L. W. Sumner

Of all the moral concepts, rights seem most in tune with the temper of our time. At their best they evoke images of heroic struggles against oppression and discrimination. At their worst they furnish the material for lurid tabloid stories of litigious former spouses and lovers. Whatever the use to which they are put, they are ubiquitous, the global currency of moral/political argument in the new millennium. Liberal societies in particular seem replete with conflicts of rights: young against old, ethnic minority against majority, natives against foreigners, rich against poor, women against men, believers against nonbelievers, children against parents, gays against straights, employees against employers, consumers against producers, students against teachers, cyclists against drivers, pedestrians against cyclists, citizens against the police, and everyone against the state.

Some critics have argued that the concept of dignity has outlived whatever usefulness it ever had, at least in bioethics. However, the concept of dignity has the annoying habit of turning up on both sides of the debate about the ethics and legality of physician-assisted death. This chapter distinguishes two conceptions of dignity: a thick one (commonly invoked by the _pro_ side), which is derived from the experiences of patients at the end of life, and a thin one (often utilized by the _anti_ side), which is rooted in a Kantian ethic. The chapter then provides reasons for preferring the former to the latter.

Hate speech, understood broadly, is any form of expression intended to arouse hatred or contempt toward members of a particular social group. When university administrators have reason to believe that a planned speaking event on campus may feature hate speech (at least in the eyes of some), how should they respond? In this paper I address this question as it arises for Canadian universities. I argue that, where the regulation of campus speech is concerned, the right course of action for university administrators is nearly always to do absolutely nothing. They will have reason to become actively involved only in order to ensure that a speaking event proceeds safely, or when it threatens to disrupt the functioning of the university, or when it is itself threatened with disruption by protesting groups. In those instances the justification for intervention will be to protect and facilitate speech, not to shut it down.

When medical assistance in dying (MAiD) was legalized in Canada in June 2016, the question of allowing decisionally capable persons to make advance requests in anticipation of later incapacity was reserved for further consideration during the mandatory parliamentary review originally scheduled to begin in June 2020 (but since delayed by COVID-19). In its current form the legislation does not permit such requests, since it stipulates that at the time at which the procedure is to be administered the patient must give “express consent” to receiving it. Since express consent presupposes decisional capacity, this requirement rules out administering MAiD to a patient who has lost capacity. Amendments to the legislation passed by Parliament in March 2021 open the door slightly by allowing advance requests by patients after they have been approved for MAiD, if they fear losing capacity before the procedure can be administered. But this provision would apply only to patients whose natural death was deemed to be “reasonably foreseeable”, and would continue to exclude (a) requests made after diagnosis of a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” but in advance of approval for MAiD, and (b) requests made before such a diagnosis. My aim in this paper is twofold: to explore the ethical and legal issues concerning advance requests for MAiD, and to argue for expanding provision for such requests to include both of these further scenarios.