According to the story Mr. Lopez is in what we may call “Vegetative condition”, that is, in the
view of human beings he is rather useless to the society. Mrs. Lopez’s husband is suffering from
dementia which makes his chances of coming back to a healthy life almost to zero. He is laid on
a hospital bed and helplessly usually fed using feeding tube, he loves food but he cannot eat
since taking food may block his breathing system when swallowing and kill him. Mr. Lopez
undergoes tremendous surgeries, always taking medication pills, physical therapy thus always
yells in pain. Deductively we can claim that Mr. Lopez is undergoing a lot of physical and
psychological pain even though he can afford a smile. At the same time, the hospital bill is
escalating every day and even though the family will be spared and the attendants gain, the tax
payers including the patients will have to cover the bill.
While analyzing such a situation using Kantian moral theory, we may look at several factors.
First, the patient is in a helpless, costly and painful situation and cannot recover even though he
affords a smile and also fears death. Secondly, the family is undergoing tremendous
psychological torture seeing their beloved one undergo such kind of suffering and with zero hope
of him coming back to live happily with them. With reference to Emmanuel Kant’s categorical
imperative, Mr. Lopez should only shorten his life through an act of suicide if when living his
life brings more of evil than satisfaction. With this it implies that a good life is where more of
pleasure than pain is realized or rather. In this case Mr. Lopez’s suffering is considered to cause
pain and evil while his smile on the face when he thinks of his beloved family is considered to be
pleasure and thus good. We are told that Mr. Lopez fears death meaning that he is not willing to
dies but his son is claiming to stop him from all the sufferings caused by the physical therapy,
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continuous taking of pills, feeding using feed tubes and surgeries which are probably what is still
keeping the man alive. If they were to be stopped, the man would dies.
There are three parties involved in this case, that is, the doctor, the family members and the
victim. A decision cannot be made using the reasons given by one party thus if mercy killing was
to be conducted the doctor, family members and the victim have to come to a consensus. This is
when the victim pleads for mercy killing through anesthesia so as to be relieved off pain and
meaningless suffering. Contrary, there may be differences when the victim is not willing to die
but the family members sees it as the only option and the doctor remains calm. Here we can see
Mr. Lopez being afraid of death and at times smiling meaning that he is not willing to die thus it
will not be right to kill him because by doing so will be to going against his will not to die.
According to the second Kantian principle people should act in the maxim where every one
would wish that the action becomes a universal law (Emmanuel Kant, 1989). That is, while
human beings are acting, they should not do it for hypothetical reasons but out of necessity
where people act out duty. In this respect Mrs. Lopez should consider the fact that while making
this prime decision of whether to assist her husband to die or not, she should remember that she
is being given a position of a universal legislator where the decision should be driven by
necessity and not otherwise.
While analyzing the two Kant’s maxims raised, off-course we realize a contradiction while
referring with this situation. The first maxim talks of shortening the victims life it pain realized is
more that pleasure gained and when we look at Mr. Lopez’s situation as described we realize he
is undergoing immense physical and psychological torture which beats the good or pleasurable
moments he gets thus the cost-benefit analysis claims that he should allow be helped to commit
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suicide. The other maxim places Mrs. Lopez and the doctors at the legislator’s position where
they are supposed to act only on that maxim that you can at the same time will that it becomes a
universal law. That is, whatever Mrs. decides to do to her husband should also apply to her if the
same situation surrounds her in the future. If she would wish to be given anesthesia in her case
then it would logically follow that making a decision to assist her vegetative state husband to
dies and be relieved off meaningless pain and suffering would be out of necessity thus will not
contradict Kant’s second maxim.
According to Kant’s deontological theory, human being are not supposed to be used as means to
an end but be taken as ends in themselves and in this respect if Mr. Lopez was going to be helped
to commit suicide so as to reduce the hospital bill sounds as treating him as a means to an end
(Feldman Fred, 1978). There is no human being with capability of taking another one’s life even
if the victim wills to do so out of suffering thus nothing could justify mercy killing as it should
only be left to nature. Think of a thief tied in a tire ready to be burned for stealing; what do you
think? The person will be consumed by petrol and fire flames matter of minutes and my point is
this person will under serious pain and suffering while people are laughing at him with mercy
while another one can afford to make tax payers cover his hospital bills at a vegetative condition
which is just obvious of not recovering. If we can afford loosing an active thieve who could have
just been taken to a rehab and be turned into a non trivial individual in the society, what justifies
that assisting such a useless human being laying helplessly on a hospital bed waiting for a natural
to be wrong?
Looking at the issue from another angle, if the patient is allowed to commit suicide it will be
acting against the natural laws binding the necessity to live. Some ethicists have posited that
committing suicide is a cowardice action and at the same time a person helping a victim to.
A Rope signifying suicide.
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commit suicide will be considered as evil. Thus while looking at this issue from this perspective
we realize that even though pain overweighs pleasure for victim making evil to dominate thus
necessary to commit suicide, the action itself becomes evil by itself thereby contradicting the
good intentions of killing the victim.
If the Kant’s imperatives were applicable, there would be no contradiction at all making one
choice to overweigh the other by necessity. I think the moral philosophy proposed by Kant opens
a room for benefits of doubt which is considered a prime crime in moral philosophy. Another
person in Mrs. Lopez’s position would reason out that if we were to let nature do its will in
respect to Mr. Lopez death then there would no meaningful need to be in the hospital for person
with a terminal diseases and at a critical stage in the first place because the person is not being
kept alive by nature but may be by technologically enhanced life support machines, boosting
drug and the physical therapy. That if the man was denied the enhancements he would
automatically die which too places the situation into a critical challenge of those arguing against
mercy being in a severe mistake of trying to work against the will of nature which logically
shows that the person’s life is not useful anymore justifying a proper reason for the person to die.
The work of the doctor according to the professional ethics code of conduct should be to save as
many lives as possible but in this situation it is evident that the doctor’s presence is only valuable
in supporting the person to live longer suffering but not to make him any better thus his or her
services are no longer important.
In conclusion I think Mrs. Lopez and the other members of the family should reach into a
consensus of taking their beloved one home to undergo a peaceful, cheap, normal and natural
death instead of looking for a solution which will never be found.
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References
Book
1. Kant, Immanuel, (1989) Ethics and Social Concern, ed. Anthony Serafini, Good Will,
Duty, and the Categorical Imperative, New York: Paragon House Publishers.
2. Feldman, Fred, (1978) “Kantian Ethics” from his Introductory Ethics New York:
Prentice-Hall.