Issues of Human Life and Death (AQA A-Level Religious Studies): Revision Notes

Issues of human life and death

This topic examines how three ethical theories (natural moral law, situation ethics, and virtue ethics) apply to four key issues concerning human life and death. Each issue raises important moral questions about the value of human life, personal autonomy, and societal responsibility.

The four issues to study

Issue 1: Embryo research, cloning, and 'designer' babies

Embryo research and cloning

Key definitions:

• Embryo: The earliest stage of human development up to the beginning of the third month of pregnancy. After this point, it becomes a foetus.
• Embryonic stem cells: Cells from which all 200+ types of tissue in the human body originate.
• Cloning: A process by which scientists create biological duplicates of an organism.
• Therapeutic cloning: Creating an embryonic clone of a patient to harvest stem cells for medical treatment.

The facts:

• Scientists extract embryonic stem cells from human embryos, mainly from those left over from IVF (in vitro fertilisation).
• Human embryo research is necessary because animal embryos are not sufficiently compatible with humans.
• The aim is to find cures for diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
• UK law permits experimentation on human embryos up to the fourteenth day, based on the view that this is when individual personhood begins.
• Therapeutic cloning produces embryonic clones of patients. The clone is destroyed to harvest stem cells, which are less likely to be rejected by the patient's immune system.
• This technology has potential to cure diabetes, stroke, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and heart failure.

'Designer' babies

Key definition:

• Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD): The process of genetic selection of embryos created through IVF.

The facts:

• Designer babies result from editing DNA cells or embryos.
• An embryo is created by IVF. Within five days, a single cell is removed and genetically tested.
• Parents can then decide whether to implant the embryo or destroy it.
• PGD allows doctors to check for conditions like Down's syndrome and cystic fibrosis.
• This technology can be used to select a child's sex, treat a sick sibling, and potentially engineer intelligence and appearance.

Natural moral law approach

Embryo research and cloning:

• Aquinas' natural moral law rejects both practices because they abandon normal procreation through loving sexual relationships.
• They fail to worship God, who is the creator of life.
• They violate the primary precept of living in an ordered society, as 'scientific' reproduction could break down marriage relationships.
• The Catholic Church rejects these procedures for similar reasons.

Key arguments:

• The genetic blueprint of a human exists from conception, so biologically, a human becomes an individual person at that point.
• The fourteen-day rule for experimentation can be seen as breaking the commandment not to murder.
• Stem cell research and therapeutic cloning do not pass the law of double effect because they involve doing a bad act (destroying an embryo) to achieve a good result (curing disease).

'Designer' babies:

• Human life is created imago Dei (in the image of God) according to Genesis 1:26-27, so human reproduction should not be tampered with.
• Designing babies so that humanity eventually becomes trans-human goes against God's intentions - the 'image' of God would no longer be seen in human form.
• Creating designer babies violates the primary precept of living in an ordered society, as it would increase the gap between rich and poor.

Situation ethics approach

Fletcher's situation ethics is not opposed in principle to any of these procedures. Key points:

• Humans are makers, selectors, and designers. With adequate controls, there is no reason why humans should not be redesigned to eliminate disease and improve the species.
• Fletcher suggests that cloning humans might be justifiable in certain situations, such as creating people genetically constituted to survive in extreme environments or to avoid sex-linked genetic diseases.
• Fletcher acknowledges that these developments will "destroy to some extent our traditional grounds for ethical beliefs."
• Love for persons is key. Fletcher directs love towards actual persons who will benefit from these procedures rather than towards embryos or clones.
• For Fletcher, the good for 'actual persons' is more important than the good for 'potential persons'.

Virtue ethics approach

Key virtue: Compassion

• In modern contexts, compassion is the key virtue for medical ethics.
• Like situation ethics, compassion is likely to focus on people whose wellbeing is destroyed by disease rather than on embryos in a petri dish.

Challenges for virtue ethics:

The theory is not well equipped to handle some questions in this area:

• How can we determine the character traits and dispositions of designer babies?
• Trans-humans might be bred for specific traits, such as excessive aggression in soldiers, which wouldn't match Aristotle's understanding of the mean.
• Physical and mental modification of humans is probably inevitable. Can there be a recognisable set of virtues across the huge range of human types that might appear?

Short-term perspective:

• Stem cell research and therapeutic cloning offer opportunities to increase human wellbeing.
• They could develop virtues of courage and vision through removal of diseases.
• Controlling unnecessary suffering is right.
• Failing to use PGD where it could prevent suffering makes parents, medics, and society responsible for subsequent suffering.

Issue 2: Abortion

Definition: Abortion is the ending of a pregnancy by removing the foetus or embryo before it can survive outside the uterus.

Natural moral law approach

Aquinas' position:

• Aquinas held that a human person with a rational soul is present around 60-80 days after conception.
• From the Summa Theologica: "He that strikes a woman with child does something unlawful: wherefore if there results the death either of the woman or of the animated fetus, he will not be excused from homicide."
• This means whoever causes the death of a foetus with a rational soul is guilty of homicide/murder.
• Note: Aquinas does not claim that abortion before the rational soul is present is justified.

Catholic Church position:

The Church forbids abortion at any stage and for any reason except indirectly through the principle of double effect.

Support from Sanctity of Life Principle:

• Based on Genesis 1:26-27, human life is sacred because it is created in God's image.

Situation ethics approach

Fletcher's approach to abortion is entirely situational. Several examples illustrate this:

Key principles:

• Fletcher's agapeic calculus is always situational.
• It puts people before rules.
• It assesses foreseeable consequences.
• These factors may mean situation ethics is well-positioned to make judgements about abortion.

Virtue ethics approach

Aristotle's position:

• In Politics, Aristotle says if parents have too many children, abortion should occur "before sense and life have begun."
• He seems to take a similar approach to the fourteen-day rule - better to abort 'potential' babies rather than 'actual' babies.
• Abortion is a matter for the rules of the city state.

Rosalind Hursthouse's modern approach:

Hursthouse suggests abortion has little to do with rules or rights:

• Acting within your rights doesn't mean you're acting virtuously - you might be acting callously or selfishly.
• We don't know enough about biological facts to be sure of a foetus's status.
• Abortion is not like deciding whether to have a tooth out - it's a supremely important decision about ending a life.

The virtuous woman:

Hursthouse states: "The virtuous woman has such character traits as strength, independence, resoluteness, decisiveness, self-confidence, responsibility, serious mindedness, and self-determination."

• These virtues should govern whether abortion takes place, depending on the situation.

Men's responsibilities:

• Men and boys can manifest self-centredness, callousness, and light-mindedness about life and parenthood.
• They can be self-centred or courageous about possible disability in offspring.
• They need to reflect on their sexual activity and take responsibility for their actions regarding fatherhood.

Issue 3: Voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide

Legal status:

• Both are illegal in the UK.
• From 2002, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide became legal in Holland.

Note: You only need to study voluntary euthanasia, not involuntary or non-voluntary euthanasia. Discuss these issues from the perspectives of natural moral law, situation ethics, and virtue ethics.

Voluntary euthanasia

Definition and key features:

• 'Euthanasia' comes from Greek words meaning 'good death'.
• To euthanise means to induce a gentle and easy death to end suffering.
• The request comes because pain is unbearable and the condition is terminal (or at least life-threatening).
• The patient refuses to continue intrusive medical treatment that can be as unbearable as the condition itself.
• Euthanasia is a deliberate termination or shortening of life, usually by a doctor.
• Voluntary euthanasia is where someone mentally stable requests their own death.
• The person is usually unable to die without help from a doctor/physician.

Assisted suicide

Key features:

• The person is usually given the means/medicine to kill themselves.
• The patient asks for the medicine.
• The medicine is usually a lethal drug administered as a drink provided by a doctor, though sometimes by a close relative.
• Once provided, it can be used at a time of the patient's choosing.
• The patient's condition may be similar to voluntary euthanasia, including mental competency, though sometimes the condition might not be life-threatening.

Ethical issues:

• As with voluntary euthanasia, the right to die.
• Whether those who assist are guilty of murder.

Natural moral law approach

Aquinas' rejection:

From the Summa Theologica: "The passage from this life to another and happier one is subject not to man's free-will but to the power of God. Hence it is not lawful for man to take his own life that he may pass to a happier life, nor that he may escape any unhappiness whatsoever of the present life, because the ultimate and most fearsome evil of this life is death... Therefore to bring death upon oneself in order to escape the other afflictions of this life, is to adopt a greater evil in order to avoid a lesser."

Natural moral law position:

• Neither voluntary euthanasia nor assisted suicide can be justified.
• They reject the primary precepts of preserving life and worshipping God (since life is God's gift).
• They reject the precept of living in an ordered society.
• Many governments fear that legalising these practices might open the door to compulsory euthanasia.

Catholic Church position:

• The 1980 Declaration on Euthanasia reinforces Aquinas' judgements.
• Euthanasia and assisted suicide ignore the value of suffering for salvation (as seen in Christ's suffering on the cross).
• However, the Church allows dying to proceed without extraordinary or disproportionate medical intervention.
• As Arthur Hugh Clough wrote: "Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive / Officiously to keep alive..."

Sanctity and dignity of life:

• Most Christians refer to the Sanctity of Life Principle when arguing against these practices.
• Some also refer to the 'dignity of life'.

Situation ethics approach

Physician-assisted suicide (PAS):

• Where legal, a doctor provides the means to commit suicide.
• Drugs are usually self-administered so the act is the patient's own decision.

Fletcher's view from Morals and Medicine (1954):

• What purposes justify loss of life? Relief from demoralising pain where there's no further possibility of serving others is sufficient.
• We should believe in the sacredness of personality, but not in mere existence measured by length of time.
• "To prolong life uselessly, while the personal qualities of freedom, knowledge, self-possession and control, and responsibility are sacrificed is to attack the moral status of a person."
• Fletcher admits there are risks in the decisions of agape.

Virtue ethics approach

Aristotle's potential view:

• If a person cannot achieve eudaimonia, further living would be pointless.
• Voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide might be the courageous option.
• Alternatively, enduring pain might be equally courageous, depending on disposition and occupation.

Issue 4: Capital punishment

Definition: State-sanctioned killing, either on the basis of retribution or deterrence.

Natural moral law approach

Aquinas' position from Summa Theologica:

"Now it is lawful for any private individual to kill a wild beast, especially if it be harmful. Therefore for the same reason, it is lawful for any private individual to kill a man who has sinned.

... It is lawful to kill an evildoer in so far as it is directed to the welfare of the whole community, so that it belongs to him alone who has charge of the community's welfare. Thus it belongs to a physician to cut off a decayed limb, when he has been entrusted with the care of the health of the whole body. Now the care of the common good is entrusted to persons of rank having public authority: wherefore they alone, and not private individuals, can lawfully put evildoers to death."

Application to Angel Diaz:

• Aquinas would likely argue that, as it's lawful to kill a harmful wild beast, it would be right to execute Diaz because his actions threatened society.
• Diaz's guilt would require execution as just punishment (retribution) serving as a deterrent.

Catholic Church position:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (Article 2267) states:

• Traditional Church teaching doesn't exclude recourse to the death penalty if it's the only way to effectively defend human lives against an unjust aggressor.
• However, if non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety, authority will limit itself to such means.
• These are more in keeping with the common good and human dignity.
• Today, cases where execution is absolutely necessary are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

Biblical support:

• Some natural moral law theorists refer to the law of 'talion' (retribution).
• Genesis 9:6: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed."

Situation ethics approach

Key principle: Situation ethics has no set view on capital punishment. Response to cases like Angel Diaz would be assessed situationally in terms of how an average individual would interpret the demands of love.

Variability in responses:

It would be false to claim situation ethicists would automatically follow one course of action.

• Some might disagree about whether Jesus was a pacifist, affecting their view of capital punishment.
• Some might have different ideas about whether capital punishment brutalises society.
• Some might disagree about punishment aims:
  • Those accepting retribution and deterrence might demand capital punishment
  • Those preferring reformation might recommend imprisonment

Fletcher's perspective:

• There are no rules compelling one response or another.
• You must decide in light of your views on what love demands in the situation.
• Tools for decision-making are always the same: basic presuppositions and principles of Christian action.
• We are free to decide, and we cannot escape freedom or avoid decision.

Virtue ethics approach

General principle: Virtue ethics is no more exact than situation ethics for making decisions about capital punishment. This applies both to Aristotle's time and the modern era.

Aristotle's context:

• Capital punishment is not explicitly discussed by Aristotle.
• It was used in Athenian society for various crimes.
• Aristotle presumably assumed its use was normal in Greek city states.
• By Socrates' time, execution by poison was one method (Socrates drank poison hemlock for 'impiety' and corrupting Athens' youth).

Justice and capital punishment:

• Capital punishment concerns justice, a virtue with no excess and no deficiency according to Aristotle.
• Justice is altruistic - about the good of others and an end in itself.
• Justice requires people to be brave, considerate, temperate, courageous, and magnanimous.
• As Aristotle says in Nicomachean Ethics: "... every virtue is summed up" in justice.

Voluntary actions and responsibility:

• We are responsible for actions we intend.
• If someone murders through vicious reasons (spite, malevolence, hatred, envy, jealousy, anger, lust), this is simply a matter for justice.
• A person of practical wisdom behaves justly by obeying the law and being seen to obey it.
• For someone who voluntarily and viciously disobeys the law by murder, justice requires restoration in kind - capital punishment.
• This is not about choosing between retribution/deterrence and reformation.

Remember!