A Conversation for Talking Point: Whose life is it anyway?
Suffering
Bodhisattva Started conversation Mar 17, 2003
Many people seem to debate this on the basis that
(a) life = good and death = bad
and
(b) action => responsible for conseqences
omission => not responsible for consequences.
Do things get any clearer thinking about it differently and making suffering and freedom from suffering the focus?
Bod
Suffering
Jeremy (trying to find his way back to dinner) Posted Mar 17, 2003
Good point ...
... but I think that the topic 'euthanasia' makes the focus quite clear. The word is derived from greek 'eu' meaning good and 'thanatos' meaning death. So the question would be something like "What does it take to have a good death?"
Terms like 'Good' and 'Bad' are always causing discussions, as they imply the existence of some some higher instance that is able to set (and enforce) absolute standards. Life (and hence the quality of life) is a highly subjective thing. No one can say "My life is better than yours" as there is no objective scale for what's 'good'. The same restictions apply for death. What is a good death? We cannot do a field research going out and interviewing those who died just to find out how they have experienced their death. So I would say we just don't know ...
Jeremy
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Suffering
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