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There is most definitely a problem with these edge cases, where by trying to stretch the logic by way of manipulating the hypothetical physical facts, we not only stretch reality (like our assuming that 5 seconds would even permit us to coordinate an intervention with the machine), but we talk about such cases with very different images in mind.
I envisioned a severe situation where a man's entire body was captured in some toothed or spinning machine, like a lathe and had been virtually obliterated. Such a case would probably have resulted in eventual death anyway, and so I'd have considered it to fall under 2278. You'd simply be relieving the man of his anguishing trip to a hospital where he'd die in a matter of hours perhaps.
In the case where someone loses a limb or two, I am inclined to agree with you fully.
In talking about these issues, I am always reminded of a video I saw around a decade ago. An Indian woman was committing what looked to be a sati ritual - self immolation.
She sets herself ablaze and begins panicking. Her frantic running doesn't allow any of the standers by to catch her. She is probably fully engulfed in flames for a couple of minutes before anyone gets to her with blankets.
Eventually she just sits down while completely alight. A few men come to her with blankets to smother the fire. It is obvious, well before the flames are out, that she has burns over 100% of her body. To the bone. She is practically charred.
In that case, I'd not have put the flames out. I would have let her die. She will not live. Extending her suffering would just be needless.
What do you think of the examples of people with advanced ALS who have lost sovereignty over all of their movement and live in constant pain each day? I have always thought Kevorkian was justified to assist in humane euthanasia in those cases where the patient wanted it (even where the family wished it).
My trouble is this:
How can your desire to be morally good outweigh that person's chronic suffering?
How can your desire to be morally righteous take priority over the person who is actually suffering?
I have always found it staggeringly hypocritical for a person to tell the suffering that God wants them to live. Perhaps this has less to do with the morality of the act itself, and more to do with the sovereignty of an individual to make their own choice.
I suppose that is what I believe, is that the individual must be the one to make the choice. Holy people near to them ought to make their cases, but I don't believe they can decide on behalf of the person.
Regardless of what you think of sati, women should not have choice.
That would be my first commandment if I were the big guy.
I'm thinking of a situation where a roboticist builds a robot and they end up coming to different political persuasions, and still maintains that the robot is merely performing the will of its creator.
Like Tay developing free will over and above Microsoft.
The more I think about it, you're a terrible Christian and you're a terrible atheist. You're just terrible.
Should robots have the right to vote?
Okay okay, they're not persons and don't have souls and only do the will of their programmer. But we let women vote.
I think we should remove women's right to vote and give it to robots.
Then we can vote for king.
How can your desire to be morally righteous take priority over the person who is actually suffering?
It is about our goodness and theirs. They are not in contradiction. The soul of the suffering one to be euthanized will benefit most from not assenting to suicide, if they are conscious - to assent to as much could be fatal for their soul. And if they are not conscious, and are not likely to be conscious again, as with a permanent coma, this would likely fall under 2278. If they are suffering but "not conscious" because they have suffered brain damage, then assent to suicide would not be an issue, but unless complex machines are necessary to keep them alive, it would still fall under 2277 - a life of pain is not an obstruction to holiness; it lends itself to it, if nothing else, and to deny a person that, especially if they are unable to assent or even understand this, cannot be considered licit.
Holy people near to them ought to make their cases, but I don't believe they can decide on behalf of the person.
And what about mental anguish? If someone you know walks up to the edge of a building, fed up with the suffering in their life, I'm not only going to try to talk them down - I'm going to call the fire department, get a big net, and obstruct their fall.
Your reasoning here seems to be in the line of "one's life is one's own to do with as one pleases." This is not true; your life is not yours to forsake. It comes from God, and for a purpose, and it is never morally acceptable to use this life to spit in the face of God.
I sympathize with your reservations, really I do. But when it comes to euthanasia per 2277 or suicide, where the person in question is going to suffer, but does not depend on extraordinary instruments to keep them alive, then killing them to evade that suffering is no more acceptable than a suicidal person jumping off of a building is morally acceptable - regardless of the suffering, murder is always wrong - even self-murder.
It's not quite that. It's closer to: "Your life isn't yours to do with what you want, but it isn't my decision to enforce that. I have only to make you understand what I believe are the repercussions, and after you understand, it is your choice about how to face your God, or not to."
Well why don't we go castrate faggots?
Your point might be stronger if you just said "why don't we physically pull homosexuals away from each other?", since under the current form, I can say that castration is a moral evil that is not justified by the noble end, whereas preventing a man from killing himself does no moral evil to him.
Under the new form, the only detail of importance is the fact that a sinner's free will is being prevented by an external actor.
Obviously the Church does not teach that sinners are to be compelled to not sin, any more than She teaches that heathens are to be compelled to convert. The Church acknowledges that for their to be any merit in it, the sinner must convert or repent of their own free will.
So I guess the difference I would emphasize is this: the homosexual, while sinning mortally, has the opportunity to repent, as with basically any other sin.
Suicide is an act that is mortally sinful, and leaves no time for repentance. Because , I could justify intervening in the case of the suicidal person, but not the homosexuals:
Nevertheless it must be noted, that if the observance of the law according to the letter does not involve any sudden risk needing instant remedy, it is not competent for everyone to expound what is useful and what is not useful to the state: those alone can do this who are in authority, and who, on account of such like cases, have the power to dispense from the laws. If, however, the peril be so sudden as not to allow of the delay involved by referring the matter to authority, the mere necessity brings with it a dispensation, since necessity knows no law.
There is no opportunity for remedy, the peril is "sudden" and there is no opportunity for delay. The person's soul is at stake. Intervention is necessary.
If I find a friend in a bathtub with a razor blade, or standing on a roof's edge, or dangling from a rope, I will, if able, grab the razor, pull them back from the edge, or cut the rope, without hesitation, and I will feel no guilt and will have done no wrong.
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