- Free newsletter
- The Latest
- Topics
-
About
In death, people can flourish and find meaning
There’s a traditional French fable called “The Magic Thread”. An old witch gives a boy a ball of silken golden thread which represents his life. As he pulls the thread out of its container, life goes by in a blink of an eye. This enables him to skip over challenges and hardships, but at the end of his days he realises that he has failed to savour his life.
The moral is obvious – even the most difficult moments are opportunities for personal growth.
The voluntary assisted dying movement argues that these do not include death. Unless it is serene, sunny and painless, death is meaningless. Activists focus on agonizing pain, the tedium of unproductive days, and the humiliation of being a burden. It’s better to snap the thread before it reaches the end.
However, a recent research paper in the journal Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics by a Harvard University research team questions this gloomy view of terminal illness. Death, they say, can bring “significant opportunities for existential and moral growth even when one is in one’s final days of life.”
Xavier Symons and colleagues, of Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, argue that death can be a time when people “flourish” morally and spiritually. “Certain aspects of human goods, however, that are plausibly constitutive of flourishing—such as meaning and purpose, deep personal relationships, and character and virtue—can be uniquely realised when life is ending,” they write.

Join Mercator today for free and get our latest news and analysis
Buck internet censorship and get the news you may not get anywhere else, delivered right to your inbox. It's free and your info is safe with us, we will never share or sell your personal data.
Certainly, terminal illness can be agonisingly difficult. It may seem naïve to talk about “flourishing” at the end of life. But death is part of life and there is no doubt that some people experience “a strong sense of meaning and purpose, deeper social connectedness, or moral growth” in their last days.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle suggested that no one can be called happy until he dies a happy death. As the researchers put it:
One may … have a life that is for the most part characterized by virtue and suitably furnished with the trappings of success but still experience great misfortune at the end of life and not be considered blessed. Dying a good death, then, appears to be an important and, indeed, constitutive feature of a flourishing life.
The classic example for the Greeks is the character of Oedipus in Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus Rex. He had solved the riddle of the Sphinx and had become a great king but his life ended in appalling misery. "Count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last," comments the Chorus of the play.
There is another way of looking at the end of life. One could argue – and people do – give up while the going’s good. Choose death before it chooses you. Legalise voluntary assisted dying. That is more or less the theme of a famous and often-quoted article by Ezechiel Emanuel, a leading American bioethicist, in The Atlantic, “Why I hope to die at 75” – although he insisted that he did not endorse VAD.
Here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. … We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.
But Symons and his colleagues contend that “the end of life can be pregnant with meaning and significance for human beings”.
For the Ezekiel Emanuels of this world, who treasure their independence and autonomy, this seems counter-intuitive. How can a time of suffering and dependence be meaningful? Does being “feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic” serve any purpose?
Here’s where philosophy comes in handy. The article points out that an active, autonomous life gives us purpose. We are moving, contributing, bustling, busy and useful. But it may take moments of powerlessness and dependence to enter the realm of meaning. “One can, in other words, start to make definitive evaluations of one’s life given that the narrative arc of life is nearing its end,” its authors write.
Even for people who have been, to use an Australian turn of phrase, “proper bastards”, “the end of life may still provide an opportunity for repentance, apology, and reform, and for making whatever repair or reconciliation is possible, and possibly for finding some meaning in these.”
“I am not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens,” is one of Woody Allen’s many death-phobic quips. But Allen, like all of us, is going to die. Do those final days or hours offer an opportunity to become a person who has lived a flourishing life?
Leo Tolstoy, in The Death of Ivan Ilyich, says Yes. His novella must be the most realistic depiction of the psychology of death all of literature. Ilyich has been a nice enough person, but not a particularly cheerful, productive or loving one. He cannot believe that he is dying of a painful cancer.
'Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal' – had seemed to him all his life to be correct only in relation to Caius, but by no means to himself.
He suffers terribly, but his pain finally becomes a way of reconciling with his wife and children:
He sought his old habitual fear of death and could not find it. Where was it? What death? There was no more fear because there was no more death. Instead of death there was light. "So that's it!" he suddenly said aloud. "What joy!"
Tolstoy was a Christian, an eccentric Christian, but a Christian, and his story depicts characteristically Christian themes of reconciliation and forgiveness. However, it is not written as a Christian parable but as an acute psychological analysis of the process of death. Purged of his selfishness and snobbery, Ivan Ilyich discovers in death a uniquely radiant experience which imbues his whole life with meaning.
The article by the Harvard researchers shows that the experience of terminal illness and death might not be an optional extra but an essential part of living a happy and flourishing life. It should be read by all politicians in the British Parliament, which is preparing for a debate on voluntary assisted dying later this month.
Is Woody Allen right? Is death senseless?
Michael Cook is editor of Mercator
Image: Bigstock
Have your say!
Join Mercator and post your comments.
-
mrscracker commented 2024-10-18 11:37:05 +1100Without strict conscience protection laws that is what we will face.
-
Emberson Fedders commented 2024-10-18 11:10:51 +1100I don’t think anyone is forcing them.
-
mrscracker commented 2024-10-18 01:17:00 +1100“I am confident that I won’t copycat anyone, so there is absolutely no reason why anyone should be able to tell me how I should live (or end) my life.”
*******
That’s not as much the issue Mr. Fedders but more whether healthcare workers & others should be forced to be complicit in your death. -
Emberson Fedders commented 2024-10-17 12:39:34 +1100Thanks for those links, Michael.
Having read through them, it makes sense. If we legalise assisted dying (euthanasia) but call it suicide, then inevitably the suicide rate goes up.
But I feel this is a little disingenuous. We’re not talking about suicide, we are talking about assisted dying. If a young person, feeling they cannot handle life, kills themself, that is a tragedy, and would be considered suicide.
If an 84-year-old, dying of terminal, painful cancer exercises their option to end their life on their own terms, that’s not really suicide, is it? -
Michael Cook commented 2024-10-16 15:24:20 +1100Certainly. Admittedly, it is early days. We’ll have to wait to see.
Mercator has published articles on this issue:
https://www.mercatornet.com/legalising-assisted-dying-can-actually-increase-suicides
https://www.mercatornet.com/in-europe-suicides-rise-after-right-to-die-is-legalised-says-bioethicist
https://www.mercatornet.com/in-europe-suicides-rise-after-right-to-die-is-legalised-says-bioethicist
Here are links to other journal articles
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26437189/
https://bioethics.org.uk/research/euthanasia-assisted-suicide-papers/suicide-prevention-does-legalising-assisted-suicide-make-things-better-or-worse-professor-david-albert-jones/ -
Paul Bunyan commented 2024-10-16 15:03:12 +1100Excellent point, Emberson. What pro-lifers will never mention is the massive comfort that having a choice provides to terminal patients.
In Oregon, where end-of-life choice has been legal for over two decades, a third of patients who receive a legal dose do not take the drugs. They are palliated by simply having an option.
https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/PROVIDERPARTNERRESOURCES/EVALUATIONRESEARCH/DEATHWITHDIGNITYACT/Documents/year23.pdf -
Emberson Fedders commented 2024-10-16 14:56:58 +1100What is the research that shows suicide rates go up when VAD is legalised?
“There is probably a similar effect for VAD.” Pure conjecture.
I am confident that I won’t copycat anyone, so there is absolutely no reason why anyone should be able to tell me how I should live (or end) my life. -
Michael Cook commented 2024-10-16 12:07:39 +1100The “if you don’t like it, don’t use it” argument is flawed. At least you have to acknowledge that my VAD death will impact on those close to me, probably negatively.
There is some research which shows that the suicide rate rises when VAD is legalised. Apart from that, the copy-cat effect is well known for suicide. There is probably a similar effect for VAD. And then there is the issue, well documented in Canada, of people being offered (or pressured) to accept VAD if social services are lacking.
These are good reasons to be very cautious about legalising VAD. -
Emberson Fedders commented 2024-10-16 11:05:21 +1100Let me repeat my standard answer to articles like this.
If you don’t agree with euthanasia, you are free to decide against it.
If you do agree with euthanasia, then you should be free to decide for yourself to use it.
Using ancient Middle Eastern mythology as a way to force people to do what you want is wrong.
Simple. -
Paul Bunyan commented 2024-10-15 17:59:25 +1100Suffering should never be mandatory. The platitudes and callous attitudes revealed in this article could be equally used to argue for the prohibition of all analgesics and medical care designed at alleviating suffering.
Such a stance is immoral and has no place in civilized society.
Since religion tends to turn people away from their natural tendencies of empathy and compassion, it should not be used to determine policies and practices.
And no, compassion most certainly does not mean to “suffer with” someone else. -