Brittany Maynard Decision Making

In the articles “Brittany Maynard, as promised, ends her life at 29” and “Brittany Maynard explains reasons for ending her life in her own words”, Brittany Maynard decides to end her own life during the end stages of her terminal brain cancer. In this essay, I will describe Maynard’s reasons for her decision to take her own life. I will show how Kant would argue that Maynard’s decision was morally impermissible by using the two formulations of the Categorical Imperative, and how Aristotle would argue that Maynard’s decision was morally permissible using the doctrine of the mean and the good for a state argument. Finally, after critically assessing both approaches, I will show how I determined the permissibility of Maynard’s decision in taking her own life.
On New Year’s Eve, Brittany Maynard was diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma, a fatal malignant brain tumor. Since there were no effective treatments for this terminal illness, Maynard had only six months to live before the end stages of the cancer when the brain expands and presses against her …show more content…
Not only was Maynard treating herself merely as means, but also her maxim cannot become a universal law of nature. However, the argument does not take into account the situational view of Maynard’s decision making. Kant’s universal law formula applies to all cases alike, thus treats Maynard’s voluntary act of death as an identical to the act of committing suicide due to depression, misfortune, poverty, troubles… Aristotle’s virtue ethics, on the other hand, emphasizes on the distinctions and particular features of every actual situation one faces. It takes into consideration the fact that Maynard was going to die naturally soon thereafter during the end stages of her illness, thus treats Maynard’s case as a special one unlike any other case of suicide, as explained in the good for a state argument. It also considers action that would lie at the mean given Maynard’s