Suffering in the Context of Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Transcending Job through Wojtyla's Anthropology
The debate over euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (EPAS) continues to ignore the philosophical anthropology on which certain critical claims rest. In this paper, I offer several anthropologically based arguments against one prominent justification for EPAS: the Argument from the Evil of Suff...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2010
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| In: |
Christian bioethics
Year: 2010, Volume: 16, Issue: 3, Pages: 257-273 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Electronic
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| Summary: | The debate over euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (EPAS) continues to ignore the philosophical anthropology on which certain critical claims rest. In this paper, I offer several anthropologically based arguments against one prominent justification for EPAS: the Argument from the Evil of Suffering. I demonstrate that the argument is, at its core, a utilitarian one, and that a sound rebuttal can be found by examining Karol Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II's view of suffering as a transformative experience for the human person. Wojtyla both rejects the secular bioethics vision of meaningless, quantifiable suffering, but also offers to take Christian bioethics far beyond the story of Job and into the realm of phenomenological change. By focusing on participation of the suffering sick in community with others, and rejecting alienation, Christians can arrive at a more complete conception of suffering that embraces the complementarities of philosophy and theology. |
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| ISSN: | 1744-4195 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Christian bioethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/cb/cbq023 |