Libertarianism, Self-Ownership and Consensual Killing

Revue Philosophique De Louvain (2002)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Under what conditions is it morally permissible to commit suicide, to assist in someone’s suicide, or to kill another person with his/her consent? Under what conditions is it morally permissible to use force to prevent such acts? I shall defend a libertarian answer to these questions. On this view, autonomous agents initially fully own themselves in the same sense that one can fully own an inanimate object such as a car. Just as full owners of cars are morally permitted, under a broad range of conditions, to destroy their cars or have someone else do so, autonomous agents who fully own themselves are permitted, under a broad range of conditions, to terminate their lives or to have someone else do so. Furthermore, under these conditions, other agents are not permitted to use force to prevent a full self-owner’s consensual death. I shall focus on consensual killing (i.e., with the killed person’s consent) of autonomous agents. This includes suicide, assisting with suicide, voluntary euthanasia, and even cases where a non-sick person requests that another kill her. I shall not address cases of killing that are involuntary (against the will of the person killed) or non-voluntary (where the being killed is not autonomous; e.g., killing animals, children, and incapacitated adults). These are important issues, but they cannot be addressed here.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The basis of moral liability to defensive killing.Jeff McMahan - 2005 - Philosophical Issues 15 (1):386–405.
Suicide.Michael Cholbi - 2013 - International Encyclopedia of Ethics.
Equating innocent threats and bystanders.Helen Frowe - 2008 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (4):277-290.
Killing and dying.Dan Moller - 2006 - American Philosophical Quarterly 43 (3):235-247.
On the moral acceptability of killing animals.Hugh Lehman - 1988 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 1 (2):155-162.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-12-22

Downloads
21 (#630,965)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Peter Vallentyne
University of Missouri, Columbia

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references