Not Compassion Alone: On Euthanasia and Ethics

Author(s): Marion Dönhoff, Hans Jonas, Reinhard Merkel, Hunter Hannum and Hildegarde
Hannum
Source: The Hastings Center Report, Vol. 25, No. 7, The Legacy of Hans Jonas (1995), pp. 44-50
Published by: Hastings Center
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44 I HastingsCenter SpecialIssue, 1995
Report,
Not Alone
Compassion
On Euthanasia and Ethics
This interview by Countess Marion Donhoff and Rein-
hard Merkelfirst appeared in the Hamburg periodical
Die Zeit, 25 August 1989. Translated by Hunter and
Hildegarde Hannum.
Marion D6nhoff: Professor Jonas, you have writ-
ten a book with the title The Imperative of Responsi-
bility: In Search of an Ethics for the TechnologicalAge.
Why do we actually need a new ethics? Couldn't one
say that we can get along with the Ten Command-
ments?
Hans Jonas: Quite certainlynot with them alone.
They are merely the framework for a social order
and for the personal conduct of life. Ethics must
teach us how we should behave in our actions. All
actions have to do with reality; a large proportion of
them are actions that are forced upon us because we
live in a world that we want something from and that
for its part has laws we cannot just treat lightly ac-
cording to our whim.
For some time now we have found ourselves in
a situation in which reality places demands on us or
necessitates our acting in certain ways but at the same
time presents us with possibilities that previously
didn't exist at all. In this new situation we must re-
examine our ethical duties. That doesn't necessarily
mean we need a new ethics, but there is undoubtedly
a completely new area of application for morality, for
duty, and for the "Thou shalts" and "Thou shalt nots."
A new situation like this-that is, our highly techno-
logical era-calls for a new examination of ethics.
D6nhoff: You say that our powers have taken on
such an order of magnitude as to force us to adopt
new patterns of behavior, since we can do things in
many areas that couldn't even be dreamt of earlier.
What compass should guide us in this new relation-
ship between responsibility and power?
Marion Donhoff and ReinhardMerkel, "Not Compassion
Alone: On Euthanasiaand Ethics,"trans.Hunterand Hilde
Hannum, HastingsCenterReport25, no. 7, Special Issue
(1995): 44-50.
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Jonas: Power-I can't help thinking of a play on
words in German: Macht (power) is the ability zu
machen (to do, to make), to accomplish something,
to change the world, to shape it according to our
wishes, or to force others to comply with our will.
Consequently, the forms and extent of power and its
new varieties are in and of themselves a direct sum-
mons to responsibility. Responsibility is the comple-
mentary side of power. We are responsible for what
we do. And we do whatever we are capable of. When,
for example, we can alter human beings by genetic
engineering, we assume a responsibility that never ex-
isted before because such a thing wasn't even possi-
ble. We must therefore consider factors that we
didn't have to consider before.
At present we find ourselves confronted unex-
pectedly with a possibility that can have enormous
consequences. And, thus, it is wiser-in any case it is
a moral imperative-for us to ask ourselves what is
permissible for us to do, what impermissible, how far
we ought to go or where we ought to hold back.
Donhoff: In all your observations, lectures, and
books, one is always aware of your concern about the
hectic nature of this dynamic process that presses on
and on without a definite goal. A question: Is it con-
ceivable that this process-research for the sake of
research that takes us into areas where we didn't
really want to go-can somehow be halted?
Jonas: The real question is, can we become mas-
ters of the technology we ourselves have created?
There is a kind of inherent dynamism in technologi-
cal evolution; the opening of paths in certain direc-
tions then forces us to proceed further in the same
direction so that we lose the option of a free choice.
That is marvelously portrayed in Goethe's poem
"The Sorcerer's Apprentice": "The spirits that I sum-
moned up, now I cannot banish." And your question
is, can we gain control of that process? It is extraor-
dinarily difficult to imagine a halt in a society char-
acterized by free enterprise and a free-market econ-
omy, that is, in democratic and liberal societies. It is
my pessimistic theory that what wisdom and political
reason can't bring about can perhaps be accom-
plished by fear.

We are receiving warning shots from Nature, and
I hope that a series of small natural catastrophes will
awaken us to reason in time so that we will be spared
the big catastrophe.
D6nhoff: I find what you say very convincing.
We have a good example of something similar right
now, namely, the halt in the spiraling arms race,
which can be traced back to an empirical compul-
sion, probably nourished by fear.
But now let us ask if the field of medicine, which
is what we want to talk about here, has a regulating
factor, a compass, for what we want to do. Is it possible
to see ahead so that we do only what we can actually
take responsibility for? Or are we continually reeling
toward a mirage of progress-for instance, in the field
of gene research?
Jonas: Setting limits is naturally immensely diffi-
cult because every advance in medicine is a new bea-
con of hope for a particular group of sufferers. It
would be cruel if we said we shouldn't proceed any
further in a given direction because it's too danger-
ous. Of course, the danger lies in abuse. It might be,
however, that certain uses of technology are in and
of themselves an abuse. Among these I would count
the attempt to somehow alter or improve the human
genetic substance. It is extraordinarily difficult to
draw the line between mere repair of defects and
creative reshaping or new shaping. The dangers are
so immense that it is perhaps better to forgo certain
advances that might alleviate suffering in some cases.
The crucial question is, what is the basis for making
the choice between "permitted" or "not permitted"?
In my book The Imperativeof ResponsibilityI tried
to give a clear-cut answer to this question by exam-
ining in precise philosophical and metaphysical
terms the ultimate bases of morality and human des-
tiny. The religious person doesn't need to undertake
this examination, but I deem it necessary to make
ethics independent of any given religious credo. Our
duties and responsibilities as human beings must be
shown to be so incontrovertible that even atheists
must recognize them. There are ultimate taboos.
Such a taboo applies, for example, to the suicide of
the human race, annihilation by a nuclear holocaust.
It is also essential that people live in circumstances
consonant with human dignity and not on an impov-
erished and ravaged planet.
But why is this a duty for all of us? To demonstrate
that it is, we can turn back to something that once
had a place in philosophy under the rubric of "meta-
physics" but has fallen into disrepute because the
modern tradition of critical philosophy permits only
those questions leading to answers that can be proved
or disproved. Clearly we are involved here with a di-
mension where such an approach is impossible, for
to the question of whether humankind ought to exist
or not-let alone whether there ought to be a world
or not-we certainly cannot expect answers that can
be demonstrated to be correct or false as in the natu-
ral sciences. But in contemplating what it means to
be a human being we can surely arrive at some ulti-
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The Legacyof HansJonas I 45
mate principles about which it is possible to reach a
consensus among people who are reasonable and who
are inclined to take responsibility. And we are inclined
to be responsible: human beings are the only crea-
tures who can take responsibility for their actions, and
this "can" in itself makes them responsible. Conse-
quently, pointing out this basic human characteristic
in the total scheme of things is already the beginning
of an argument for our duty toward this totality. At
the moment, this may well be what will awaken in us
a feeling that our present actions are bringing us face
to face with ultimate decisions requiring, under cer-
tain circumstances, a radical change in direction or
at least a curtailment of the exercise of our power.
That would mean a kind of setting limits.
D6nhoff: This brings us to the theme we really
wanted to talk about, which is unfortunately described
by the distasteful word "euthanasia."
Reinhard Merkel: Do you, Professor Jonas, espe-
cially in regard to the medical field we've just referred
to, believe a discussion of euthanasia to be necessary,
permissible, or prohibited-at any rate here in Ger-
many?
Jonas: By no means prohibited, but whether ad-
visable, whether expedient, I can't judge. In all the
world Germany is the place where such a discussion
is the most difficult. The conditions are as unfavor-
able as one can imagine, for the past casts such
frightful shadows on this theme that it's apparently
impossible to have a calm, rational discussion of it
in this country.
I was somewhat shocked when I learned from
Die Zeit of the way the debate was carried on here.
In the Anglo-Saxon world, where I've been living now
for many decades, we don't know this type of discus-
sion, poisoned by accusations and invectives, by ques-
tioning the motives of one's opponents-even going
so far as to call them fascists. And whoever would
argue in this fashion would come off very badly. I
was dismayed at the way Professor Singer was some-
times shouted down here and prevented from mak-
ing public appearances. On the other hand, I don't
believe it was a happy choice to use Professor Singer
of all people as a point of orientation. For in my
view he in no way exemplifies the manner in which
this question should be treated, philosophically and
casuistically and as an ethical problem. By and large
I reject his premises, or find them in any case much
too superficial, as well as his conclusions. But I could
still calmly discuss all this with him. Apparently that
isn't possible here in Germany.
If you ask me, then, whether this matter should
be discussed in Germany or not, I would say that
discussing it is practically inescapable. Hushing up
the question definitely doesn't make it disappear. It
should be discussed but not in the way it has been
here. I'm thinking of an example: the representative
of the handicapped movement, Mr. Christoph (I as-
46 I HastingsCenterReport,SpecialIssue, 1995
Countess Marion Donhoff
sume he is handicapped himself), opened his con-
tribution to the discussion with the statement that
Peter Singer disputes his right to life and that of
other handicapped persons. This is simply not true.
It is a total distortion of Singer's position. I mean,
there is enough to argue against in Singer's case,
but to attribute something to him that he never said
and that doesn't fit in with his views at all is a base
and despicable way to conduct a discussion. As I've
already said, I found this dismaying and it showed
me what Germany still has to deal with. This too is
a belated price being paid for the crimes and the
horrors of the Hitler era.
It is crucial in such a discussion to come to a
true understanding and to reach an agreement on
the subject; instead, an element is introduced here
that diverts attention from the problem itself. I be-
lieve that foreign observers following this debate
must shake their heads and ask, "Good heavens,
can't the Germans learn to show respect for one
another in such discussions and to believe their
opponents have the same concerns they do? Can't
they learn that the other person may be in error but
then try to prove that to him?"A foreigner who thinks
that way would definitely be making a mistake to be-
lieve this kind of behavior is a part of the German
character or culture when in reality a special heri-
tage lies behind it.
Merkel: I would like to ask a question about the
central problem. In the area of euthanasia a distinc-
tion is usually made between what is called moribund
euthanasia-assisted dying in the case of critically ill
older patients-and what is called neonate euthana-
sia. Is, in your opinion, euthanasia thinkable? Can it
be legitimate and morally defensible in either of these
areas?
Jonas: You mean now "active"euthanasia?
Merkel: Yes, the active taking of life.
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Jonas: Although it can possibly be justified
in extreme cases, I would urgently advise against it.
For what we then let ourselves in for can lead to a
disregard of certain basic laws that ought to be un-
conditionally defended.
But I must expand upon this. Let us begin by
speaking of the terminally ill, for that is a clearer
issue. In my book Technology,Medicine, and Ethics (in
German) there is an essay about this with the title
"The Right to Die" (or more accurately, "On Tech-
niques of Delaying Death and the Right to Die").
The essay begins by remarking on how strange it is
that we should speak of a "right to die" at all, for
any discussion of rights up to now and all efforts to
define rights in the fields of ethics and of law have
always proceeded from the standpoint of a right to
life, to happiness, or the like-in any case, of a right
to something positive. That we can speak of a right
to die is another one of those innovations made pos-
sible only by the development of medical technol-
ogy-in other words, through the attainment of in-
creased power due to modern machines.
The dying are kept alive without taking their own
wishes into account and often, too, against the wishes
of their families. Perhaps the reasons for this are par-
tially of a very noble nature, but they are also par-
tially explained by the fear of legal consequences, of
professional liability. The act of pulling out the plug
of a ventilator that is keeping a comatose patient
alive could be interpreted as the active taking of a
life. I attempt to escape this terrible dilemma-and
others have done the same-by distinguishing be-
tween the active taking of someone's life and allow-
ing that person to die. There are clearly definable
medical cases of loss of consciousness, of irreversible
coma, in which permitting the patient to die is the
only really humane action and cessation of treatment
the proper course. That brings us, however, to bor-
derline cases where it is hard to determine whether
we are merely omitting to act or are actually acting.
This borderline is critical.
Peter Singer's blithe train of thought goes as fol-
lows: If we go so far as to say that it would be better
in a particular case for the patient to die rather than
to continue to live under the circumstances, isn't it
then logical for the physician to intervene and end
the process with an injection? My answer to this is
an unqualified no. The role of taker of life must
never be assigned to a physician; in any case, the law
must never permit him to perform it, for this would
jeopardize and perhaps destroy the physician's role
in society. The active taking of life must not be one
of the physician's professional tasks; it must not be
added to his traditional functions as a healer and
reliever of suffering. A patient must never have to
suspect that his physician might become his execu-
tioner. The physician must not kill.
Is it, however, permissible for someone else to
do so? My answer is that this is an area where no
legal rules can be established. The loving husband
or loving wife, aware of the partner's suffering, can
risk shortening it, under the threat of a possible
prison sentence. But in cases like this no rules can

be established. I will say only that this is a possibility
open to persons who, out of love, are willing and
able to make such a decision. It cannot, however, be
incorporated into a general legal code.
To illustrate this, I'll recount an episode that oc-
curred recently in the United States and captured
the attention of the entire nation. A child was born
with dreadful birth defects. The physician informed
the parents that there were certain life-saving opera-
tions that, although they wouldn't remove the de-
fect-an extremely pathological condition-would at
least prolong the baby's life for a while. Otherwise,
it would die within a short time. But the father and
mother declared themselves opposed to this mode of
treatment. The hospital intervened (that is, the hos-
pital staff, as is frequently the case) and obtained an
interim injunction; a kind of legal guardian was ap-
pointed for the infant by the state, since the parents
didn't want it to live. Surgery was performed and was
followed by several more operations. The baby suf-
fered terribly. The parents visited it time after time,
protesting time after time against the continuation
of treatment; then after about six months they
learned that the hospital intended to transfer their
baby to another hospital, far away, which had devel-
oped a special form of treatment.
After hearing this, the father appeared in the
hospital's intensive care unit, pulled a revolver out
of his pocket, held the staff at bay, detached the
baby's mechanical breathing support, in tears took
his little son into his arms while keeping the loaded
revolver pointed the whole time at the nurses and
doctors. After the baby had died in his arms, he em-
braced him, sobbing, and then surrendered his weap-
on. Naturally, there followed a charge of premedi-
tated murder; however, the jury acquitted the father
of all charges, finding him guilty of only one offense:
unlawful possession of a firearm. This verdict met with
the approval of probably ninety percent of the Amer-
ican public. Here is an example of what is possible
and of what can't be written down in any statute book.
But to give the physician the permission to take a life
I would regard as disastrous.
D6nhoff: Earlier, in another context, you made
a distinction between religiously oriented people and
atheists. Does the passive taking of life-in other
words, pulling the plug-have a different meaning
for the religious person than it does for the atheist?
The religious person actually ought to accept what
God has assigned to a frail mortal in the way of suf-
fering. Is that a valid point of view or not?
Jonas: No, it is not, for we have already altered
God's will anyway by using the breathing support ma-
chine; without it, the patient would already be dead.
The question must be approached differently. We
have a right to debate it at all only because inter-
vention with modern machines and medicines has
made it possible to maintain states of life Nature
didn't foresee. Thus, from the religious perspective
the question is a different one: Christian Scientists
would look upon the very use of a ventilator as a
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The Legacyof HansJonas | 47
sacrilege, as irreligious. So religion can cause us to
decide one way or the other.
Merkel: Professor Jonas, to return to the ques-
tion raised earlier: How do things stand with the ethi-
cal relevance of distinguishing between active and
passive taking of life? Can there be in certain cases
any ethically meaningful distinction at all between
whether death is caused by an act of omission or of
commission, for both of which responsibility must be
taken? A second question concerns cases when it is
or could be clearly more humane to bring about
death quickly; your example of the critically ill baby
whom the father finally helped to die by using armed
force comes to mind. This baby was made to suffer
for six months even though the doctors knew it would
die before long anyway. Wouldn't it have been more
humane, since an early death was certain, absolutely
certain, to bring it about quickly and painlessly in-
stead of letting it occur slowly and agonizingly?
Jonas: What you say sounds very logical, but it
contains an error. It's correct that the borderline be-
tween active and passive euthanasia is unclear. Here
is a good example (I'm speaking at the moment of
a moribund patient but will return to the example
of the baby): the harrowing terminal illness of a can-
cer patient can be shortened by alleviating the suf-
fering as far as possible with drugs. The dosages of
painkilling drugs called for in such a situation ought
not to be prescribed in a more hopeful case, that is,
when there is some chance of recovery, since the
drugs in question are themselves agents that hasten
death. Here, then, the boundary between relief, al-
leviation of pain, and the taking of life is unclear.
Still, it makes a difference whether a physician
or two physicians or the physician along with the pa-
tient's relatives decide that the patient is to be killed
with an injection or whether the principle of action
is to alleviate the dying patient's pain. It's one thing
3
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0
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Hans Jonas, c. 1976
48 I HastingsCeterReport,SpecialIssue, 1995
when the physician says: The patient should suffer
as little as possible so I will now use this drug (mor-
phine or some other painkiller) in larger doses and
at shorter intervals than would be permissible in a
more hopeful case, a case with hope of recovery. It's
quite another matter when an injection is adminis-
tered with the intention of causing death.
Although the borderline is somewhat blurred
here, it's very significant that in the second case the
direct intention of taking life has been incorporated
into the physician's arsenal, so to speak, as a routine
matter. The physician can do many things: cure, re-
lieve pain, alleviate suffering. But taking life must not
be one of them. If the taking of life becomes one of
the physician's rights and duties, becomes part of pro-
fessional ethics and of the legal code, then this rep-
resents a fatal divergence from the traditional con-
ception of the medical profession.
D6nhoffi If it is clear to the physician in your
example that he is helping to induce death, then I
wonder what the difference is between this type of
assistance and pulling out the plug.
Jonas: I am definitely in favor of pulling out the
plug when that is indicated. It's usually a matter of
a ventilator that sustains breathing and circulation.
The patient no longer has the physical ability to con-
tinue breathing on his own since the brain no longer
supports it; he is thus forced to breathe by external
means. It is the right thing to do to assist someone
through a crisis in this manner, but to force a patient
to continue living indefinitely under these artificial
conditions strikes me as unacceptable, not only out
of compassion but for the sake of human dignity.
This is, in a concrete sense, senseless. Hence, termi-
nating treatment after it has been established beyond
any doubt that there is no hope that the patient will
regain consciousness is something quite different
from administering a lethal injection.
If a human organism is in a condition that calls
for terminating life by such means, then that is in
and of itself a reason not to do it. There is a whole
group of cases that demonstrate how complicated an
area this is. One famous case in the United States
was that of Karen Quinlan, whose parents obtained
a court order to have their daughter removed from
a respirator. When this was done, she began to
breathe spontaneously and went on living or, rather,
vegetating, for another eight years without regaining
consciousness, having to be fed artificially. A judge
who would issue a new order to stop the feeding
could not be found. Then Karen Quinlan finally
died. We see here that even prognoses by leading
specialists can be wrong. In this case everyone
thought that turning off the machine would end her
life.
There are, as I have said, ill-defined boundaries
that are difficult to distinguish. But in the Quinlan
case the distinction between terminating treatment
and actively taking life is definitely an important one.
For it is hard to say whether the young woman would
have suffered or not if she had been allowed to die
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from dehydration, from starvation. We don't know.
There is not an answer for everything. Your sugges-
tion that there is perhaps no difference between per-
mitting a patient to die and intentionally taking that
person's life by means of a single act of intervention
is one that I find unacceptable in spite of the unclear
boundaries.
Merkel: I think we must also consider the con-
sequences that ensue in certain cases when we say:
allow to die, yes; take life, no. You used the term
dehydration. There are cases of severely ill or severely
impaired infants who the doctors know have no
chance of survival. But there may be a certain possi-
bility of prolonging life for days, weeks, sometimes
months if major surgery is performed. Yet if an infant
has no anus, for example, then the operation is not
performed and the child is allowed to die, specifically
by starvation. Now, there are many, Singer among
them, who say: That is a cruel death. You are distanc-
ing yourselves from the taboo area of actively taking
life, and there are good reasons for this. You physi-
cians must then realize, however, that a cruel price
must be paid for observing this taboo, even if, thank
heaven, only in extreme cases. But it is not you who
are paying it but rather the suffering, dying infant.
To put it pointedly, would you say that this price must
be accepted in order to avoid the dangers connected
with permitting the active taking of life?
Jonas: Yes. My answer is yes. This price must be
accepted. It's terrible to say that, but an ethics based
on compassion alone is something very questionable.
The consequences of the human attitude toward the
act of taking life, toward making the taking of life
in intolerable situations a routinely available option-
to put it quite bluntly, the progressive and cumulative
habituation to the idea and the practice of taking
life-are incalculable. So much is at stake here that
it outweighs the suffering of an individual infant.
We mustn't let ourselves be governed by an ethics
of compassion but only by a sense of responsibility
for the consequences arising from our attitude, from
our readiness and willingness to consider making oc-
casional use of the option of taking life. We ought
not and must not let this be our starting point. That
is my position, but I can understand it if someone
comes to a different conclusion.
Merkel: In legal parlance this is referred to as
the bursting-of-the-dam argument. But in the situ-
ation of a strict and unequivocal prohibition of the
active taking of life on the one hand and legalization
of allowing the patient to die on the other there is
another possibility that could have a serious effect,
namely, becoming insensitive to suffering by repeated
exposure to it. Do you think it possible that growing
accustomed to having to watch people die a painful
death on a frequent basis has the effect of making
someone indifferent to suffering, which could also be
dangerous?

Jonas: Experience actually contradicts this. What
you are saying sounds very plausible, as if it might
be that way. But common experience contradicts it.
Not even in the battles of the First World War was
that the case. The number of casualties was enor-
mous, and again and again soldiers had to watch
their comrades being blown to bits. In spite of this
I have never gathered from the recollections of sol-
diers or from the literature of the time that feelings
were dulled as a result. It is possible, of course, but
insensitivity to human suffering does not usually
come from watching it but from not watching it at
all. Taking life as well as letting someone die-both
have their dark side. Which is the greater, which the
lesser evil here? I would say that it is preferable to
make an infant endure a death that lasts for a week
or longer than to make a practice of killing the new-
born immediately. The whole thing is a terrible mis-
fortune; it is simply a question of what the funda-
mental postulates of morality require, of what ought
to be avoided unconditionally and what can be ac-
cepted.
Now another question arises. What actually enti-
tles us to impose existence on a being by bringing
it into the world, a being that had no choice in the
matter? In conceiving and bearing a child there is a
kind of underlying culpability. For not only do we
bestow existence upon children, we also inflict it
upon them, with the assumption that they will want
to live without asking-in other words, that we
are bringing into the world a being that affirms
itself. That is in a certain sense an enormous pre-
sumption. Everyone must be prepared for the
words of the prophet Jeremiah, who cried out,
"Mother, why did you give birth to me?" There
can be only one answer to this question: Because
the natural order of things wills that only under
one condition can there be human beings, only
by taking the risk not just of enabling them, but
also of condemning them, to be human.
The burden of existence is great, and perhaps
the human beings who have made it the most justi-
fiable have sometimes been the unhappiest. I remem-
ber once asking Martin Buber what Kafka, whom he
knew personally, was like. I shall never forget his an-
swer: "I can say one thing. He was the unhappiest
human being I ever came across." Nevertheless, his
life was worth living, which is a terrible thing to say;
I mean, it was really worth the suffering.
I want to turn the question around though. The
problem here is not what we owe the infant in terms
of its survival-that is our positive responsibility-but
how far we are permitted to go in imposing existence
on the child we have brought into the world. There
is a point at which we say for the sake of this little
being itself: No, we must not condemn it to existence,
and for this reason we must not only respect the right
to life, we must also respect a right to death. Yet we
must not do this by actively taking a life, and this for
the reasons I have already advanced. Becoming ac-
customed to this alternative would bring about exactly
that bursting-of-the-dam situation you mentioned ear-
lier. But there are limits to what we should condemn
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The Legacyof HansJonas | 49
such a being to, and for this reason permitting it to
die could truly be a moral commandment.
D6nhoffi Yes, with some hesitation. How can I
arrive at a standard for making a judgment of my
own about what is right and what is wrong when I
have vacillating feelings on the subject?
Jonas: Your question is a very valid one. What I
said earlier presupposed that we are dealing with ex-
treme cases such as occur in the literature, such as
those described in your dossier and reported in Peter
Singer's book. In extreme cases it is relatively easy to
reach a decision. But then there are always the gray
areas, too, in which one is entitled to ask, How do
you actually arrive at a criterion for saying a life no
longer has value or it does still have value? The an-
swer: I don't know. Perhaps it is asking too much to
expect unequivocal guidelines here. In the last
analysis the intuition and imagination of the individ-
ual will play a role, and here again we would find
ourselves in an area in which it is impossible to es-
tablish a general rule.
Merkel: You said, ProfessorJonas, that in certain
cases we must also ask how much we should inflict
on a newborn infant, what we are permitted to con-
demn it to. This brings us to the term "unfit for life"
with all its dire connotations because of its use during
the Nazi era. Two questions about this: Can we avoid
the underlying empirical consideration of whether
this life is still in some way desirable, specifically for
the one who has to live it? Shouldn't we then at least
avoid using the discredited phrase "unfit for life," al-
though it is difficult to do so in such cases?
Jonas: Yes, this phrase probably must be avoided
because it makes rational and serious discussion
nearly impossible. If I ask the question, How much
are we permitted to inflict, to what point may we
force someone to live who is condemned to an al-
together stunted existence he never would have cho-
sen for himself, then of course the concept "unfit
for life" enters in, but for whom, "unfit"for whom?
The concept is a loaded one, in the first place be-
cause of its history and in the second place because
of its ambiguity.
In your dossier I believe you mentioned the book
by Hoche and Bindung, Die Freigabeder Vernichtung
lebensunwertenLebens(Freedom to Annihilate the Un-
fit), and how the Nazis later used its ideas. But there
was already a fundamental error in Hoche and Bin-
dung's use of this concept, for the point of view ac-
cording to which "fit" or "unfit" was measured was,
if I am not mistaken, that of society. Even if society
is not equated with "race" or Volksgemeinschaft(na-
tional community) or the like, still it is not human
beings themselves who are central but something else.
It can also be the state: "The king needs soldiers!"
Yet "unfit to live" can and must mean unfit only from
the perspective of the person in question. To say that
50 I HastingsCenterReport,SpecialIssue,1995
it costs too much to keep these people alive, that it
requires too much effort, and that the money could
be better spent are considerations that must not play
any role.
Merkel: I am completely convinced of the truth
of what you're saying. But the objection is often made
that we can never know in a given case whether the
life that awaits a newborn, which according to all cri-
teria will be horrible, is desirable for this person or
not. Are there, in your opinion, times when the ques-
tion can nevertheless be answered objectively even
though strictly speaking we can never put ourselves
in another's place?
Jonas: Yes, but again only in extreme cases. But
we aren't just dealing with extreme cases. As soon as
eugenic considerations enter the picture, the matter
becomes extremely dangerous. Let's imagine that
prenatal testing can determine if a child will be epi-
leptic. Epilepsy is a misfortune for the person in
question as well as for the others involved. If we
made this a criterion for abortion or infanticide, we
would never have had a Dostoyevsky. To make hap-
piness or well-being the measure is a very dubious
step indeed-just think of what Buber said to me
about Kafka. I have spoken out against the active
taking of life. I would also say that one must very
carefully restrict allowing someone to die and must
not let the situation degenerate to the point where
the parents' wishes for a particular kind of child en-
ter into the decision. Singer gives the example of a
mother who is a carrier of the gene for hemophilia,
which can appear only in male offspring. The par-
ents have one child without hemophilia, a girl. Then
a boy is born, who is a hemophiliac, and now Singer
makes the following observation: Since the parents
are resolved not to have more than two children,
allowing this hemophiliac to live would exclude the
possibility, in purely statistical terms a very good one,
of the mother bearing another child who is not a
hemophiliac.
Thus, according to Singer, it is in the interest of
all concerned to do away with the hemophiliac child
so that the woman can try again. Singer doesn't even
realize that an already existing life clearly has priority
over a merely hypothetical one. These are absurd and
frivolous considerations. Singer calls this preferential
utilitarianism, which is an absurdity. For the right of
the already living child is of course inalienable.
Merkel: Singer says that the newborn have no
rights of their own, for he does not connect the right
to life with the fact that one belongs biologically to
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the human species but rather with criteria having to
do with personhood. What Singer misses, I firmly be-
lieve, is that a potential human person, an infant, for
example, must also have an inherent, not a merely
derivative, right to live. What do you think?
Jonas: You have already answered the question.
After all, a child is entrusted to us as something that
is meant to develop into personhood under our pro-
tection. Your introduction of the concept of potenti-
ality answers the whole question. Obviously, an infant
is not yet a person, but it already has all the tenden-
cies and the natural impulse to become one. When
we see how children develop, it is certainly the most
exciting and marvelous thing in the world: for ex-
ample, their eager attempts to learn to speak. An
awesome process takes place between the first and
second year of life; syntax is being mastered-just
imagine!-by such a young brain. Discussing this
question in terms of legal rights seems to me to be
completely misguided. We don't provide for the
needs of the newborn because they have legal claims
on us but because they have a right to existence,
which we must respect. To be sure, they are also al-
ready individuals in a legal sense (in matters of in-
heritance, for instance), who need representation as
long as they are still unable to represent themselves.
What precedes all this, however, is quite simply
a relationship characterized by a one-sided responsi-
bility toward growing human beings. It is above all
responsibility and not respect for their rights as hu-
man beings-that comes later. What we first experi-
ence is something much more elementary and fun-
damental: genuine concern for a life entrusted to us.
It is a duty imposed on us, one made easy by love.
If we grossly neglect this duty, "the law" must then
intervene to protect the child's welfare. This protec-
tion also includes the legal prohibition against kill-
ing, and that is where the matter should rest-in
spite of tormenting borderline cases that strongly
arouse our humanitarian feelings.
The public domain of law and the much more
personal area of morality can never completely coin-
cide. In the last analysis and in extreme cases we will
have to fall back upon those lonely decisions moti-
vated by a love that will even dare to defy the law
but in the hope that those passing judgment on its
violation will be as merciful as the legal system
permits. We must, I believe, humbly come to terms
with this unresolved and insoluble part of the
question of euthanasia. We must, in other words, re-
nounce the hope of reaching an unequivocally valid
ethical answer.