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Everyday Attitudes About Euthanasia and the Slippery Slope Argument

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New Directions in the Ethics of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Part of the book series: International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine ((LIME,volume 64))

Abstract

This chapter provides empirical evidence about everyday attitudes concerning euthanasia. These attitudes have important implications for some ethical arguments about euthanasia. Two experiments suggested that some different descriptions of euthanasia have modest effects on people’s moral permissibility judgments regarding euthanasia. Experiment 1 (N = 422) used two different types of materials (scenarios and scales) and found that describing euthanasia differently (‘euthanasia’, ‘aid in dying’, and ‘physician assisted suicide’) had modest effects (≈3 % of the total variance) on permissibility judgments. These effects were largely replicated in Experiment 2 (N = 409). However, in Experiment 2, judgments about euthanasia’s moral permissibility were best predicted by the voluntariness of the treatment. Voluntariness was a stronger predictor than some demographic factors and some domain general elements of moral judgments. These results help inform some debates about the moral permissibility of euthanasia (e.g., the slippery slope argument) suggesting that some of the key premises of those arguments are unwarranted.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It is unclear whether these two descriptions really are logically identical. Even if they are not logically identical, it is an open question whether attitudes about them vary sufficiently for there to be an empirical distinction between the two. See discussion.

  2. 2.

    For an overview of the quality of Amazon Mechanical Turk’s participants, see Buhrmester et al. (2011), Paollacci et al. (2010).

  3. 3.

    It may seem somewhat forced to include the category “non-voluntary physician assisted suicide” since physician assisted suicide is typically taken to be a kind of voluntary, active euthanasia. In the non-voluntary scenario, the wishes of the patient are left unspecified so one cannot be sure if the patient volunteers for the treatment. Alternatively, the patient may be understood to be functioning, yet incompetent (hence, not able to give adequate consent).

  4. 4.

    Kemmelmeier et al. (1999) did not gather data on the ‘euthanasia’ scale, so direct comparisons between the two scales was not possible.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Michigan, USA

    Adam Feltz

Authors
  1. Adam Feltz
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Adam Feltz .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, California, USA

    Michael Cholbi

  2. Dept. of Behavioural Sciences and Philos, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Jukka Varelius

Appendix

Appendix

13.1.1 Scenarios

Instructions: The following scenario is meant to explore some of your feelings toward end of life decision making. It is not meant to test what you know.

  • Euthanasia/Physician Assisted Suicide/Aid in Dying Not Voluntary

    Mr. Smith has a serious illness that is totally incurable given current knowledge. He is currently receiving the best possible treatment. He suffers atrociously and pain medication cannot relieve his suffering. He has never expressed a wish for (euthanasia/physician assisted suicide/aid in dying).

    (Euthanasia/Physician assisted suicide/Aid in dying) is morally permissible in this case.

  • Euthanasia/Physician Assisted Suicide/Aid in Dying Voluntary

    Mr. Smith has a serious illness that is totally incurable given current knowledge. He is currently receiving the best possible treatment. He suffers atrociously and pain medication cannot relieve his suffering. He has clearly and repeatedly requested (euthanasia/physician assisted suicide/aid in dying).

    (Euthanasia/Physician assisted suicide/Aid in dying) is morally permissible in this case requested aid in dying.

    (Euthanasia/Physician assisted suicide/Aid in dying) is morally permissible in this case.

13.1.2 Scales

Instructions: The following scale is meant to explore some of your feelings toward end of life decision making. It is not meant to test what you know. (* indicates item to be reverse scored.)

  1. 1.

    (Euthanasia/Physician assisted suicide/Aid in dying) is acceptable if the person is old.

  2. 2.

    (Euthanasia/Physician assisted suicide/Aid in dying) should be accepted in today’s society.

  3. 3.

    There are never cases when (euthanasia/physician assisted suicide/aid in dying) is appropriate.*

  4. 4.

    (Euthanasia/Physician assisted suicide/Aid in dying) is helpful at the right time and place (under the right circumstances).

  5. 5.

    (Euthanasia/Physician assisted suicide/Aid in dying) is a humane act.

  6. 6.

    (Euthanasia/Physician assisted suicide/Aid in dying) should be against the law.*

  7. 7.

    There are very few cases when (euthanasia/physician assisted suicide/aid in dying) is acceptable.*

  8. 8.

    (Euthanasia/Physician assisted suicide/Aid in dying) should only be used when the person has a terminal illness.

  9. 9.

    (Euthanasia/Physician assisted suicide/Aid in dying) is acceptable in cases when all hope of recovery is gone.

  10. 10.

    (Euthanasia/Physician assisted suicide/Aid in dying) gives a person a chance to die with dignity.

  11. 11.

    (Euthanasia/Physician assisted suicide/Aid in dying) should be practiced only to eliminate physical pain and not emotional pain

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Feltz, A. (2015). Everyday Attitudes About Euthanasia and the Slippery Slope Argument. In: Cholbi, M., Varelius, J. (eds) New Directions in the Ethics of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 64. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22050-5_13

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