posted
In episode 303 Informed Consent, there was an old guy who was in extreme pain and asked them for an overdose of morphine. Cameron was horrified by the idea and House basically told her that everyone does it at some point. The end of the episode is House coming to the chapel where she's bawling and telling her that the old guy died in the night and that she did the right thing.
Checking the House Wiki, it seems the old guy was actually a medical researcher. So not old and powerless after all. I suppose in the House universe it's ok to kill a patient if they ask you to.
Edit to add: I think it bothers me so much because they act like there's nothing in place to handle cases where the terminally ill are in pain. It can't really be that no one in Hollywood has heard of Hospice, can it?
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By that definition, someone being attacked with lethal force who responds with lethal force is a murderer, Katharina. Do you believe that?
Anyway, to me 'murder' is killing without justification. Killing with justification is something else.
quote:I definitely would. Even if you consider it justified, it's still murder.
Why is it murder though, rivka? What defines murder? Any causing of the death of any human being, regardless of circumstance?
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So killing someone in war who doesn't want to die and who may not even have asked to be in that position in the first place is not murder...but assisting in the suicide of someone begging for help and clear-minded about the matter is murder?
And no, not every murderer thinks they have a 'justification'. For some folks, justifications don't really enter into it-they can do it, someone has something they want (or some other desire), so they kill `em. That's not really the same thing as a justification.
And even if every murderer had a justification, that has no bearing on whether or not a given justification was actually really, really good-or bad.
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It does have bearing on whether "justification" makes it not murder.
quote:So killing someone in war who doesn't want to die and who may not even have asked to be in that position in the first place is not murder...but assisting in the suicide of someone begging for help and clear-minded about the matter is murder?
I disagree that anyone in that situation could possibly be clear-minded. Otherwise, yes.
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So then someone who is suffering major should not be able to make decisions concerning their medical care, yes?
And no, it doesn't have that bearing, rivka. Except to say: just because you have justification doesn't mean it's not murder. But not to say: it doesn't matter if you have justification, it's still murder.
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Sorry, something got mangled there. Switching between windows and all. What I meant to say was, "So then someone who is suffering major pain and dying should not be able to make decisions concerning their medical care, yes?" Not just 'suffering majorly'.
You didn't say that, but you did say someone in those circumstances couldn't possibly be clear-minded. So do you think clear-mindedness is not a requirement for someone making their own medical decisions in those circumstances?
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I think there are legitimate reasons to believe that assisted suicide is wrong, but I can't fathom a consistent definition of murder that includes such a thing. What distinguishes the soldier on the field from an ordinary person, that doesn't apply to a person in irrevocable pain that wants to end their life?
There's lots of words for killing people, each of which has specific connotations and varying degrees of wrongness. Murder to me implies a malicious, deliberate act of killing an unwilling person for your own benefit. Using that word to describe a doctor hesitantly agreeing to end the life of a terminal patient who wants to die is implying a maliciousness to the doctor that I think has no business being implied. Wrong? Maybe. If it's murder, what precisely is your definition murder?
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quote:Someone wanting to off themself is very different from taking action to kill someone else.
Just as helping someone who has made their wishes known (maybe even in advance) in desperate pain with no real hope for relief this side of the grave is different from killing someone because you want their shoes.
Why should the same word be used for both actions?
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With sufficient certainty, what exactly is the difference?
And how does that deal with the problem of calling killing for greed murder while also calling killing for mercy, perhaps even love, also murder?
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I'd just be happy (well, happi-er) if someone would define murder for me in such a way that it applies, as opposed to throwing around random comparisons.
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Okay, finally actually saw the episode. And wow, that was pretty intense. (I had skipped over what started the whole "murder vs suicide" debate to avoid spoilers). I thought James Earl Jones did a fantastic job making the dictator believable, both in his sinisterness, the way he justified things to himself and the charisma he had that would get other people to follow him.
I think what Chase did in this episode could be legitimately called murder, and it is in the best interests of society to find, prevent and prosecute such acts of vigilantism.
I also think Chase made the correct choice.
Vigilantism is a complicated subject. If society as a whole accepted it, you'd have violations of trust all over the place and people either getting themselves hurt or hurting the wrong people. And if Doctors/Lawyers who are given special trust to do their jobs were to violate it on a whim, the entire profession(s) would fall apart, which is detrimental to society.
But there's lots of things in life that, if done on a small scale can be good, even if on a mass scale they would be terrible. Where to draw that line is incredibly difficult. The Lawyer who keeps his mouth shut... is he benefiting society enough by being trustworthy to justify that the murderer he kept free is going to kill one more person? Two more people? I have no idea where to draw that line, and I would not judge someone for making either decision. But he would need to be made an example of (in the Lawyer's case probably by losing his job and possibly being countersued) so that society could continue to function.
In Chase's case, we're talking about an entire society that would be destroyed if he hadn't acted. I wouldn't judge him for doing his job, but I absolutely feel he was justified in betraying it. I would say that resigning as a doctor would be the correct choice, except that, as he says, the dictator would become a martyr if people found out. So I'd say wait a few months until the attention is directed elsewhere, then quietly resign, would be best.
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quote:I think what Chase did in this episode could be legitimately called murder, and it is in the best interests of society to find, prevent and prosecute such acts of vigilantism.
I also think Chase made the correct choice.
Well put. I completely agree.
quote: In Chase's case, we're talking about an entire society that would be destroyed if he hadn't acted. I wouldn't judge him for doing his job, but I absolutely feel he was justified in betraying it. I would say that resigning as a doctor would be the correct choice, except that, as he says, the dictator would become a martyr if people found out. So I'd say wait a few months until the attention is directed elsewhere, then quietly resign, would be best.
For me it's a simple question: is one's oath worth more than hundreds of thousands of lives? It seems to me that the answer is only 'yes' if you're not staring those deaths in the face, and it's always 'absolutely not' if you are.
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So he should have no problem pleading guilty to murder, since after all surely his own life is worth sacrificing for the net good. Or is he only good enough to kill other people?
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I think he'd be a better person if he was willing to do that, with the caveat that, as already noted, making the dictator into a martyr would make the whole thing pointless. If in a few months the transition of power is complete and there was a way to turn himself in without causing more problems, then yes.
I also wouldn't be particularly angry with him if he didn't. He made a difficult choice that had not clear right solution. That already took a fair deal of courage (whether you think it was misplaced or not) and is clearly putting him through a lot of psychological fallout. Not turning himself in is selfish but I don't think it makes him a bad person, just a normal one.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: ... In Chase's case, we're talking about an entire society that would be destroyed if he hadn't acted. I wouldn't judge him for doing his job, but I absolutely feel he was justified in betraying it. I would say that resigning as a doctor would be the correct choice, except that, as he says, the dictator would become a martyr if people found out. So I'd say wait a few months until the attention is directed elsewhere, then quietly resign, would be best.
Technically, we can't verify that. All we really know is that the expat character claims to have been involved in rape and torture under orders and that the dictator seems to verify the worst through not denying it.
But we don't really know what will happen when his underlings get back and do what it is that they may be planning and whether or not the positive signs that seem to be reported in the news are actually a trend or just wishful thinking prior to a civil war.
Revealing his role could be bad for another reason, if people in his country do find out his role in this, there may be short-term reprisal attacks against Western medical personnel in the country and long-term mistrust which may lead to some pretty unintended consequences if they are dealing with things like malaria or HIV.
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quote:It seems to me that the answer is only 'yes' if you're not staring those deaths in the face, and it's always 'absolutely not' if you are.
The issue, as I touched upon before, is that the oath IS worth some number of lives (I don't know how many). If doctors can't be trusted, society as a whole suffers and then different people die. However, the choice seems pretty clear when what's at stake is the utter devastation of (another) society.
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quote:So he should have no problem pleading guilty to murder, since after all surely his own life is worth sacrificing for the net good. Or is he only good enough to kill other people?
That would be the ideal choice, yes.
quote:Technically, we can't verify that. All we really know is that the expat character claims to have been involved in rape and torture under orders and that the dictator seems to verify the worst through not denying it.
C'mon, Mucus. In that episode, we also have the fact that he's been charged with a host of crimes by a civil court, that news organizations worldwide (else how did the gang know about it in the first place?) reported the first massacres, too.
quote: Revealing his role could be bad for another reason, if people in his country do find out his role in this, there may be short-term reprisal attacks against Western medical personnel in the country and long-term mistrust which may lead to some pretty unintended consequences if they are dealing with things like malaria or HIV.
This is a good point. If known, there would be mistrust...at least, on the part of the dictator's supporters. Among those saved by his death, though, well, I don't think they'd be angry at doctors.
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Depends on how it got spun (and could potentially affect multiple countries). It's a better example than I had previously thought of of a doctors oath being worth some indeterminate number of lives.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: C'mon, Mucus. In that episode, we also have the fact that he's been charged with a host of crimes by a civil court, that news organizations worldwide (else how did the gang know about it in the first place?) reported the first massacres, too.
*shrug* Even Bush and company have been charged with a bunch of crimes by not just a civil court, but a criminal court in Spain IIRC. News agencies have been wrong anyways too, but this is a bit of a sidetrack.
My point isn't necessarily that the dictator is not as bad as the characters think he is, after all, he's fictional, but just that the characters don't really have all the facts but are acting as the phrase goes, judge, jury, and executioner anyways.
For all we know, his number two guy (who doesn't exactly seem to be a gentle soul) could just go back and start up all over again, making Chase's sacrifice moot.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Causing the death of a person and preventing the saving of a person are not the same thing.
With sufficient certainty, what exactly is the difference?
And how does that deal with the problem of calling killing for greed murder while also calling killing for mercy, perhaps even love, also murder?
Murder is wrongful killing. At least that's what I understand the word to mean. So determining whether the act is right or wrong in a given instance determine whether it's murder or not. Not the other way around. You can't say, "But that's murder, so of course it's wrong," because that begs the question.
As far as the difference between causing an act and not preventing an act, I find it hard to imagine that you're really asking that. You don't see any difference between pushing someone onto a train track when there's a train coming, and not pushing them off of it?
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That makes sense, although obviously by itself it says nothing about whether assisted suicide is murder.
quote:You don't see any difference between pushing someone onto a train track when there's a train coming, and not pushing them off of it?
In this particular instance there's somewhat of a difference because there is a danger to you if you are pushing them off the track, and I think it's reasonable to let people worry about their own safety before that of random people they don't know. I also think it's unreasonable to ask people to spend significant effort to save every life they could hypothetically be saving. (As Spock says in the new Star Trek, it is morally commendable but not morally obligatory).
But in a situation where it takes approximately as much effort to prevent a death as to cause a death (I can't think of a good hypothetical right now), then no I don't think there's a moral difference.
Edit: Possible scenario. Suppose you're watching an oncoming car and see someone about to wander obliviously across the street. If you call out a warning you can probably get the person to get out of the way. I would NOT blame a person who was paralyzed with fear or surprised or whatever for not acting in time. But I would blame a person who realized they could help and then consciously chose not to. Such a thing is difficult to prove in court though.
[ October 08, 2009, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
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quote: As far as the difference between causing an act and not preventing an act, I find it hard to imagine that you're really asking that. You don't see any difference between pushing someone onto a train track when there's a train coming, and not pushing them off of it?
That doesn't strike me as a valid comparison. Rather the situation is standing by while someone else pushes, or not.
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Rather, pushing someone in front of a train when they boast about how tough they are and all those people better beware, or not.
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To Rakeesh: At first I was a little confused by Lisa's statement, but I think the difference is deliberately pushing someone onto a train track, or deliberately choosing not to push them off of the track if they are standing there obliviously (which is hard to do unless you're actually deaf since trains are pretty obvious when they're coming. I think it's a reasonable hypothetical for the situation, except for the potential danger to yourself while pushing them off.
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Because the man merely said he was going to do it. He wasn't standing at the controls of the gas ovens. Considering it had reached the news, he was in the United States, and his antics were hardly a secret, it isn't like the ONLY thing between this guy and his home country was his doctor (to whom he had entrusted his life).
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The train comparison was I think a more abstract comparison, simply addressing the "is there a difference between killing someone and letting them die, period." At least that's how I interpreted it.
In Chase's case, other people might have tried to kill the dictator, but those people would be far less likely to be successful. (According to the guy, and I'll take his word for it, people try to assassinate him with some frequency). No, Chase didn't know for sure what was going to happen either way, but he knew what was likely to happen and didn't have a whole lot of time to figure out what to do.
The better argument (IMO) is the "second in command is probably going to carry it out anyway." It's not like plenty of cruel dictators in Africa haven't been killed and the cycle of bloodshed has continued anyway. Chase wasn't acting with perfect logic, he was acting in response to a woman who had been raped who he was being forced to take blood from to save the man who allowed it, and the frantic pleas of a guilt ridden expatriot (think that's the right word, not sure). Emotions are far from perfect but they're what most people end up making decisions based on.
Granted, it's a fictional situation, but even as a fictional person I don't think it's fair to criticize him unless you've been in a situation of similar pressure.
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quote:Because the man merely said he was going to do it. He wasn't standing at the controls of the gas ovens. Considering it had reached the news, he was in the United States, and his antics were hardly a secret, it isn't like the ONLY thing between this guy and his home country was his doctor (to whom he had entrusted his life).
He said he was going to do it...had done it before...and had neither through word or action given any reason for anyone to think he wouldn't do it again. In fact, you'll recall in the episode that elements in the country were gearing up for more.
Yes, it had reached the news, he was in the USA, he didn't have a secret identity. But the show removed the possibility of some outside force stopping him-the only thing law could muster up was an ignorable civil court subpoena. He completely disregarded that. Only random chance, aside from the choice we're discussing, stood between him and his future crimes.
Yup, he'd entrusted his life to his doctor. That trust is not worth hundreds of thousands of other lives.
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Fake Edit to clarify: Chase did not know for certain what was going to happen either way, but people rarely know things for sure, they act on probabilities. We have rules governing us based on what the usual probabilities will be for usual situations, but there was nothing usual about Chase's situation.
If Chase was the dictator's personal physician and he knew for absolute fact that the instant the man got better he was going to press a button launching a nuke, killing millions of innocent people, and that the second in command would not do it? What if Chase was 99% sure the dictator would push the button, or if there was a 50% chance the second in command would do it? Where do you draw the line and why?
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: In fact, you'll recall in the episode that elements in the country were gearing up for more.
IIRC, the only evidence we have for this is the expat who lied at least once and may very well have been lying the second time too. Plus, he was only claiming that based on hearing the radio news in country ramping up their rhetoric. "Everyone lies" and all that.
The show is practically based on the premise that initial impressions and obvious treatments are frequently wrong and/or lead to even worse unintended consequences. We don't know if this situation is really an exception or not.
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Except Chase specifically asked the Dictator (seriously does someone know that guy's name?) if he was going to do it, and he very specifically did NOT deny it, merely try to justify it. (I guess he did claim that the raping/abusive part was an accident. Make of that what you will). But I think Chase had good reason to assume that there was a close to 100% chance that genocide would occur if the man lived.
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Thats why I said back in my earlier post "the dictator seems to verify the worst through not denying it", but that is just "seems."
We don't typically convict people unless they prove that they didn't commit a crime, only if we can prove that they did. Especially in this case when he has little reason to justify or explain himself to Chase anyways.
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So, Chase should do nothing because...well, he has doubts, but they're doubts that involve a lot of stretching, and don't do much if anything to dispute great big heaps of evidence against him.
The show is also based on the premise that sometimes you have to make that choice despite the very real possibility of bad consequences-because doing nothing is worse.
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That makes sense, although obviously by itself it says nothing about whether assisted suicide is murder.
quote:You don't see any difference between pushing someone onto a train track when there's a train coming, and not pushing them off of it?
In this particular instance there's somewhat of a difference because there is a danger to you if you are pushing them off the track,
Suppose there wasn't. Or better, suppose that instead of a danger to me, there's a danger to someone else. And not even a life-or-death danger. Let's say there's a mugger holding someone up, and I see a 16 ton anvil (like in the cartoons) about to fall on the mugger's head. I can yell and alert the mugger to the anvil, which will presumably allow him to escape being bashed to death. Do you think it's murder if I don't warn him? Would it be different if there were two victims and the mugger had already shot one cold dead?
In all honesty, I can see a moral side to actively killing the guy in House. But I don't think that's what happened.
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Edit: Possible scenario. Suppose you're watching an oncoming car and see someone about to wander obliviously across the street. If you call out a warning you can probably get the person to get out of the way. I would NOT blame a person who was paralyzed with fear or surprised or whatever for not acting in time. But I would blame a person who realized they could help and then consciously chose not to. Such a thing is difficult to prove in court though.
Suppose the guy crossing the street was wearing a Nazi uniform. Would you blame me for not helping?
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Because the man merely said he was going to do it.
He didn't merely say it. He's done it, and he "merely" said he was going to continue. There's a bit of a difference there. He'd already been established as a genocidal murderer. The issue that pushed Chase over the edge was when he made it clear that he absolutely intended to keep going until the bitter end.
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quote:Suppose the guy crossing the street was wearing a Nazi uniform. Would you blame me for not helping?
I was addressing the basic principle "is killing someone the same as letting them die." Getting into the nitty gritty of "does a particular person deserve death" and "how much does the distance you have from the actual killing weigh in against how much punishment they deserve for their crimes" requires all kinds of decision making process for individual circumstances, a lot of which is subjective (or so uncertain to make objectivity difficult).
In this particular show's case, we're talking about brutal genocide. It doesn't get much worse than that, so it's easy for me to take Chase's side. If the situation had been less extreme I'd be a lot less certain.
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quote:I don't recall saying that Chase should do nothing.
What should he do, then? The show outlined the choices pretty clearly: continue treating, sabotage treatment, or some other option that wouldn't have any impact on the matter one way or another.
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I was mainly addressing those things that have been presented as things that we "know" when we don't actually know these things.
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I'm so annoyed. This week's episode looked like it was going to be massively creepy, and I was really looking forward to it. Instead I'm watching baseball. Sigh.
It would have to be the game that doesn't believe in ties on before House.
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For me it's worse than that-I didn't get all of last week's episode either, due to a power outage. Though I ought to be able to watch it on hulu soon, if not already.
I'm not irritated that House got bumped back for the ball game, even though I didn't remotely care about it. But, I mean, extra innings in a series game? Sure, that oughta bump. What frustrates me is wondering why when I set a show to record, the damn thing can't just record the actual show instead of 8-9:02pm on that channel. I guess that's a thing of the future, though.
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Who is Lucas in the episode currently available on hulu? The person who is watching Cuddy's baby when House comes in?
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quote:Originally posted by anonymous: Who is Lucas in the episode currently available on hulu? The person who is watching Cuddy's baby when House comes in?
House hires Lucas from time to time to spy on his friends and co-workers. I remember House hiring him to spy on Wilson once as well as a couple other times. I don't really have feelings about the character either way, he's just... there... sometimes.
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