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Personhood and Euthanasia in African Philosophy

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An African Ethics of Personhood and Bioethics

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Abstract

In this chapter, Molefe reflects on the bioethical question of euthanasia in light of the African personhood-based view of dignity. He structures the chapter as follows. In the first section, he begins by defining crucial terms and proceeds to contextualise the discussion in light of the South African legal literature on the question of euthanasia. In the second section, Molefe propounds an account of a good death in the light of personhood by considering the normative idea of an elder in African cultures. In the final section, Molefe rehearses the view of dignity associated with personhood and then applies it to the question of euthanasia, where he ultimately argues that it is permissible.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I am aware that Abrams (1978) argues convincingly that there is a distinction between the passive and active euthanasia, at least when one considers positive cases that are truly analogous with euthanasia, unlike the negative ones discussed by Rachels (1975) and Thomson (1976). I find this comment to endorse the kind of approach I take in this chapter regarding euthanasia—“Therefore, there does seem to be moral significance to the distinction between active and passive euthanasia. In addition, once death is regarded as a desirable result, the agent should choose that course of behavior (i.e. active euthanasia) in which he will most effectively and with the least suffering cause the positive consequence, and should accept and welcome responsibility for the ‘better’ end” (1978: 263). The point to be taken away from this comment is that, if we come to the position that euthanasia is a positive thing for the patient, then the patient should choose the option, either passive or active, relative to the one that is the best for the patient in terms of securing relief speedily.

  2. 2.

    https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf.

  3. 3.

    There is still space for coping with disease with the courage and composure particularly if it is remediable.

  4. 4.

    In their book, Doris Schroeder and Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr (2017) dedicated to the idea of dignity comment about the type of dignity they capture in terms of comportment. They call forth as an example of a talented writer that stopped writing when his daughter drowned and passed away after he wrote a poem that spoke about a person drowning. They make the following comment about this author:

    According to Paul Auster, those who knew the French author who had lost his daughter looked upon him with awe. This awe stemmed from admiration of his strength to deal with suffering in a dignified manner: to stick steadfastly to his belief that he should no longer write, while carrying his burden with poise. (Ibid.: 14)

    I think part of being a person or moral maturity involves the strength to deal with suffering in a dignified manner. The quality of one’s humanity is also expressed through the ability to cope with suffering and burdens of life in a poise. This is the case precisely because some suffering offers us an opportunity to strengthen one’s character and it can also serve as opportunity to test the quality of our humanity. We should be suspicious of the strength of character of an individual that flinches and complains over any minor vexations or even major problems in life.

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  1. University of Fort Hare, East London, South Africa

    Motsamai Molefe

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Molefe, M. (2020). Personhood and Euthanasia in African Philosophy. In: An African Ethics of Personhood and Bioethics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46519-3_4

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