I have a reoccurance of Base of Tongue cancer, and this is a dehumanizing sort of cancer in that it starts to strip away some our most basic asthetic appreciations: eating food, tasting, swallowing, speaking and sexual intimacy. It is also dreadfully painful. So - I've been having the internal question of, when is enough enough, and I think there was a classical parable of how someone would choose their death.

Leaving the law to one side (I don't know which jurisdiction you live in or could reach), I think there is nothing morally wrong with your bringing your life to an end under these circumstances. You will want to make this decision with sound medical information about your prospects and you will want to make sure that your loved ones understand -- even if, perhaps, they cannot approve. You may also want to think beyond your own life. For example, is there anything morally important that you might yet want to accomplish -- perhaps something that can free or protect others from as great a burden as you are bearing yourself. If your cancer is tobacco-related (some cases are), for instance, you might help warn young people against this danger. Or you may simply devote your remaining energies to a good cause you believe in. Such an active commitment may be quite as meaningful as the joys and pleasures no longer accessible to you. As a final thought, it may be worthwhile to communicate with others who...

If someone died at age 95, we wouldn't think him unfortunate--it isn't a bad thing, for him, not to have lived much longer. However, if someone died at age 15, we would thing him unfortunate. Why? I suspect that our intuition here has to do with the fact that 95 is well above the average life expectancy for humans, while 15 is well below average. But why should that matter here?

I suspect that your suspicion is partially correct: there is the intuition that someone who is doing worse than average and worse than most is unfortunate. But two other factors come in as well. There is the fact that only a very small percentage of those who reach age 15 fail to reach 16 -- whereas a rather substantial percentage of those who reach age 95 fail to reach age 96. And people perceive it as more unfortunate to be among a very small fraction who suffer harm than to be one in a larger fraction. (If you're among 20 people worldwide to catch some infectious disease, you'll feel very unfortunate, much more so than if you got a cold along with 3 billion other people.) And there is the further fact that life beyond the 95th birthday tends not to be all that good -- the person who dies at 15 is losing many probably very good years of life whereas the person who dies at 95 is losing just a few bad ones. (If you lose $5000 you'll probably feel a lot more unfortunate than if you lose just $1....

Is, say, necrophilia ethically wrong? Arguably the ultimate societal taboo, necrophilia is something which the vast majority of people -- myself included -- consider disturbing and repulsive. It seems, however, that if we deem it morally objectionable we are left in a precarious situation, as we are forced to acknowledge that certain sexual behaviors without victims are wrong in and of themselves. If we accept this fact, what's to stop a person from deeming gay marriage wrong on the same grounds? Where could we possibly draw the line? Having read some of the responses posted on this site, I have recently accepted the position that a person can be harmed even after their death. So, when I am speaking of necrophilia here, let's assume the person gave their consent before dying.

We might think of this on three levels. First, is it permissible for a liberal state to outlaw necrophilia? The argument for an affirmative answer could appeal to various public health reasons as well as to the fact that this practice may give considerable offense to others even while the cost of abstention is relatively small and borne only by a few. This argument might run roughly parallel to that justifying the permissibility of outlawing nudity or defecation in public places. The case of gay relationships is substantially different for two reasons: the cost to gay people of not having the opportunity of a romantically fulfilling and socially recognized relationship is enormous and, with roughly three percent of all people being gay, the number of people who would be (and have been) bearing this cost is substantial. Second, is there something ethically wrong with practicing necrophelia? Taking ethics in the broad sense, its concern is the good life for human beings. A good life centrally...

If we assume that there is no afterlife, what reason do we have to comply with a person's wishes as regards treatment of their corpse? In particular, it is striking to me that we should respect a person's wish not to extract their organs after death; what reason could we possibly have to heed the wishes of someone who no longer exists, especially when the donation of their organs could literally save the lives of several people?

May I refer you to my answer to question 1114? I fully agree with you that organs could save lives, very many lives each year, not to speak of health improvements. But nearly all of this problem can be solved rather easily by reversing the standard default. Instead of assuming that a person who dies without leaving specific instructions does not want his or her organs to be used, we should stipulate the opposite. We should institute easy and convenient ways for people to register their veto against the posthumous use of their organs. And we should then assume that all who have not registered such a veto are consenting to the posthumous use of their organs for saving the lives or restoring the health of other people. This simple change in the law would give us the needed organs without the problems I discuss in the response to Q1114.

In what sense is being put to death a punishment? How we can talk about things like "suffering" or "loss" if a person is dead (i.e., not conscious)?

It is true that, once a person has been executed, she is no longer around to suffer the loss of years she might otherwise have lived. But the point of an execution is not to punish the person after she's dead, but before. She is subjected to the experience of living on death row and later to the experience of being killed in the execution chamber; and she must expect all along that many things she cared for are less likely to thrive or to come to fruition. You might respond that this answer works only for people who know about their impending execution. What about someone who is killed painlessly in her sleep? Could this ever be construed as a punishment? We can give an affirmative answer if we think of punishment in a somewhat extended sense as the setting back of a person's interests. Suppose you have given offense to someone and, in order to punish you, he has been embezzling money from your account. Being an affluent entrepreneur, you never notice the losses (you rather take your business to...

Dear philosophers, why should we respect the dead?

Here are three reasons to consider. First, because they want to be respected. Sure, being dead, they do not want this now. But they did want it when they were alive -- just as you now want to be respected after your death. Imagine you have a certain deeply embarrassing secret that only your best friend knows. You very strongly want no one else to know. This fact gives your best friend a weighty reason not to tell others, even when she can do so in a way that you will never find out about. This reason may disappear when you change so that you no longer mind others knowing. But it persists when you die without having changed your mind -- or so one could hold. Second, because respecting the dead makes their lives better. The quality of our lives depends not merely on our mental states but also on our contributions to the world. These contributions can continue when we die: composers, artists, and novelists enrich many lives even after they die, and this in turn makes their own lives more valuable...