The Right to Suicide? 

The Right to Suicide?

Somewhat to my amazement, a (male) student came up to me before class, when I was still busy with my notes, the board and what not. "I'm really not comfortable talking in class, but there's something I want to say. Locke says individual rights are basic to government, but there's no right to suicide. His thought is the foundation of the U.S. Constitution, and a lot of American thought. Isn't it time to re-consider a right to suicide? The Schiavo case (he had trouble with the name) is really bothering me."

So I guess he is convinced Terri Schiavo's parents are trying to prevent her from exercising her right to refuse treatment. Her wishes as expressed to her husband are adequate as a "living will," and/or, in any case, he as spouse can act for her in her sad state.

We did have a bit of discussion about Schiavo. I had Googled Cruzan v. Missouri (1990), and I said that if there were a living will, that would seem decisive for the courts. I'll have a bit more to say in a later post.

On Locke: I didn't get into this with the student, or in class, but suicide is an interesting test case of Strauss's interpretation of Locke--one of the cases where he was consciously opening up, making fun of, or attacking "traditional" professorial, boring interpretations that completely failed to follow an author's intention.

Strauss: Natural Right and History p. 220: "We thus arrive at the conclusion that Locke cannot have recognized any law of nature in the proper sense of the term."

pp. 226-7: "There is, then, an innate natural right, while there is not innate natural duty."

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