Do depressed patients Have a Right to Their Own Lives: A Buddhist Ethical Perspective

Abstract

The article, " Do Patients with Depression Have a Right to Their Own Lives? : A Perspective from Buddhist Ethics " seeks to explore ethical and metaphysical questions concerning the right to life for individuals with depression who wish to end their own existence. In examining this issue, Liberalism maintains that an individual possesses a right to his or her own life. Given this premise, the act of self-termination may be considered appropriate, as it falls within the domain of self-ownership. Conservatism, however, argues otherwise: while it is true that an individual holds a right to life, the termination of that life is deemed morally improper, for the person is also a member of society. As such, the decision to end one’s life ought to be subject to the moral consent of the social collective. From the standpoint of Buddhist Ethics, life is not the private possession of an individual but rather a process arising from causes and conditions (paṭiccasamuppāda—Dependent Origination). There is, in truth, no enduring self (atta) that owns or governs it. Thus, the claim to a “right to die” rests upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the self and conflicts with the principle of intention (cetanā), which forms the core of moral action in Buddhism. Suicide, even when motivated by self-compassion, still constitutes unwholesome intention (akusala cetanā). Regarding the right to life, Buddhist ethics does not interpret it as dominion or power over life, but as the right to learn from and awaken within life itself, even amidst profound suffering. Life, in this view, is the very ground of spiritual cultivation (bhāvanā), not a possession to be terminated at the behest of an ego that, ultimately, is not real.