I'm an analogy person, so here's another analogy (I apologize for the length)...
Let's say every moment of my life was a rain drop and I had three buckets to store the water in: subpar, par and superpar. In the subpar bucket are the raindrops of every moment I felt severe pain, hopelessness, depression or injury. In the superpar bucket are the raindrops of every moment I felt affirmation, joy, love or triumph. In the par bucket are the raindrops of all the moments that don't belong in the other two buckets.
Now, I know it's true that I've got plenty of water in each of the three buckets. But at any given time, it's difficult for me to accurately distinguish how much water would be in each bucket because the moment of that discernment has its own place in one of the buckets. If that moment of discernment is a moment in the subpar bucket, it's difficult to see the levels of the other buckets from there. Similarly with either of the other two. Honestly, when I'm in the superpar bucket, I may be aware that there are other buckets, but damned if I can accurately tell you how full they'd be. When life is awesome, it's very difficult to remember the moments of real suffering with all their contours and emotional textures. And the same goes for suffering. When I'm in deep emotional pain, remembering the joyful moments of my life is like trying to decipher fine print through a rainy windshield. It's like a language I know I used to know, but can't for the life of me remember how to read or speak.
Every time I've been stuck in the subpar bucket, I think I'll never see the superpar bucket again.
Assisted suicide requires the suffering individual and the assistant to make a judgement about not only the level of each of the three buckets, but the future rainfall due to each of them. For the sufferer, this judgement usually comes from the perspective of the subpar bucket. But for the assistant (and, incidentally, let's not ignore the power dynamic when the assistant is a doctor) this judgement may come from a totally projected and self-constructed view of a virtual subpar bucket with little or no awareness that there are two other buckets. Or, rather, that there ARE two other buckets, but now that the sufferer is dying/injured/disabled/broken, etc., the universe has put lids on the other buckets.
Let's say for sake of argument that there will come a point in my life (after a car accident? when Alzheimers sets in? while standing on a bridge? when the chemo doesn't work?) when every future moment of my life will fall into the subpar bucket. And let's say I was given the foreknowledge that this was the case. I think it's true that with that knowledge, I might want to choose to die.
What if I was given the foreknowledge that every moment between that point and my own death would drip into the subpar bucket except five drips that would go into the superpar bucket? Five drips. Five moments of joy or love or triumph. Would that be enough? How many drips into the subpar bucket would be a worthy price for those five moments? What if it was just one moment? One moment of feeling loved. How many moments of pain would make me want to miss out on that one moment of love?
I don't know the answer to that question. I'm not so naive to think that it doesn't have an answer. It does. There is a number at which point I would rather die. I know that's true. But I have no idea whether the answer is five or ten or a hundred or more. I can't know that. And if I can't know that, with total foreknowledge of what will come, how could I possibly know without any knowledge of what's to come? I would have to guess. And because guessing would necessarily have to be done from the context of one of the buckets, it would always be skewed one of at least three ways.
It might be the case that I have every right to choose to die. But I don't think it's possible to make that choice objectively, meaning that having the right to choose to die is sort of like giving part of me the right to kill the whole me. And that doesn't seem right either.
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Date: 2010-06-25 04:50 pm (UTC)Let's say every moment of my life was a rain drop and I had three buckets to store the water in: subpar, par and superpar. In the subpar bucket are the raindrops of every moment I felt severe pain, hopelessness, depression or injury. In the superpar bucket are the raindrops of every moment I felt affirmation, joy, love or triumph. In the par bucket are the raindrops of all the moments that don't belong in the other two buckets.
Now, I know it's true that I've got plenty of water in each of the three buckets. But at any given time, it's difficult for me to accurately distinguish how much water would be in each bucket because the moment of that discernment has its own place in one of the buckets. If that moment of discernment is a moment in the subpar bucket, it's difficult to see the levels of the other buckets from there. Similarly with either of the other two. Honestly, when I'm in the superpar bucket, I may be aware that there are other buckets, but damned if I can accurately tell you how full they'd be. When life is awesome, it's very difficult to remember the moments of real suffering with all their contours and emotional textures. And the same goes for suffering. When I'm in deep emotional pain, remembering the joyful moments of my life is like trying to decipher fine print through a rainy windshield. It's like a language I know I used to know, but can't for the life of me remember how to read or speak.
Every time I've been stuck in the subpar bucket, I think I'll never see the superpar bucket again.
Assisted suicide requires the suffering individual and the assistant to make a judgement about not only the level of each of the three buckets, but the future rainfall due to each of them. For the sufferer, this judgement usually comes from the perspective of the subpar bucket. But for the assistant (and, incidentally, let's not ignore the power dynamic when the assistant is a doctor) this judgement may come from a totally projected and self-constructed view of a virtual subpar bucket with little or no awareness that there are two other buckets. Or, rather, that there ARE two other buckets, but now that the sufferer is dying/injured/disabled/broken, etc., the universe has put lids on the other buckets.
Let's say for sake of argument that there will come a point in my life (after a car accident? when Alzheimers sets in? while standing on a bridge? when the chemo doesn't work?) when every future moment of my life will fall into the subpar bucket. And let's say I was given the foreknowledge that this was the case. I think it's true that with that knowledge, I might want to choose to die.
What if I was given the foreknowledge that every moment between that point and my own death would drip into the subpar bucket except five drips that would go into the superpar bucket? Five drips. Five moments of joy or love or triumph. Would that be enough? How many drips into the subpar bucket would be a worthy price for those five moments? What if it was just one moment? One moment of feeling loved. How many moments of pain would make me want to miss out on that one moment of love?
I don't know the answer to that question. I'm not so naive to think that it doesn't have an answer. It does. There is a number at which point I would rather die. I know that's true. But I have no idea whether the answer is five or ten or a hundred or more. I can't know that. And if I can't know that, with total foreknowledge of what will come, how could I possibly know without any knowledge of what's to come? I would have to guess. And because guessing would necessarily have to be done from the context of one of the buckets, it would always be skewed one of at least three ways.
It might be the case that I have every right to choose to die. But I don't think it's possible to make that choice objectively, meaning that having the right to choose to die is sort of like giving part of me the right to kill the whole me. And that doesn't seem right either.