On Friday MPs vote in the Commons on the Assisted Dying Bill. The bill was introduced by Katy Leadbeater. She has said: “I believe we should have the right to see out our days surrounded by those we love and care for, knowing that when we are gone they can remember us as we would like to be remembered.”
Notice the language of rights.
Rights is a complicated language. The scholars – John Finnis, for instance – say that rights are, and I paraphrase of course, fragments of right. Right is the opposite of wrong. Right is systematic when established: it is established in law. Hegel wrote a philosophy of right. But rights are not like right. Rights are fragments, crumbs, bits: and, unlike right, which is no-one’s, rights are mine or yours. They are property. They belong to us. It is not right to kill anyone, but, oddly, it might be my right to be killed.
Now, it is common to say, ‘No rights without responsibilities’, but, in fact, the true correlative of a right is a duty. And, in fact, it is of some significance that almost every major thinker between Cicero, let’s say, and Pufendorf, when writing about law and order, explained it in terms of duties, and certainly not in terms of rights. Cicero wrote De Officiis: where ‘an office’ is, in Latin, literally, ‘a duty’ (so that what we call ‘an office’ now is the space in which we are appointed to do our duty). Pufendorf, 17 centuries later, wrote De Officio Hominis et Civis, “on the duties of man and citizen”. Duties, not rights. But then the inversion came. It was only a century after Pufendorf that Thomas Paine wrote Rights of Man. And in the last two centuries we have followed Paine, and talked about rights, not duties.
What is a right? Well, it is a credit. If you have rights, you are in credit.
Why do I say this? Well, because a duty is a debt. A duty is what is due someone, what is owed to them.
For centuries, then, we always thought of order in terms of what we, the people, owed that order. Then we changed our minds at the time of the American and French Revolutions and thought about order in terms of what we, the people, are owed by the order. Entitled little citizens, we are. Gimme.
Now, what if we were to think about ‘assisted dying’ in terms of duties rather than in terms of rights?
Is there a duty to die? Well, not really.
But is there a right to die? No.
Death is an inevitability. It is a null act, from the point of view of the rights or duties of the person undergoing it.
Yet there seems to be a duty not to let anyone die unnecessarily. There might be a duty to preserve life. We owe this to others, to ourselves.
The entire abortion debate, in theory at least, seems to me to go wholly wrong because it is conjugated in terms of rights, not duties. Do I have a right to bodily autonomy? But of course! But, a darker question, do I have a duty to defend the life of a child? (Its ‘bodily autonomy’?) Probably, yes. Rights: selfish, demoralising. Useful, no doubt. But a bit irresponsible, n’est-ce pas? Abortion = not taking responsibility. Yes, we think about it in terms of rights, make it about entitlement, serve the self, and that’s it: Roy Jenkins can have his reform. However, now let us think about it in terms of duty. What must I do? Probably not kill an unborn child.
As I say, I only reflect on this theoretically. Practice is, of course, vexed. Our culture has been almost entirely abortive and contraceptive since the 1960s.
Perhaps, nonetheless, on the same grounds, we have a duty not to agree to ‘euthanasia’ or ‘assisted dying’ or any other euphemistic way of describing killing.
This is just a thought. Using the language of ‘rights’ makes it seem pleasant, kind, etc. Read Leadbeater again: “I believe we should have the right to see out our days surrounded by those we love and care for, knowing that when we are gone they can remember us as we would like to be remembered.” Nice. But how will we be remembered? Without dignity, instead going out with Dignitas. Dying is degrading, it seems (we don’t like to be seen suffering, and they don’t like to see us suffering), and so we shall ask for the pillow to be lowered, or the switch to be flicked, gently. But if we use the language of ‘duty’, then the entire subject seems to take on a different aspect. Perhaps MPs have a duty to reject the bill. Perhaps they shouldn’t have the right to pass it.
And it is always possible that there is dignity in suffering. Take that dignity away, as we seem to be doing, and then we might as well be gently good-nighted by a doctor, as soon as it is less troublesome, to him, us, or those we love, than any other remedy.
P.S. I wrote the name “John Finnis” above because I remembered he had written very interestingly about rights in 1980 or so: but then thought I’d better check to see if he has written anything about euthanasia. Finnis is an influential Oxford philosopher. And he has, in fact, written on euthanasia: at least one article, and a few book chapters. So I take a look. Most accessibly, he spoke on the subject to the House of Lords in 2005. He offered two arguments. One was moral: he thought that assisted dying was wrong. But he didn’t emphasise this, because he did not expect everyone to agree with it. The argument he emphasised was that the established law preventing euthanasia was clear, and the proposed law to enact euthanasia was unclear. A law preventing euthanasia avoids all hard cases, because it establishes the principle that no one may kill a patient or help them kill themselves, in any circumstance. He said there was a clear line. But he observed that any sanction of euthanasia would introduce an unclear line. And this in turn would make it inevitable that there would be strictly illegal murders, as doctors would be asked by people who claimed to be sufferingly ‘unbearably’ to be killed, or would be asked by those claiming a ‘right’ to be killed. Finnis said, in effect, if euthanasia is a right then suffering is irrelevant (I have a right to die, no matter what), and if euthanasia is about suffering, then autonomy is irrelevant (why worry if the patient is compos mentis if he is in pain?)
It seems to me that the arguments against assisted dying – both moral and consequential – are so strong that the argument for can only seem to make sense if one allows one’s emotions to be played on by extremely particular stories or cases. As this seems to be the case, it is anyone’s guess what the result will be.
But it certainly seems possible to me that, if it is passed, the Assisted Dying Bill will be the ‘high’ point of rights language.
Rights, originally taken to be a means of secular salvation, will finally have been inverted and made the means of secular damnation.
Dr. James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.
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What problem is this “warming” meant to cause?
The kind of ‘warming’ that resolves when you throw money at it.
The straight answer is, of course, that some people have read in the news that some other people in places like India have died of being too warm – and they therefore think we should all do something about it.
Every country that publishes short term (weekly) mortality data shows that cooler/colder seasons coincide with increased mortality and vice versa. I wouldn’t claim nobody ever died of being too warm but the numbers are far outweighed by the count of deaths from being too cold.
India does not produce reliable weekly mortality stats. If they did I expect that cooler seasons would see higher mortality than hotter seasons. They are not well enough developed; they have only just cracked giving almost all their citizens electric power for lighting and phones – let alone enough power to run fridges to keep food safe to eat and cookers to cook it properly (though they have got a space industry).
What the policies against warming seek to achieve is incompatible with many countries’ drive to develop further. At best they’re misguided. At worst, evil.
Indeed; thanks.
I thought the bullshit reasons were to do with coastal areas being submerged by the oceans, maybe certain areas getting less rain than they used to, others more, not being able to grow what you used to grow – the kind of changes that have always happened, to which humans (and the living things that came before us) have had to adapt.
I don’t think they grow much in the way of food in Delhi. The urban heat island effect will be something fierce though. Something like 34m people in the metropolitan area:
Source
No wonder Delhi’s power consumption has hit an all-time high.
Indeed
Perhaps rather than destroying our economy they could spread out a bit more or build homes that manage temperature more efficiently
When I visited Sri Lanka in 2015. in the middle of nowhere, I was amazed that this small rural hut had a TV. They had hydroelectric Dam in the area.
Hydro seems like a smart option – always on. Don’t know what the lifespan is though and whether you get your money back over the lifespan, nor what the environmental impact is.
Most hydro installations – small or large – are custom built, and involve significant civil engineering works. So they are expensive to build. When there were subsidies for wind and solar, which hydro also received, hydro could be a successful investment, albeit with a breakeven p/kWh somewhere in the high 20’s and upwards [of which the subsidy typically provided 75%]. Hydro could still be successful now – the technology is very mature – but with electricity prices going up and down like a whore’s drawers on Navy Day, no-one will risk the capital. Certainly, no user of electricity will commit to pay >35p/kWh for 20 years when, in the last year [and despite the MSM rubbish about Ukraine and whatever latest crisis the MSM are promoting] there have been times when it has almost been impossible to give electricity away in the UK
Norway, who use a lot of hydro, seems to have reasonably low wholesale electricity prices but that might not reflect recouping the initial investment cost. It may depend on geography.
Slightly unique case – huge mountains, lots of rain, very old established infrastructure [payback achieved many years ago], low population/demand. Norway has everything!
And I believe a large sovereign wealth fund from oil & gas which they have not frittered away, yet….
The environmental impact can be very damaging if too many dams are built on one river. The Mekong is a case in point.
Maybe but in actual fact there is nothing at all unusual about current temperature or climate. —–Climate is just the excuse for the policies that seek to control the worlds wealth and resources amidst concern about population growth. ——-There is this Malthusian type of fear that there are too many people in the world using up a finite fossil fuel resource in the ground, and the western world who have used up mor than their fair share of that are to stop doing that first and use wind and sun instead. This ofcourse involves a huge lowering of living standards for the wealthy western populations, and therefore a massive propaganda exercise is required by politicians and their supporting media to convince us all there is a “climate emergency” where real world data indicate there is NONE.
The problem of “the little people” having a living standard which the self-selecting “Elite” thinks is too good for them.
Loved this – a tour de force!
The problem is the relentless nature of the propaganda that the planet is warming and we’re all doomed. It comes from (nearly) all politicians, broadcast media, schools and colleges, big corporations, “luvvies” et al. Most people seem to have an unshakeable belief in this false “consensus”. How we open more peoples’ eyes – and quickly – is the challenge.
They must open their own eyes. And there are as many triggers as there are people on the planet. But I have come to see that using calm, reasoned argument is never one of those triggers.
It’s easier to fool someone than to convince them they’ve been fooled.
No man-made global warming, instead a man-made scientific wilderness. Faith and belief seemingly more important than empiricism and observation; egotism, self, and ‘my truth’ have become the mainstream. As I reflect on my life, I was one of those given hope by Wilson’s speech in the early 60s about harnessing the white heat of technology. What we did not see, did not realise, was that there was another group harnessing the dead hand of stupidity. During the 60s the philosophies of the followers of the Frankfurt School and individuals such as Gramsci and Derrida, were insidiously influencing the teacher training colleges and the humanities departments of our universities with the results that we see today. Yesterday’s attack on Stonehenge is just one graphic example of how far we have fallen.
A huge part of the problem is that there’s no political choice to be exercised on the issue. Climate change was decreed an important issue to be dealt with and End use of fire by humans! was decreed to be the solution to it by legal fiat. Hence, all activist astroturfers need to do is to collect money for lawfare actions from well-oiled international NGO and put them in front of the usual political judges to get another Fiat justicia, pereat mundus! verdict.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxwwzmn12g9o
The simple way to handle this problem (and quite possibly, the only way) would be to pass a bill of attainder against Tony Blair and decree everything ever done by any New Labour government against the law of the land, effective today at noon. Any attempt to continue any of these politics by anyone to be dealt with by forced shipment to the colonies. The UK has enough overseas territories left to keep thousands of loons busy with subsistence agriculture for the remainder of their lives.
‘Ere! What have the colonies ever done to you?
The people living on the Falklands probably wouldn’t be very happy about this and rightfully so. But that was figuratively spoken and supposed to mean It must be made absolutely clear that future attempts to waste trillions of pounds of other people’s money to try to do something that’s impossible in order to accomplish something that’s not going to matter will not be tolerated.
Insofar the UN was concerned, we’d still all be running around with face masks all day, would still all be doing regular proactive Sars-CoV2 PCR tests and would all line up for a new COVID shot every three months. What stopped them was a resolute We won’t be doing this! in January 2022. And the Global Boiling Project needs to be dealt with in the same way.
The Supreme Court here reversed the 2 lower courts decisions. What can one do when the judges on the Supreme Court go woke. Legatt who gave the main judgement educated at Eton, son of a rather old school Court of Appeal judge, barrister in top commercial chambers, seemed quite sensible when junior counsel in a case I was involved with.
The people that started all this in the Club Of Rome are all dead, but don’t assume the intentions have changed. Like with the Rockefellers’ their legacy is past down.
On the end of GB News last night Adam (think that’s his name) the Pub owner mentioned that the Planet warms in cycles, and Becky to his left said “do you deny climate change”. This stupidity is what we’re up against.
That’s not really stupidity. It’s thoughtlessness, ie, people repeating something which has been hammered into their brains through endless repetition.
But the entire Green charade isn’t about warming and it never has been. It is Eco Socialism pure and simple and here in the UK and all across the western world our parasite politicians (except Trump) are pandering to the UN Sustainable Development Agenda.
Sure, all the silly brainwashed activist groups run around throwing paint and soup at things because they have no clue about climate or energy and have swallowed the whole climate emergency propaganda down like a Herring Gull with your cheeseburger, but from the very start as the Club of Rome put it “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that famine, water shortages and global warming would fit the bill”
Since then the entire political class via the IPCC which was set up in 1988 have sought out and cherry picked everything that would seem to indicate a human influence on climate whist ignoring all of it that didn’t. It is “Official Science”, not “Science”.
The thing that powers Industrial Capitalism is cheap abundant energy, and in order to reshape the world away from the capitalist system the fossil fuels that power the world have to be removed. We see that in the pronouncements of the likes of Klaus Schwab when he talks about it being “our responsibility to bring about the collapse of Industrial Society”.
Just think about that for a second———THE COLLAPSE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY—WOW. ———–Wake up people. It isn’t about the climate——IT NEVER WAS. ——Global warming is “the enemy to unite us”
Totally agree. I first noticed it in early 2000’s as an obvious route to subvert capitalism.
Interesting how the MSM or even GBN will talk about all the policies, yet when George Galloway sparks a chilling prediction, that we would see war in six months with Labour, nobody is picking up the batten apart from Dewbs on GBN for five minutes. If a hot war is n the cards, they would need to reverse the green agenda sharpish!
Net Zero is impossible. Politicians know it is, which is why they had no debate and no discussion of cost. There was not even a vote. They just waved it through in 2019. —–So a policy that affects every aspect of our lives, our prosperity, our health and well being, our life span, our ability to heat and power our homes, what we can eat or drink, where we can and cannot travel etc etc has all been decided by a Political Class poisoned with contempt for the people who vote for them and they went ahead with this eco socialist fraud regardless of what any of us think. We are to have GREEN forced on us, our energy rationed by the smart meter, our gas central heating removed, our perfectly good cars scrapped, our travel in planes stopped, our food intake decided by the carbon emissions it produces and on and on and on but they didn’t even discuss it of vote on it————————-How are they getting away with this? Are the public insane?
I love the comment ‘buggallology’ and Swedish doom goblin. I will remember and use them. Thank you Chris
Yes, an unusually aggressive style: I like it. “Buggerallology” – difficult to spell!
“Only in Britain it seems are citizens prepared to elect a Government obsessed with self-inflicted poverty and deindustrialisation.”
——–
It’s currently impossible to elect a Government which doesn’t intend this. I suppose, in theory, if everyone abstained and refused to vote there would not be a Government but in practice, if even one person voted for one of the Westminster Uni-Party candidates that person would “win.”
But as today’s Supreme Court judgement demonstrated, Blair/Brown’s politicised Big State will over-rule any policy which doesn’t conform to the Globalists’ Agenda and there isn’t a hope in hell of the Not-a-Conservative-Party doing anything about it ….. which is why it’s going to be obliterated on 4 July. It has made itself obsolete.
The best we can currently hope for is that Trump wins and stops the nonsense in the USA. The far less passive populations in continental Europe kick off big-time and the EU is forced to back-track. And the British people, when the Net Zero pain really starts, demonstrate their ability for passive resistance and dig their heels in.
Great article. You are doing such a good job, Chris, in promoting real science to counter the political science we are insulted with everywhere else.
Our half asleep, naive, gullible, brainwashed public suck up this group think climate crisis garbage and still don’t understand that this is not about saving the planet; it’s about money and control.
Carbon credits and bird flu coming down the tracks.
Another excellent article by the excellent Chris Morrison just a pity so few people are taking his arguments on board. “And some seed fell on stony ground” springs to mind except in this case it’s probably “most”.
Great to see some proper scientists wading in.
I have often marvelled at the way the world balances all its many aspects , and wonder if society’s ignorance will be compensated for by a demo of how serious things can really get if you push the envelope too far
Great article as usual Chris. I’m definitely adopting the phrase “with university degrees in buggerallology” by the way. Pure genius