Abstract
Death most clearly harms an individual when it is the demise of someone to whom the individual has some sort of emotional relationship, such as love, friendship, or respect. Not only will the loss justify mourning or grieving, but also the process of dying and the event of death can cause additional feelings and emotions. Assuming that these emotional reactions or mental states can be sufficiently controlled by the person who will and does experience them, then there can be morally right/bad and wrong/bad feelings and emotions within a given context. In what follows, I will consider some of the main emotions associated with death and dying, emphasizing guilt. Guilt can arise for a variety of reasons—some justified, whereas others are not; hence, it can serve as a model for determining when an emotional reaction is fitting when someone is dying or dies.
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Notes
- 1.
Other signs of approval when the Pilgrim acts as he should can be seen in different areas of the work, including the Simonists’ realm when, after the Pilgrim chastises Pope Nicholas, Virgil clasps the Pilgrim to his chest to climb back to the path. (Dante, Canto XIX, 124-6).
- 2.
Of course, a person should be merciful as a person, but is not obligated to act mercifully in any specific situation. This life narrative obligation shows that a person’s life can have different properties than the events and actions making up that life.
- 3.
Kant might argue that some have lost their human dignity, and therefore, deserve no respect.
- 4.
There is some debate as to whether Hitler was responsible for his actions. There are individuals who claim that no mentally competent person could perpetrate such heinous activities; thus, Hitler was mentally insane and, therefore, a moral subject.
- 5.
- 6.
The news media assisted this alteration in what people require in mourning by creating an expectation that everyone needed to be very public in their feelings. The media did this by primarily showing only those engaged in extravagant mourning and attacking anyone who did not desire to publicly demonstrate their private feelings, such as the United Kingdom’s royal family.
- 7.
Morris Wessel argues that children should be part of the process, including going to the funeral, so that they can be part of the mourning community (Wessel 1996, 78).
- 8.
Of course, there will be many who have no guilty feeling at all.
- 9.
Hebert Morris claims that “if individuals sincerely believe themselves guilty, good reasons exist for accepting the belief.” (Morris 1987, 222). Moreover, this guilt is appropriate if “we are disposed to think the feeling natural, the object cited as occasioning it an acceptable one, and if there is no strong pull to the view the feeling is displaced, there is good reason to regard it as appropriate, [and there is the] existence of widespread respect for attitudes underlying the feeling”. (Morris 1987, 224–5).
- 10.
This argument has interesting connections to proxies making end of life decisions for others, especially for their family members.
- 11.
Even if the sacrifice had been a goat, indifference to its value as a living animal would also have been wrong.
- 12.
Since it poses a problem for both Nussbaum and Greenspan, this problem will be developed in more detail in the section on Greenspan’s dilemmas of exhaustive prohibition .
- 13.
I assume that the other conditions of the doctrine remain the same:
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1.
The action itself must be morally good or indifferent.
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2.
The good effect cannot be caused by the bad effect, and the good effect must be directly caused by the action.
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3.
On balance, the good of the good effect must outweigh to an adequate degree the bad of the bad effect.
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1.
- 14.
Greenspan actually does so in “Moral Dilemmas and Guilt's” fourth note.
- 15.
This concept will receive far greater development in the next chapter.
- 16.
It might be the case that ordering one child to die is of equal moral value to allowing both to die. Perhaps, working within an evil system, like that of the Nazis, adds negative value to the saving of either child. The additional negative value is sufficient to make it impossible to decide which action is likely to be worse. It might also be the case that collaborating in such a system disrespects the intrinsic value of those involved. The guard is attempting to degrade Sophie by forcing her to make a choice, but Sophie can only be degraded by her choice to collaborate with the guard scheme.
The situation is similar to what happened to those who helped desegregate luncheon counters in the American South in the 1960s. Although having things poured on them and being verbally abused was intended by those doing it to disrespect and degrade the recipients of the treatment, the protestors’ human dignity and flourishing as individuals and persons were enhanced rather than harmed by how they responded to the intense provocations. Their refusal to be degraded by allowing themselves to be provoked showed their integrity to their principles of humanity and non-violence, whereas the provocateurs degraded themselves by the inhumanity they exhibited. If she respects herself, Sophie should refuse to choose, according to this line of reasoning. If this is true, then a hard choice remains.
- 17.
Carlo Felice argues that if a person has a duty to help others in dangerous situations or dire need, which requires that the actor keep informed to know when those situations arise, then the actor has a duty to keep informed, ceteris paribus (Felice 1990).
- 18.
The Doctrine of Double Effect might strike some as an ad hoc solution to a problem that need not exist. If we eliminate those absolute moral principles that inadequately consider a situation’s circumstances, then there is no need for the doctrine. Therefore, the principles will suffice on their own without adding a way to get around them because they are defective by default.
- 19.
This seems to be a very large part of Greenspan’s argument for practical guilt . (See Greenspan’s Practical Guilt, 111–5)
- 20.
I have claimed that remorse has an element of shame, which would make it much more self-oriented than allowed for in this passage.
- 21.
Sandy Bem spent five years helping her family become accustomed to her death from suicide. Bem had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and decided that she did not want a life in which the disease had progressed too far. Bem’s daughter, Emily, stated “It was just so obvious that this is about as good as it gets for a human exit…She was surrounded by everyone who loved her, they were telling her how and why they loved her. This is not a bad way to go.” (Spiegel 2014)
- 22.
Islam has long held these financial duties, as well as those that eliminate the person’s moral debts whilst improving who she is as a person (Muwahidi 1989).
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Cooley, D.R. (2015). How Should We Feel About Another’s Death?. In: Death’s Values and Obligations: A Pragmatic Framework. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 62. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7264-8_6
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