of allowing suicide outweigh the potential benefits of it. The government is morally obligated to follow a utilitarian style of governing as its goal is to lead to the betterment of everyone in society. The main issue of utilitarianism is that it's nearly impossible for one entity to determine what exactly will bring the most optimal outcome, as no one can calculate this perfectly. This leads to laws being created to do their best to consistently lead to the optimal outcome which limits freedoms and liberties for the betterment of society. An example of this is how violent video games are restricted to being sold to minors to avoid emotional harm to them even though this is restricting their freedom to buy these games. The government has found that taking away liberties is worth it if it is beneficial for society. Applying this logic to the case of suicide for one's beliefs, if the negatives of suicide outweigh the benefits, then the government should restrict it, even if it limits the freedoms of the citizens. Almost every case of suicide will be more detrimental than beneficial, and for the government to stay consistent, it would be best to restrict suicide in all cases.
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ReplyDeleteAll actions, which do not concern or harm others, committed by a person of full human facilities should be permissible under the law and uninhibited by others. As John Stuart Mill said in his book, On Liberty, “It is desirable, in short, that in things which do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself. Where, not the person's own character, but the traditions or customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress,” (Mill III). In this quote, he has already proven the need for free and individual human expression and is now attempting to prove why that freedom should extend to custom and action. If one simply follows the accepted conduct of society, one fails to use their own judgment and morals, a type of individuality that allows for personal and societal growth. Therefore it follows that for a properly progressed society, people should be allowed to act based on their perception of the world, given these actions don’t keep another person from doing the same.
I think this argument makes sense and follows a logical progression, but is difficult to apply to real-world situations. It seems to go against every instinct to allow an individual to kill themselves, yet this action doesn’t affect anyone, but themselves. The primary rejection of this argument is that one can cause mental distress and indirect harm to their family when committing suicide. While this is true, the harm meant in this argument is generally meant to be direct or either intentionally causing distress or physical harm. The intent of killing oneself is not to harm another, but to harm oneself which makes the harm from it too indirect to ban under Mill’s philosophy. In situations of suicide cults, like Heaven's Gate, I must emphasize the importance of the “of full human facilities” part of my thesis. These cults are known for brainwashing vulnerable people and children, leading to their suicides. These deaths though, are more than suicides since the person committing the act was not of full knowledge of the facts of their situation. The act of brainwashing someone into committing suicide is directly harmful and is in violation of Mill’s and my philosophy. An objection to this point is the difficulty in comprehending who is in full control of their facilities and who is not, making laws preventing people from joining cults potentially unfair. We could start, however, by banning child involvement in these cults, since they are not fully developed mentally. Other laws would take more detail that this blog is not long enough to dive into. When considering various religions that ban life-saving practices, we must apply the same principle and allow practitioners to die if they choose. Religions are not only a form of custom, but a deeply held belief that a person has developed through their own experience living. If this is how they choose to live, they may be doing it right and we cannot stop them. Of course, harm to any dependents may ensue, but the government has systems in place to help orphans. Finally, if we consider a risky mountain climber or tight-rope walker who is acting alone and without harm to others, they should be allowed to act as they please. Other than my previous argument, I also believe that risk is required for any discovery and innovation. If we prevent people from doing risky things that they choose to do, we are just stinting our own growth as a nation.
In the end, humans have an instinct to exercise their judgment, morals, and beliefs and, as long as this is done without harming others, they should be allowed to do so.
According to Mill in On Liberty, governments must not restrict actions that have the potential to cause harm; thus while the suicidal nature of Heaven’s Gate should be advised against, governments should not have a say in criminalizing the action as citizens should come to those conclusions on their own. The specific case of Heaven’s Gate is two-fold: one, should the direct action of suicide been criminalized, and two, should cult-groups like Heaven’s Gate be allowed to propagate harmful ideas. Mill takes a firm stance that both should be allowed. While the action of suicide is bad, Mill believes that this conclusion, along with any objective conclusion, must be thought of on it’s own. Mill strongly believes that common ideas like “customs'' and “capital T truths” are bad because truth only exists when it can be substantiated. Truth can only exist in antithesis to falsehood, thus allowing something to be deemed as 100 percent good or bad underscores the weight of the idea. Thus while suicide and the death-good ideas of Heaven’s Gate are bad, Mill believes that society must come to that conclusion on their own. While the state should prevent against this by advising that suicide or death is bad, there should be a option without government punishment for suicide. Mill uses the example of a faulty bridge and states that while the government should put signs that the bridge is faulty, they mustn't criminalize the passage of the bridge. If suicide were to be “outlawed”, no one would understand why suicide is bad, thus the “badness” of suicide would never be understood. Likewise, people must come to the conclusion that death-good groups like Heaven’s Gate are bad on their own. The idea that underscores this belief is that if people don’t come to conclusions on their own, in the instance that the opposite view arises, people will immediately default to the other as they cannot substantiate their own ideas.
ReplyDeleteI believe that grown adults have the right to make their own decisions as long as they only affect themselves. The idea that a government should be able to force someone to go through a procedure or stop them from doing what they wish at the harm of themself and no others is beyond the scope of what a government should be able to do. This idea is reflected in J.S. Mills' book On Liberty, where he states, “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others”(Mill 5). In the case of someone who wishes to climb a dangerous mountain or even commit suicide, these ideals should be held. If they were not, there would be no natural line to draw when something is considered too dangerous to do. For example, no one believes that driving a car should be illegal even though hundreds of thousands more die due to lethal crashes than those of suicide. Allowing governmental bodies to make laws prohibiting “dangerous activities” is unsustainable due to the inherent risk humans encounter in their day-to-day lives. However, if someone were to purposefully hurt themselves in hopes of harming others, the argument changes. Suppose the government were to become aware of a person who planned on committing suicide, and that person was to be a father, mother, or someone who directly gives care to someone else. In that case, the discussion becomes a matter of whether the death would directly cause harm to those under their care. The answer to this is complicated, but it would not be a breach of liberty to restrain someone from harming themselves if their actions were to negatively affect their ability to carry out their duties, such as raising a child. This sentiment is echoed by Mills as he says, “If either from idleness or from any other avoidable cause, a man fails to perform his legal duties to others, as for instance to support his children, it is no tyranny to force him to fulfill that obligation” (Mill 97). The thought that a government should be able to restrain someone from acting as they wish when their actions are only harmful to themselves is, in my opinion, untrue as the only real reason a person should ever be inhibited from doing as they wish is if their actions were to harm others.
ReplyDeleteAccording to John Stuart Mill and his harm principle, the authorities would not be justified in arresting the cult members to prevent their deaths, except under very specific circumstances. In On Liberty, Mill repeatedly asserts one clear principle: government intervention is only appropriate insofar as it prevents one from causing harm to others. Mill makes a sharp distinction between causing harm to others and causing harm to oneself – the latter of which Mill argues is a fundamental right that the government cannot interfere with. While Mill acknowledges that people like the cult members in question may end up making poor decisions, Mill emphasizes that “experiments in living” and the ability for one to determine one’s own opinion through personal experience outweighs the negative consequences of allowing people to make their own decisions – including very poor ones. Assuming the Heaven’s Gate cult members relatively isolated individuals whose deaths didn’t materially cause indirect harm to others, the government could have attempted to warn the individuals against such an endeavor, they would have no authority in forcibly preventing the cult members from committing suicide, as the government would only have jurisdiction over the matter were others going to be harmed.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Mill acknowledges that there are situations where the government would be justified in preventing the deaths of the cult members, namely in such cases that one’s suicide would cause substantial (indirect) harm to others. In chapter four, Mill makes an exception to such a situation, acknowledging, “the mischief which a person does to himself may seriously affect, . . . those nearly connected with him . . . [in which case] the case is taken out of the self-regarding class” (Mill). Essentially, Mill asserts that the authorities must permit suicide as a form of harm to self, but are justified in preventing suicide when it could also harm others, which would invalidate the argument of individual liberty. Applied to the situation of the Heaven’s Gate cult members, the government would be justified in preventing the members’ deaths if and only if their deaths would have a “serious [negative] affect” on someone else. For example, were a cult member to have young children that rely on them and the economic stability they provide (among other things), their suicide would substantially harm the child, and thus the government would be permitted to intervene under the harm to others principle. Only in this situation, or other similar situations where the death of a cult member would seriously harm someone else, would the government have the authority to intervene; otherwise, the government would not be justified in forcibly preventing the cult members from committing suicide.
While Mill’s philosophy allows self-harming behavior, our current legal system complicates the issue by sometimes prioritizing paternalism over individual liberty.
ReplyDeleteUnder Mill’s harm-to-others principle, a mass suicide attempt like the Heaven’s Gate incident should only be prevented if it involves coercing others to join. Because all the members were adults acting from their own moral agency, there was no government obligation to stop the suicides. However, other circumstances make the situation more complex. If any of the members were children or mentally disabled, Mill would say they were coerced and harmed by others. One could also argue that the structure of a cult is inherently coercive, as the individuals involved are often highly obedient to the cult leader and may not be thinking rationally. Because of this hierarchy, a mass group suicide might seem less permissible than an individual’s actions. But ultimately, Mill’s version of liberalism argues that people ought to have the liberty to make their own decisions without the government stopping them, as long as they don’t harm other people.
The US court system’s complex treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses and blood transfusions further illustrates this moral conflict. In cases regarding adults, legal decisions have been contradictory. For example, in 1962, a New York court ruled that an adult could refuse a blood transfusion because of their religious beliefs. But soon after, another judge ordered that a woman receive a blood transfusion to save her life even after she had refused the procedure. In a case involving a parent refusing a blood transfusion for their young child, the judge decided that the parent’s objection was valid (Gruberg). Regarding adults, Mill would support their right to bodily autonomy, even if it meant refusing medical care. But regarding children, he might say that parents shouldn’t be able to refuse a life-saving procedure for children, because society as a whole is responsible for making children into rational adults, and thus decisions regarding children must be made based on what will most improve their wellbeing (Mill 91*). However, religious believers might say that the medical procedure causes spiritual harm even if it saves the child’s life, forcing the government to indirectly support or reject their religion. In today’s world, the conflict between liberty and harm reduction is more complicated than ever and requires more discussion over how to apply Mill’s philosophy and whether other ideas are needed.
Gruberg, Martin. “Blood Transfusions and Medical Care against Religious Beliefs.” Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/blood-transfusions-and-medical-care-against-religious-beliefs/
* My page numbers are different :( - this is paraphrasing the section in chapter 4 on why legal paternalism is bad because society has influence over people during their whole childhood
Mill will agree with the police officers who forcibly prevent suicides because he bases his argument on the principle of harming others. He states, "That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant" (9). At first, it seems suicide falls in the second category of the person's good. However, almost nobody in this world has a connection to other people. When a person dies, they can cause severe emotional harm to their family and friends. In addition, suicide could cause physical harm to their family members. If the person who contributes most of the money a family needs for living commits suicide, the budget of other family members decreases, which could lead to physical harm in many ways. Mill explicitly says about action that "Acts, of whatever kind, which, without justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important cases absolutely require to be, contlled by the unfavourable sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind" (53). While one might argue there is a cause of suicide, such as depression or miserable situations, this cause is not justified. If people hurt others because they feel bad, this world will end in a loop of people hurting each other. As suicide is an action that causes harm to other people, it needs to be restricted.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Mill will not disagree with Jehovah, who refuses a blood transfusion for a life-saving operation because this person has not caused harm with their action, and forcing him to sacrifice blood is harmful to him. The person who needs blood to survive is harmed by whatever thing that caused them to bleed, not by the witness. In addition, forcing Jahovah to sacrifice blood is harming Jahovah, as it could cause bruising, continued bleeding, dizziness, lightheadedness, nausea, pain, or physical weakness. Hence, Mill will not agree to force a witness to donate blood as long as the witness is not involved in the act of harming.