Thomas Schramme

TugendethikenTugend, Tugendethik sind normative Theorien des richtigen und guten Handelns, die den zentralen Gesichtspunkt der ethischen Bewertung in der handelnden Person, genauer in ihrer charakterlichen und motivationalen Verfassung sehen. Eine Tugend ist eine charakterlich gefestigte Haltung von Menschen, die sie das Richtige und Gute aus eigener Überzeugung erkennen und erstreben lässt. Als Tugenden gelten dabei nicht nur die im engen Sinne moralischen Tugenden wie Gerechtigkeit oder Aufrichtigkeit,WahrhaftigkeitAufrichtigkeitAufrichtigkeit, sondern sie umfassen beispielsweise auch selbstbezogene und intellektuelle Vortrefflichkeiten wie Besonnenheit oder WeisheitWeisheit, die beide lange Zeit zu den Kardinaltugenden gehörten.

The chapter focuses on cases of assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia in relation to the rarely discussed notion of indirect paternalism. Indirect paternalism involves not just a paternalistic intervener and a person whose welfare is supposed to be protected, but also another party, whom I call “assistant.” Indirect paternalism interferes with an assistant in order to prevent harm to another person. I will introduce a strategy that paternalists can pursue to justify indirect paternalism. It specifically targets an element of assistance cases, namely the fact that people do not necessarily have a justified claim or entitlement to demand such assistance. To prevent people from providing assistance seems normatively different from preventing a person to do something to herself by her own means. I critically discuss arguments from the goals of medicine and from the conscientious objection. These aspects are not deemed decisive when considering the case of indirect paternalistic intervention. Finally, I argue against the rationale of indirect paternalism by showing that there are at least two situations where it does not succeed. One such situation that undermines the justification of indirect paternalism is present when the offered service is itself harmless, another pertinent situation consists of a person necessarily requiring assistance to be really free. At least in some cases, these very conditions are given when contemplating assistance to die.

The chapter starts from a specific interpretation of what it means to know the difference between right and wrong, which stems from Gilbert Ryle. To know the difference between right and wrong implies caring about morality. The author links Ryle’s ideas to the notion of being a moral person. Two different ideas found in moral philosophy are delineated, namely, the amoral person, that is, someone who rejects the demands of morality, and the morally incapacitated person, that is, someone who cannot take those demands into account. Psychopaths are not amoral in the philosophers’ sense of the word, but are incapable of, or seriously deficient in, taking the moral point of view.