Abstract
After briefly narrating the evolution of Western ethical reflections on suicide and euthanasia, I argue that because people have a prima facie right not to be killed, it is usually unethical to kill anyone who poses no imminent lethal threat to others or who has not committed a capital crime. But I’m also persuaded that some instances of mercy killing in war are not only morally justifiable, they can be more ethical than allowing someone to die in agony and distress from their wounds. Thus I am uncomfortable with the current strict prohibition on battlefield euthanasia in the Geneva Conventions, which I think unfairly punishes some morally justified acts. But after considering the potential consequences of legalizing battlefield euthanasia, I conclude nonetheless that it is best to leave the prohibition intact.
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Notes
- 1.
Ambrose Bierce was a Union soldier in the American Civil War, but is better known as the author of ‘Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’ and The Devil’s Dictionary. I describe a fictional case of battlefield euthanasia that he authored in Perry (2014 and 2016: ch. 5)).
- 2.
The Hippocratic Oath specifically prohibited physicians from providing anyone with deadly drugs, but bioethicist Steven Miles interprets that as more of a warning against participating in assassination than as condemning mercy killing of dying patients (Miles 2004: ch. 6).
- 3.
I use the terms ‘soldiers’ and ‘troops’ here to refer comprehensively to all uniformed military personnel, officer and enlisted, in every service branch. In the U.S. context, this includes the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard. The term ‘combatants’ here will encompass not only uniformed military but also illegal fighters such as insurgents and terrorists.
- 4.
- 5.
See also article 71 of the Lieber Code, which influenced several subsequent Hague and Geneva conventions: ‘Whoever intentionally inflicts additional wounds on an enemy already wholly disabled, or kills such an enemy, or who orders or encourages soldiers to do so, shall suffer death, if duly convicted, whether he belongs to the Army of the United States, or is an enemy captured after having committed his misdeed.’ Francis Lieber, General Orders no. 100, promulgated by President Abraham Lincoln, 24 April 1863.
- 6.
In Perry (2016: ch. 1), ‘An introduction to ethical reasoning,’ I explain the distinction between prima facie and absolute moral principles, drawing from W. D. Ross’s moral theory.
- 7.
If there is an afterlife that is objectively valuable for us, then death would not deprive us of that good. But I and the philosophers I’ve noted here are focusing exclusively on value in this world and this life. Like Donne and Hume, I also find unpersuasive the traditional religious objections to suicide and euthanasia that I outlined in the first few pages of this essay.
- 8.
The moral status of combatants in wartime is puzzling, and difficult to describe precisely. Strictly speaking they have not forfeited their right not to be killed, yet it is not unjust in war for their enemies to kill them. As Michael Walzer noted (1977:41), soldiers on both sides of a war have ‘an equal right to kill.’ When soldiers surrender or are incapacitated by their wounds, they regain their former rights as noncombatants under both moral jus in bello and the international laws of armed conflict. So perhaps we should say that the right of soldiers not to be killed is suspended so long as they are combatants.
- 9.
Since the main goal of Marquis’s article was to show that abortion is immoral, ‘pro-life’ readers of it are likely to be disappointed that he would permit active euthanasia. But ironically, although Marquis’s general argument against killing people is sound, his argument against abortion does not succeed, at least in most cases of abortion, because human embryos and early fetuses lack the capacity for consciousness that is necessary to possess any interests at all. See Steinbock (2011) and Perry (2001). Even in late pregnancy when a fetus acquires that capacity, its right not to be killed can be overridden by the mother’s right to live, if continuing the pregnancy puts her life at risk.
- 10.
Michael Walzer’s points about noncombatant immunity are important: ‘We are all immune to start with; our right not to be attacked is a feature of normal human relationships. That right is lost by those who bear arms “effectively” because they pose a danger to other people. It is retained by those who don’t bear arms at all’ (Walzer 1977:145).
- 11.
A similar point is made by Biggar (2004:102), which may be surprising given that his arguments are steeped in Christian ethical values and principles.
- 12.
See also Glover (1977:190–200) and Rachels (1986:179–180). By contrast, Nazi doctors euthanized thousands of mentally impaired individuals, not because those individuals were unable to value their own lives (the vast majority of them undoubtedly could), but because they were considered burdensome and worthless in Nazi ideology, ‘lives unworthy of life.’
- 13.
Col. (ret.) Stephen Shi, e-mail message to author, 21 January 2011. Before becoming a military lawyer, Shi was a combat infantry officer.
- 14.
Col. (ret.) Fred Taylor, telephone message to author, 29 December 2010, and e-mail message to author, 16 January 2011.
- 15.
Col. (ret.) Robert Knutson, e-mail message to author, 3 December 2010.
- 16.
See for example an incident described by Mortenson (2004).
- 17.
Conversations with some attendees at the CMME workshop in May 2017 convinced me that such situations do still arise occasionally.
- 18.
Several participants at the CMME workshop with expertise in international law reinforced my pessimism about incorporating permission for battlefield euthanasia into the Geneva Conventions. So I stand by the conclusion I first reached in 2010–2011 against trying to modify treaty law.
- 19.
See Perry (2016: ch. 4) on ‘Anticipating and preventing atrocities in war.’
- 20.
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Perry, D.L. (2022). Battlefield Euthanasia: Ethics and the Law. In: Messelken, D., Winkler, D. (eds) Health Care in Contexts of Risk, Uncertainty, and Hybridity. Military and Humanitarian Health Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80443-5_8
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