The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics

Volume 19, 1999

Confucian Ethic of Death with Dignity and Its Contemporary Relevance

This paper advances three claims. First, according to contemporary Western advocates of physician-assisted-suicide and voluntary euthanasia, "death with dignity" is understood negatively as bringing about death to avoid or prevent indignity, that is, to avoid a degrading existence. Second, there is a similar morally affirmative view on death with dignity in ancient China, in classical Confucianism in particular. Third, there is consonance as well as dissonance between these two ethics of death with dignity, such that the Confucian perspective would regard the argument for physician-assisted-suicide and voluntary euthanasia as less than compelling because of the latter's impoverished vision of human life.