Physician-Assisted Suicide: The Kantian View

Thanks to modern developments in medical technology, people in advanced countries today live longer and stay healthy until they are relatively older. The technology, however, also allows some people to hasten their death and make it relatively pain-free. As a result, many patients suffering from unbearable pain of certain incurable illnesses from time to time ask their physicians to help them commit suicide. Any physician who is asked to do this is under an ethical dilemma. On the one hand, the physician is asked to help relieve one from pain and suffering. On the other hand, by helping a patient commit suicide the physician is assisting someone to commit murder even if it is the case of self-murder. This ethical case known as Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) is a controversial topic in the United States and elsewhere. Since it is an ethical issue, one way of...
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