What it Means to Be Human: The Case For the Body in Public Bioethics. O. 2020. Carter Snead. Harvard University Press.
Mental health is a major concern as we begin a new year. According to a Forbes health survey of 1,000 U.S. adults , half of Gen Z’ers intend to improve their mental well-being as a New Year’s resolution. Media encourage the same. For example, a post-Christmas New York Times article titled “How to Improve your Mental Health in 2023.”
This makes sense considering high levels of drug overdose deaths and an increase in mental health-related visits to emergency departments by adolescents and a rise number of suicides.
I am puzzled by the public concern over that last one. The National Suicide Prevention Month is September, and radio stations are filled with disc jockeys encouraging people to not take their own lives. The federal government launched a three-digit 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in July for those suffering from mental illness and suicidal ideation. However, many of these same people who want to save lives also want to make it easier to commit suicide . Ten states and District of Columbia already allow physician-assisted death . Other western countries, including Canada and Belgium are “ahead” us.
This contradiction is what? O. Carter Snead, Notre Dame’s law and politics professor, offers the key to understanding this contradiction in . He explains that the role of “expressive individualism” is what allows people to express themselves based on the truths they believe are central to their identity. Snead writes that “in this paradigm”, the goods of autonomy, self-determination and freedom are prominent among ethical and legal principles.
The expressive individualistic worldview views the body as inchoate matter that can be harnessed and repurposed to satisfy the desires and feelings of the autonomous will. Snead says, “This view of personhood clearly privileges cognition [as the essential criterion] for membership in this group of beings.” Because the body is not part of the authentic self, it is subordinated and subordinate to the will.
This anthropology is deeply embedded in our current legal framework. It prioritizes privacy or what’s sometimes called the “right of possession and control over one’s body” or the “right not to be disturbed.” Individuals have the right to create their own lives according to their will. Snead says that autonomy and compassion are the main arguments in favor of assisted suicide.
A brief that was filed by several prominent American political and moral philosophers to the Supreme Court during its consideration of Washington and Vacco (and later published in the New York Review of Books) highlighted the importance of self-definition. The philosophers said that death is the final act in life’s drama. They wanted that last act to reflect their convictions and not those of others. Or, to put it bluntly, Americans need the freedom to choose self destruction as part of their life story.
Our confused and bipolar approach to suicide is explained by the expressive individualistic paradigm. The body is not part of us. If it isn’t functioning well or is no longer a useful tool for self-actualization, then the most important thing about us, our ability to express ourselves, is compromised. Incomprehensible pain is common for severely disabled people, those who have suffered traumatic injuries, and those who are terminally ill. They might have been happy and healthy once, but they now feel like a shell of their former selves. They are no longer themselves, or, as expressive individualism would say, have lost their ability to be healthy and happy. We are told that the only freedom left is that of exercising our will to end our miserable lives.
However, things can be different for people who are in good health and are suffering from depression or anxiety. They can still enjoy a tasty meal, play on their phone, or watch an evening show. They may be able to walk, play paddleball or run a 5K. We feel for those in distress and declare, “Surely someone who can complete a 5K shouldn’t be thinking about suicide!”
We believe that such people should not be encouraged to commit suicide, but to seek professional assistance. We encourage them to persevere. We remind them that there are still many opportunities to have fun and express their individuality.
As other countries’ suicide laws suggest, it is not the most secure ground. What happens if someone decides that even though they are in good health, there is no point in living. What if the person’s depression and anxiety become so severe, so crippling, that they would prefer to die than live another day? We are not allowed to tell them, “Not until they try Pad Thai, TikTok, or one more romantic fling!”
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Snead points out that expressive individualism can be a problem because it is not a complete view of human identity and flourishing. We are dependent and vulnerable beings. There are also other dependent beings. This truth is not only taught by parenthood, but also many other social realities due to how heavily we are shaped and indebted from inherited cultural traditions, institutions and mores. Sir Roger Scruton, a British philosopher, observed that “we are bound by ties which we never chose” and that our world includes values and challenges beyond what is permitted in our agreements.
We are not and never have been the atomized selves our legal system tells us. We are members of a community with obligations to each other (including God). This is something we can’t do by killing ourselves. Even a person with a terminal illness or severe handicap can deprive others of the chance to love them by self-sacrifice. Suicidals also lose the chance to love in their most vulnerable moments. Your life may seem worthless but others may find it valuable. Snead says assisted suicide laws are not well-designed to meet the complex needs of an interdependent community of vulnerable and embodied human beings.
This is why it is dangerous and even fatal to try to thread needles about what assisted suicides are moral or not , as our northern neighbors are doing. Suicide, in any form, is a violation of our dignity as embodied human beings capable of giving and receiving love in acts that are familial (and civic), friendships, which has deep Aristotelian roots. Suicidal ideation in any form must be viewed as a mental illness that requires treatment. We should rethink Snead’s words as we consider America’s mental health crisis. “The law should encourage, offer, and treat care. It should not create a path to suicide by making the healing art, medicine, a handmaiden to death.”
