Philosophical inquiry, ever since its birth with Thales, is characterized by its radicality – that is, the human intellect’s inherent capacity to reach the root of an issue, to “read within” reality as it presents itself in its complexity.

This approach is applicable to any area of reality: from politics to art, from education to logic. In short, every problem can be approached and analyzed through the lens of philosophy in order to view the problem without any ideological bias.

In this article, we propose to discuss the theme of euthanasia in relation to the problem of suffering and the event that marks the most dramatic moment of our existence in this world: death. As is rightly pointed out: «If man’s relationship with such experiences has always been difficult, representing the measure of human finiteness and contingency, today we can clearly see a profound cultural transformation: secularized culture (which has denied transcendence, which increasingly tends to deny metaphysics and religious faith, rejecting the eschatological opening to hope) tends to censor, hide, or even systematically and generally neutralize illness and death: often, illness and death are referred to using the impersonal third person, “one gets sick” or “one dies,” as if they were realities that do not belong to us. Death and illness become mere events only to be avoided, without any meaning, devoid of value: under the influence of technology, death ceases to be a mystery, it is increasingly managed, controlled, and sometimes even trivialized» [1].

The Problem of Suffering

The first thing to do when addressing a problem like the one we wish to tackle in these pages is to define it. So: what is euthanasia?

We can define euthanasia as the intentional medical act (such as a lethal injection – active euthanasia – or the omission of care – passive euthanasia) aimed at ending an individual’s life, at their explicit and conscious request, in order to alleviate suffering considered unbearable and otherwise untreatable. The goal – as can be easily inferred – is to choose death because life is no longer considered desirable or worth living [2].

In this definition, the strongest argument supporting the “euthanasia principle” seems to emerge, which is that of suffering and the impossibility of giving it meaning. However, to use an image, if we have a wall with a hole in front of us, we do not solve the problem by knocking down the wall. Mutatis mutandis: suffering is certainly an evil, but evil is the privation of good; therefore, let us ask ourselves: to solve the problem of evil – suffering – do we eliminate a good – life? It does not seem reasonable. But let us analyze the argument of suffering more closely.

A life marked by extreme and continuous suffering loses its meaning or its “quality.” Instead of merely surviving, one seeks to bring a dignified end to a condition that is perceived as degrading. There are certainly important aspects to consider in this position: first of all, it is true that suffering often makes it difficult to grasp the meaning and value of our existence. It has happened to everyone in their life to face a problem, a suffering so strong that it obscures the light of meaning. This is undeniable. However, let us ask ourselves: is the meaning of a human life given by psycho-physical well-being? Let us assume so. In this case – as we said – how many moments in life do we spend suffering? Let us assume they are few. However, even those few show that our ontological precariousness is a fact.

This means that we should spend our entire lives worrying about never suffering: our whole life would be occupied by this concern, which, as a logical consequence, would be constant and continuous, and as such, would make the avoidance of suffering itself the worst suffering, the worst that can ever be thought of or experienced. However, it is important to remember that we are not denying the value of psycho-physical well-being; we are only relativizing it, meaning we are not considering it as the ultimate end or supreme good. If we were to value psycho-physical well-being as the ultimate end or supreme good, we would inevitably be led to consider every human life as not worthy: to avoid suffering, it would, by necessity, become the worst suffering itself. In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas, reflecting on this subject, observed:

«It is impossible for man’s beatitude to consist in goods of the body, for two reasons. First, because it is impossible for the ultimate end of a thing to be its own preservation, when that thing is already ordered to an end distinct from itself. A pilot, for example, cannot consider the preservation of the ship entrusted to him as the ultimate end: because the ship is already ordered to a more remote end, that is, navigation. Now, just as a ship is entrusted to the direction of a pilot, so man is entrusted to will and reason; according to the Scripture: “God from the beginning created man, and left him in the hand of his own counsel.” But it is evident that man must have his end in something; since man is not the supreme good. Therefore it is impossible for his own preservation to be the ultimate end of man’s reason and will. Secondly, even granted that the preservation of human existence was the end of man’s reason and will, it could not, however, be concluded that man’s end is a corporal good. For the being of man embraces soul and body; and although the being of the body depends on the soul, yet the being of the human soul does not depend on the body, as has already been shown; moreover, the body is for the soul, as matter is for form, and as instruments are for their moving principle, which uses them for its own operations. Thus all goods of the body are directed to the goods of the soul as their end. Therefore it is impossible for beatitude, the ultimate end of man, to consist in the goods of the body» [3].

Based on what has been reported so far, we could schematize the reasoning as follows:

Premise: The meaning of life is psycho-physical well-being.

Observation: In fact, well-being is precarious; suffering is an inevitable part of the current condition of human existence.

Logical Consequence: If the goal is to avoid suffering for the sake of psycho-physical well-being, life would be transformed into a ceaseless and fallacious search for an ephemeral good, never attainable due to the aforementioned ontological precariousness. This search, as a constant preoccupation, would itself turn into a form of suffering worse than the one seeks to avoid.

Conclusion 1: If life is reduced to a useless struggle against suffering, and this cannot, absolutely, be eradicated on this earth, then the meaning of life cannot reside only in well-being. Rejecting this would have the sole consequence of choosing mass suicide. Proponents of euthanasia should, by logical consequence, advocate for radical euthanasia because life itself would have no meaning whatsoever. In this sense, the principle of euthanasia – “giving dignity to existence by eliminating suffering” – would become ipso facto a principle of death.

The Problem of Meaning

If, as stated, the significance of life consists in achieving psycho-physical well-being, which is, in itself, precarious, then life in itself would lose significance. Therefore, we must find the meaning of life that is not immanent to life itself, as it and its quality are precarious on the ontological level (of our very being).

Now, alongside the dark moments, I also experience beautiful moments, of very high existential “quality,” so to speak. And it is, in fact, these moments of “quality” that give us the criterion for understanding states of suffering and pain as moments of privation of the psycho-physical good itself. As a thinker of the caliber of Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges, who also quotes Henri Bergson, tells us:

«Pain is the testimony of our sensible being, also capable of pleasure, and it is an element of defense for our being, which is jealous of its integrity: two benefits that we cannot deny without unconsciousness. Henri Bergson in Matière et Mémoire (p. 47) also sees it as an effort of liberation from internal evils, as doctors say of fever. If a being suffers, it is because it struggles, and its suffering is one of the elements of its liberation, at the same time as a sign of relative impotence… All this does not prevent us from complaining about pain and desiring, without realizing it, contradictory things. We want indeed to be flesh and blood, and endowed with a sensitivity fertile in delicate works or delights, but we do not consent to this exquisite constitution making us vulnerable» [4].

These phases show, contrary to what the most radical pessimism maintains, that life is not an absolute evil, but rather a “carrier” of good, and thus a good in itself. However, if I admit that it must be aimed solely at psycho-physical well-being, as we said earlier, then it becomes the absolute evil that must be radically and totally avoided.

Conclusion 2: the meaning of life cannot reside in any transient and immanent good, not even if such good were immanent to the living subject itself (psycho-physical health, pleasure, a state of joy). If such a good were transient in itself, it could not satisfy the conditions for this happiness to be ontological fullness and ultimate perfection.

If, therefore, life has a transcendent meaning, this meaning must also apply to every part of it, not only quantitatively speaking but also qualitatively speaking (state of health, state of mind, suffering, pain, joy, etc.). Now, assuming this transcendent meaning, nothing that opposes its attainment can be considered good. However, we have just demonstrated that the thesis supporting euthanasia leads to the consequence of rendering life itself meaningless. Therefore, no one would in this case order life to its ultimate end; and thus no one would ever be happy.

Thus, to avoid and/or cease suffering, one ends up not doing good and rejecting it, as in the opening image: to eliminate the defect of the hole, we knock down the wall. This is solved by admitting that there must be a meaning to suffering itself because there is a meaning to life itself and a transcendent meaning, and precisely because it is ontologically precarious. In the plan of this transcendent meaning, it must be logically admitted that suffering itself finds its meaning.

Conclusion

The principle of euthanasia cannot be the solution to the problem of suffering, of any kind of suffering, no matter how serious, but, as in every moral question, the problem is to find meaning in the good to be done – ourselves with the sick and suffering person – and in the good to be sought – the meaning of life in a Good that transcends the changeability of our time. Finally and in summary: we do not maintain that suffering necessarily should not be eliminated, but that it can have a meaning even when it cannot be eliminated and also because suffering is not eliminated by eliminating life itself. Indeed, it makes no sense not to want to live suffering and, at the same time, not to want to live at all. Unless one wants to fall into an immanentistic nihilism, according to which, by not seeing the immortal and spiritual soul, one admits the end of nothingness, which fundamentally renders life meaningless due to the lack of the ultimate end, admitting, contradicting experience itself, that life itself is an absolute non-sense, that is, an absolute evil, which is a contradiction in terms.

Giovanni Covino

Mario Padovano, OP

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Notes

[1]: F. D’agostino – L. Palazzani, Bioetica, La Scuola, Brescia 2013, p. 203.

[2]: Cf. Ibid., pp. 204 ff. It should be noted that euthanasia (active or passive) should not be confused with therapeutic relentlessness, with the disproportionate use of medical practice: «Euthanasia [on the contrary] is therapeutic abandonment or therapeutic abstention when therapy, proportionate to the actual conditions of the patient, would still have a reason to be practiced» (Ibid., p. 206).

[3]: Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 2, a. 5, co.

[4]: A.-D. Sertillanges, Il problema del male II. La soluzione, Morcelliana, Brescia 1954, p. 14.