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Kingreaper comments on Transhumanism and assisted suicide - Less Wrong
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A common thread in the transhumanist community's ethics is "non-consensual effects are wrong"
Smallpox is a non-consensual cessation of existence. Suicide is consensual.
Is that, perhaps, the ethical principle that causes you to accept one and not the other?
Possibly, but consent in this context is a bit tricky.
A depressed person may actively want to die but we generally don't consider a person in this state as capable of consenting to anything.
If that same person had depression AND a fatal illness that will cause them suffer for another joyless 20 years, do we consider them capable?
Your suggestion is a really good rule of thumb but I'm just wondering if there is more to the story
Ah; I suspect the explanation for this second part is:
You do not consider a person capable of consent if they are depressed because of a temporary and curable imbalance in the brain/mind system (ie they are mentally ill*)
You do consider a person capable of consent if they are depressed because their life really is shit, and it's going to stay that way (ie. a rational cost-benefit analysis would tell them "yeah, actually, you are better off dead")
*edit: ie. they are non-consensually incapable of rationality