I for one am in full agreement with it, Keith, and would argue that when push comes to shove so are the majority of people. Consider assisted suicide, the right to which is supported by the vast majority of the population (and is being debated in Parliament on Friday, I learned this morning). This is the most direct example of people believing that death is preferable to a foreseen negative future of physical pain and emotional anguish. By far the greater bulk of people thus believe that there are, literally, fates worse than death. This bit:
If our future is found wanting (likely, to be wanting) [...] some of us, especially the more hedonic among us, may decide that no experience is better than to continue experiencing a life of consecutive and consistent disappointments, hardships, anguish and dread.
is quite right.
Yes I thought you might be, and I for one object to your willingness to accept and apparently encourage others or at least support others choice that might be to do away with themselves when going through a particularly dark part of their life.
Some people suffer terrible depression where they no longer want to live, but they do come through the black tunnel.
Once they have pulled through it, life becomes worth living again.
I suspect you would give them the wrong sort of support.
I think you rate as " dangerous "
Your attitude definately does.
I wouldn't want to put you near any depressed person.
You might be compassionate in your attitude to animals but your attitude to people is awful.
It's a difficult area - on the one hand, the concept of an individual having the freedom to control their own destiny includes, by definition, the giving them some sort of control over when and how they die, if they choose.
Informed consent becomes problematic when conditions like depression come in - on the one hand, regardless of the source of their depression, if their long-term prospect is for an unhappy life, what right do we have to compel them to continue it? On the other hand, someone under the 'influence' of a medical condition could be considered not to have the capacity to make a rational judgment. Does depression so influence someone's faculties that they can't make a rational judgment?
As someone with a condition that warrants a medical diagnosis but who considers himself to be perfectly capable of self-determination, I'm well aware that our understanding of psychology is in its infancy, and it's therefore a minefield when it comes to using that information to determine policy that will apply to everyone.
O.
