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Levinas and the Euthanasia Debate Author(s): A. T. Nuyen Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 119-135 Published by: on behalf of Journal of Religious Ethics, Inc Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40015279 . Accessed: 12/06/2012 23:59
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LEVINAS AND THE EUTHANASIA DEBATE

A. T. Nuyen
ABSTRACT

The philosophers'tendency to characterize euthanasia in terms of either the right or the responsibility to die is, in some ways, problematic. Stepping outside of the analytic framework, the author draws out the implications of the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas for the euthanasia debate, tracing the way Levinas's position differs not only from the philosophical consensus but also from the theological one. The article shows that, according to Levinas, there is no ethical case for suicide or assisted suicide. Death cannot be assumed or chosen- not only because suicide is a logically and metaphysically contradictoryconcept but also because in the choice of death ethical responsibility turns into irresponsibility.However, since Levinas holds that one must be responsible to the point of expiation, he can be said to approvecertain actions that may have the consequenceof hastening death. KEYWORDS: death, dying, ethics, euthanasia, Levinas, responsibility, suicide
TO THERECENT PHILOSOPHICAL LITERATURE euon WHO CARES SURVEY ANYONE

thanasia cannot help but gain the impressionthat the philosophical suicidein particcase against suicidein generaland physician-assisted ular has virtually collapsed.The only contentiousissue, it seems, is whether, or to what extent, euthanasia should be institutionalized. volunPhilosophical argumentsin defense of euthanasia,particularly tary euthanasia,typicallyinvoke the right to die, linking it with the both in a perright to live one'sown life as one sees fit, and grounding with respectto his or her own existence.More son'sabsoluteautonomy recently,an idea that many peoplefind shockinghas emergedin the there is a duty, or a literature the idea that in some circumstances responsibility, or an obligation, to end one's life (Hardwig 1997). for responsible this positionhave comelargely Anglophone philosophers fromthe analytictradition.In this article,I wish to step outsidethe anato that philosophy lyticframework see if thereis anythingin continental wouldcast a differentlight on the euthanasiadebate. As is well known,MartinHeideggerhas a great deal to say about as euthanadeath,and what he has to say can be construed supporting sia (Nuyen 1990). Otherexistentialistscan also be said to hold views

JRE 28.1:119-35. 2000 Journalof ReligiousEthics, Inc.

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supportive of euthanasia (Campbell and Collinson 1988). However, the position in more recent works by continental thinkers is far less clear. One who has much to say about death and dying is Emmanuel Levinas. The depth of his study of the subject is one reason to examine his work, but another is his commanding stature. Richard Kearney and Mara Rainwater consider him to be "oneof the most significant ethical thinkers of the twentieth century"(Kearney and Rainwater 1996, 122), and Zygmunt Bauman identifies him as "the greatest moral philosopher of this century"(Bauman 1992, 41). Levinas's position on death and dying is strikingly original and radical. If I am right in my interpretation, Levinas can be read as urging us to look beyond the issues that have been the focus of the euthanasia debate in order to see how we can live ethically right to the end, right through the process of dying. In what follows I will first show why contemporaryarguments in support of suicide and assisted suicide tend, in actual situations, to issue in Hamlet-like indecision, "to be or not to be," and I will then show how the work of Levinas produces clearer moral guidance by resituating end-of-life moral problems within an ethics of responsibility. Finally, I will argue that while Levinas's position is indeed religious, the similarity between his position and the widespread opposition to euthanasia that one finds in the theological literature is only superficial.

1. Justificationsof Suicide
The right to die has for a long time been tacitly accepted as part of the set of rights an autonomous person can justifiably claim. It is occasionally explicitly defended, although it is rare to find a more forceful defense than David Hume's 1741 essay "OfSuicide,"in which he denies that there is a duty, to God or to others, to live. Why should I, he asks, "prolong a miserable existence, because of some frivolous advantage which the public may perhaps receive from me?" (Hume 1907, 413). Hume's defense of the right to die was applauded by Arthur Schopenhauer, according to whom "there is obviously nothing in the world over which every man has such an indisputable right as his own person and life" (Schopenhauer 1974, 306). In addition to denying the responsibility to live, Hume also explores the possibility that there may be a responsibility to die. He points out that there are circumstances in which his existence would impose a net cost on society, and "in such cases," he writes, "my resignation of life must not only be innocent but laudable" (Hume 1907, 413). On Hume's behalf, it may be said that if there is a moral obligation to do what is laudable and if it is always laudable to relieve the community of such costs, then there is an obligation "in such cases" to "resign from life." He discusses the case of a captured soldier who, being forced by his enemy to reveal state secrets, may

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justifiably believe that he has a responsibility to kill himself so as not to reveal secrets under torture. One is here reminded of the sympathy that Immanuel Kant, otherwise an opponent of suicide, shows toward Cato, who killed himself so as not to be captured by Caesar. In Kant's words, Cato "thought that it was necessary for him to die" (Kant 1930, 149). However, Hume clearly remains tentative about the idea of a responsibility to end one's life. It arises, if at all, only in very specific circumstances, such as the case of the captured soldier. Even there, the primary responsibility is not to reveal state secrets and killing oneself is only the last resort. His point, in describing these cases in which it would be socially laudable (because socially advantageous) to kill oneself, is simply that the habit of discussing suicide in terms of what advantages or disadvantages society creates a blade that can cut both ways. While Hume is tentative about the idea of a responsibility to die, fictional literature abounds with stories of heroes taking their own lives out of a sense of duty, or responsibility, even a sense of noblesse oblige. Indeed, the death of Socrates, a philosophical hero, could well be interpreted along these lines. However, it is doubtful if much philosophical weight can be placed on the idea that there is a responsibility to die that is grounded in tradition and culture (the captain going down with the ship or the ritual disembowelment of the Japanese samurai) or in noblesse oblige. A utilitarian case along Humean lines would be more philosophically plausible. In any case, Hume's utilitarian considerations have been employed by others in their explicit support of the idea of a responsibility to die. In a recent effort, John Hardwig argues that because human lives are intertwined, the connections of one life with other lives "can. . . generate obligations to die, as continuing to live takes too much of a toll on the lives of those connected to us" (Hardwig 1997, 57). As to exactly when one becomes subject to the duty to die, Hardwig sensibly admits that we "cannot say" (1997, 58). He does suggest, though, that certain utilitarian factors can be taken into account- for instance, there is "more duty to die when prolonging your life will impose greater burdens ... on your family and loved ones," "less duty"when it is possible to "make a good adjustment to your illness or handicapping condition" (1997, 58-59). In the same way, Hume's argument for the right to die can also be put in the utilitarian context. However, whether it is a question of right or a question of responsibility, the standard objection to the utilitarian approach is that utilitarian calculations are notoriously difficult to make, and in cases that weigh life against death, the difficulties are compounded.Thus, Jonathan Glover has cautioned that suicide "cannot be seen to be the right thing to do without the most careful thought about the effects on all those emotionally involved"(Glover 1977, 175).

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Those effects are difficult to calculate or anticipate. As Glover puts it, "an act of suicide can shatter the lives of others (perhaps parents) to a degree the person might never have suspected. . . . There is also the question of the loss of any general contribution the person might make to society" (1977, 175). Hardline utilitarians may, at best, regard Glover'snote of caution as well taken, but they are unlikely to accept it as a serious objectionto the utilitarian case. Be that as it may, Glover's point serves to highlight the fact that for a person contemplating ending his or her life, the utilitarian argument is likely to result in indecision. How can one ever be sure that all the relevant effects have been properly included and properly weighted in the utilitarian calculation? In other kinds of decisions, one can subsequently correct or learn from mistakes. It is not so with the decision to end one's life. There does not seem to be any precise moment when the answer to the Shakespearean question clearly emerges. Moreover, we might ask what reason can be given on utilitarian grounds for limiting the invocation of this imprecise calculus to only those cases in which a person is already terminally ill or suffering intractable pain? For example, in Hardwig's defense of euthanasia in terms of the responsibility to die, burden is simply the difference between costs and benefits, and as such it can arise at any stage in one's life. Surely, then, the responsibility to die can likewise arise at any stage of life, not just when one is ill or dying. A young person with no prospect of a productive life may have such a responsibility; a healthy retiree (particularly one not well liked by his kin) could well constitute a burden if his or her superannuation could be put to better use than to support an unproductive life. This idea is truly shocking. Still, it seems to be consistent with Hardwig's claim that there is "a greater duty to die if your loved ones' lives have already been difficult or impoverished"and if "youhave already lived a full and rich life" (Hardwig 1997, 58). There may well be a workable utilitarian case for suicide and assisted suicide; however, none that I have read strikes me as very plausible or convincing, and it is not my task here to construct one. Simple insistence on the right to die, no matter what the consequences or circumstances, does not suffer from the same intrinsic difficulties that afflict the utilitarian argument; however, it strikes me that Hardwig is right about lives being intertwined. Given the interconnections, it is difficult, I think, to make an ethical case for insisting on exercising the right to die. It is time to step outside the framework of analytic philosophy to see whether there is not another way of looking at the question of death and dying. With this in mind, I turn to the ethics of Levinas. It will be surprising if we cannot draw from the writings of "one of the most significant ethical thinkers of the twentieth century,"if not "the greatest moral philosopher of this century," some relevant insights. Levinas

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expounds his ethical views in many different works, but it will be sufficient to focus on Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence, together with several of his essays on responsibility, death, and dying.

2. The Ethical Philosophy of Levinas

Levinas employs the term VAutrui,often translated as "the Other/' to refer to one's fellow human beings- the indefinite neighbors, strangers, widows, and orphans; he uses the term Vautre,often translated as "the other,"to refer to what lies beyond the totality that is one's own being, beyond what constitutes one's essence, a realm to which the Other belongs. The world that one knows is called "the said" because all the things in that world are known through what is said about them, through our own thematization or conceptualization of them. The realm of the other is called "the saying" because we are aware of it only through what it says to us rather than through our thematization. As a totality, I belong to the world of the said, having an essence that can be thematized, a being that can be conceptualized. Facing me, on the hither side of my being, beyond my essence, is the realm of the other, the saying, which cannot be thematized and which therefore cannot be absorbed into the totality of my being or become part of my essence. To this other belong my neighbor, the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the Other. Thus, the Other is "absolutelyforeign to me- refractory to every typology,to every genus, to every characterology,to every classification" (1969, 73). Nevertheless, the face of the Other reveals to me the saying of the other. It is only through my commerce with the Other, with my fellow human beings, that the other is revealed to me. Why is "the revelation of the other" (1969, 73) important to me? Because as a subjectivity,as an "I,"complete in the metaphysical sense, I am conditionedby what is "otherwisethan being,"by what is beyond my essence, by the infinity lying on the hither side of my totality. As Levinas puts it in Otherwise than Being, the subjectivity of the "I" is not exhausted by the "I's" being, or essence, but is rather constituted as "a node and a denouement" of being and the otherwise than being, "of essence and essence's other"(1981, 10). And as he says in Totality and Infinity, the description of my being, as an enjoyment purely for itself in the world of the said, "assuredly does not render the concrete man" (1969, 139). To be a "concrete man," a complete "I,"or to "accomplish metaphysics,"I have to listen to the saying of the other, to situate myself in the "node" linking the totality of my essence with the infinity beyond to conduct myself as a "denouement"of my being and its otherwise it, (1969, 261). The proof of this lies in the fact that the "identification of the same in the I is not produced as a monotonous tautology: 'I am I,'"

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but rather as a "concreterelationship between I and a world"(1969, 37), between an "I"and a foreign other. This is confirmed in three ways: through a classical phenomenological account of subjectivity, which shows that the "unicity"of the "I"arises through the separation of self from what is radically other (1969, 117-20); through the unfolding of desire, as a "metaphysical desire that tends . . . toward the absolutely other" (1969, 33); and through the account of language, which shows that "the relationship of language implies transcendence, radical separation, the revelation of the other to me" (1969, 73). Thus, I can maintain and identify myself only by, in the first place, maintaining the world as a radical, absolute other, by not absorbing it into the totality of my being. However, to form a "denouement" with the otherwise, I must also go over to the world in the fulfilment of the metaphysical desire for transcendence, for the absolute other. "The absolute other,"in turn, "is the Other"(1969, 39). In other words, to be an "I"in its full subjectivity,I have, in the first place, to confirmand maintain the Other, my neighbor,"inhis strangeness . . . his very freedom"(1969, 73), "in his heterogeneity . . . , be it only to say to him that one cannot speak to him, to classify him as sick, to announce to him his death sentence" (1969, 69). I also have to go over to the Other, reaching out for but not thematizing his radical alterity; I have to break out of my "egoist and solitary enjoyment"(1969, 76) and welcome him in my home, offering "things which are mine" to him (1969, 76). To exist as an "I"in its full subjectivity is to "exist otherwise,"and,to exist otherwise is to exist "for another"(1969, 261). This means to take responsibility for the Other, for my neighbor, for the stranger, the widow, the orphan. In doing so, I call into question my own existence, my own spontaneity. This means, in turn, to exist ethically, for "[w]e name this calling into question ... by the presence of the Other ethics" (1969, 43). Since to exist is to exist ethically, ethics is first philosophy.In the essay "Ethics as First Philosophy," Levinas affirms that to exist as an "I"in its full subjectivity, I have "to ask myself if my being is justified, if the Da of my Dasein is not already the usurpation of somebody else's place"(1996, 133). It is to exist with a mauvaise conscience"toprefer that which justifies being over that which assures it" (1996, 133), to prefer assuming responsibility for the Other over the welfare, the comfort,the security of my own being. For subjectivity to be confirmed, then, I must see myself as being responsible for the Other. "Toutter T,'to affirm the irreducible singularity . . . means to possess a privileged place with regard to responsibilities for which no one can replace me and from which no one can release me" (1969, 245). Seeing myself as responsible for the Other is a matter of being sensible to what I already possess^a "privilegedplace with regard to responsibilities." It is not a matter of choice. Responsibility for the Other is not something that the "I"in its full subjectivity chooses to

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assume. Rather, it is a responsibility that arises prior to the emergence of the "I"and "confirmsthe subjectivity"of the "I"(1969, 245). Thus, it is prior to any choice I make- prior to freedom- yet I can recognize it in the gaze of the Other. The Other has a face, and its "gazeis precisely the epiphany of the face as a face"(1969, 75). Indeed, I cannot avoid the gaze of the Other. "I cannot evade by silence the discourse which the epiphany that occurs as a face opens" (1969, 201). I do not choose to assume the responsibility for the Other; I am chosen. Being chosen, I cannot shirk this responsibility: "Tobe unable to shirk: this is the I"(1969, 245). The nature of the primordial responsibility for the Other is further elaborated in Otherwise than Being. Here, responsibility is expressed as a command from the Other with respect to whom I am a hostage: the Other "commandsme and ordains me" as "the first on the scene, and makes me approach him, makes me his neighbor" (1981, 11). Once again, this is a responsibility that arises prior to freedom, in a "passivity more passive than all passivity" (1981, 15), one that the "I" cannot shirk. My very identity "comesfrom the impossibility of escaping responsibility" (1981, 14). For what am I responsible? For "the faults and misfortune of others" (1981, 10), for their "outrage and wounding"(1981, 55). How far am I responsible? To the point of substitution as a "hostagewho substitutes himself for the others" (1981, 15), to the point of "ultimate offering [of] oneself, or suffering in the offering of oneself" (1981, 54), to the point of giving to others "even the bread out of one's own mouth and the coat from one's shoulders"(1981, 55), to the point of saying, as God does in Isaiah 58, "HereI am"(me void) (1981, 146). Such is the subjectivity of the I: "The word / means here I am, answering for everything and for everyone" (1981, 114). In the subjectivity of the "I,""[tjhere is substitution for another, expiation for another" (1981, 125), a "thereis [that] strikes with absurdity"(1981, 164).

3. LivingEthicallyin the Face of Death

I hope this account of Levinas's notion of ethics as first philosophy, brief though it is, will suffice to allow us to explore the implications of his thought for the euthanasia debate. We have seen that ethics as first philosophy is the idea that to exist is to exist ethically. Near the end of one's life, existing is dying or, to paraphrase Heidegger, existingtoward-death. In the final stages, to exist ethically is to die ethically. What, then, for Levinas, does it mean to die ethically? Can it be said that, consistent with Levinas's ethics, to die ethically is to die for the Other?If so, then suicide would seem to be ethical so long as it is carried out for the sake of the Other. Did Cato not die ethically, thinking how his death might inspire his fellow freedomfighters? Did Captain Oates not die ethically, sacrificinghimself for other members of the Scott expedition to the

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South Pole? Is Hardwig's notion of responsibility not the same as Levinas's- at least insofar as Hardwig speaks of the responsibility to those who are distressed by one's own prolongedexistence? It seems that the only questions are questions of timing and intention: When should the circumstances be deemed appropriate?Under what conditions is it more ethical not to be than to continue to be? How can an individual be sure that the death is really for others? Yet Levinas flatly rejects all this. In his essay "Timeand the Other," he declares unequivocally that suicide is contradictory; in "Bad Conscience and the Inexorable,"he makes it clear that "tobe or not to be"is not the question at all. 3.1 Suicide as a contradictoryconcept Accordingto Levinas, the idea of taking control of one's death, determining its timing, as if it is one's right or an expression of authenticity, is metaphysically, logically, and ethically nonsensical. Arguing against Heidegger, Levinas points out that Heidegger's analysis of death is grounded in a metaphysics of existence in which Dasein assumes "the utmost possibility of existence" (1989, 40). For Heidegger, this assumption "makes possible all other possibilities," including the "very feat of grasping a possibility" which is one's own death (1989, 40-41). According to Levinas, however, this is contrary to both the metaphysics and the logic of the possible: "the limit of the possible"is not death but suffering. We do not seize death; in death "we ourselves are seized." We cannot seize death as something present because "death is never a present." What is graspable is the now, and death "is never now" (1989, 41). We cannot experience death because "experience always already signifies knowledge, light, and initiative," whereas death is "absolutelyunknowable"(1989, 40, 41). To experience the grasping of death as an event, we would have to be able to stand on its other side and look back to see whether we had in fact grasped it. This is not possible, even as fiction: "Suicideis a contradictoryconcept"(1989, 42). Against the fictional literature in which the hero is often one who seizes death, Levinas points out that "the fact that death is ungraspable . . . marks the end of the subject's virility and heroism" (1989, 41). For him, the hero is Macbeth. At first, Macbeth is prepared to accept death ("Blow wind! come, wrack!")but changes his mind immediately and declares, "we'll die with harness on our back" and "I will try the last" (1989, 42, quoting Macbeth 5.5.51-52, 5.8.33). Pace Kant, Levinas would reject Cato's heroism- Cato, who died not with harness on his back but with knife in his chest, put there by his very own hands; Cato, who did not try the last. The hero is one who keeps going, who continues to be, to the last, letting death come when it may, like the thief in the night. Tobe

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sure, there are different ways of going on, of continuing to be, some of which hasten, some of which delay, the arrival of death. Choosing to live ethically "to the last" could well hasten death, but that is not the same as choosing death. It may be objected that while suicide is a "contradictoryconcept," assisted suicide is not, because the timing, the grasping, is left to someone else. The question of the moral situation of the one who assists is both interesting and important, and I will address it in section 3.3. It might also be objected that this claim that voluntary euthanasia is metaphysically and logically nonsensical is a philosopher's luxury; as a practical matter, people do, in fact, logically think through the option of suicide and they do decide to die and they do kill themselves at the time of their own choosing. But even if we were disposed to accept this denial of the practical force of his demonstration that suicide is an incoherent concept, that would still leave untouched Levinas's claim that the choice of death is ethically nonsensical, and this is the real crux of the matter. For an "I"whose subjectivity is confirmed through the assumption of responsibility for the Other, the choice of death overturns the metaphysical accomplishment. To choose death is to choose to retreat to the totality of one's being, to return to one's essence. It is useless to argue against this by saying that electing death is not a retreat to being because death, as nothingness, is the opposite of being. This is useless because to say that death is nothingness is already to claim to know what Levinas holds to be absolutely unknowable. As Levinas puts it in Totalityand Infinity, death as ultima latet cannot be "thoughtwithin the alternative of being and nothingness" (1969, 232). More important, it is useless because the choice of death, of not to be, is just the obverse of the choice to be; the reasoning that motivates the choice of death is rooted in the very heart of being. This is so when the physical pain and suffering of being precipitate the choice of death, and it is particularly so when the precipitating factors are pain and suffering induced by culture, tradition, or noblesse oblige- all the trappings of the world of the said. From Levinas's point of view, nothing grounded in the said can be ethical. For an ethically responsible "I,"the choice of death is contradictorybecause ethical it is a choice to shirk the very responsibility that rendered the "I" in the first place; it is a choice never to utter "I"again, to return to irresponsibility. Writing almost as if he had in mind Hardwig's argument that in some situations there exists a supreme responsibility to die, Levinas claims that when an "I"chooses to assume death, "the supreme responsibility of this extreme assumption turns into supreme irresponsibility, into infancy" (1989, 41). He goes on: "Sobbingis this, and precisely through this it announces death. To die is to return to this state of irresponsibility, to be the infantile shaking of sobbing"(1989, 41).

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3.2 Breathing is hoping Levinas is well aware that his ethics stands opposed to the ethics- if ethics it is - that permits, or commands, the choice of death either as a responsibility or a right. If there is a responsibility to die, as Hardwig claims, the agent must choose death to preserve his or her good conscience. If there is a right, as Schopenhauer insists, it has to be exercised to assert the authority of the agent's intentional consciousness. However, ethics as first philosophy shows that the ethical "I"is always in bad conscience, coming to be an "I"only by putting his or her existence into question in the face of the Other, by always having to respond to the "I's" right to be rather than assuming it in good conscience. For the opposing ethics- if ethics it is- my death, even if it is premature or a scandal, "doesnot rattle the good conscience of being, nor the morality founded on the inalienable right of the conatus"(1986, 38). For Levinas, if right and responsibility can be asserted in connectionwith death, they are the right of my neighbor against me in his moment of death and my responsibility to the stranger in hers. It is the right of the Other who is facing death to issue "the demand that summons me"to respond "HereI am" {"mevoid"), and it is my "obligationnot to let the other man face death alone"(1986, 38). If there is any fear of death, it is the fear "forthe Other, for the neighbor's death" (1986, 39). It is a fear arising out of the fear that, as Levinas puts it in "Ethics as First Philosophy,""the Da of my Dasein is ... the usurpation of somebody else's place"(1996, 133). The fear for the death of the Other "doesnot come back to anxiety for my death. It overflows the ontology of Heideggerian Dasein" (1986, 39). We have seen that choosing death as a right or a responsibility does not do away with anxiety. We have seen that practical circumstances will always make one unsure when to exercise the right or when to discharge the responsibility, that they will always throw up in one's face the Shakespearean question. This, then, is the reason he writes, "Tobe or not to be- this is probably not the question par excellence" (1986, 40). The "probably" here is too cautious. It is not the question at all, not just ethically. Metaphysically and logically, it appears to be a choice between being and nothingness, but as we have seen, the choice of nothingness comes from the very heart of being, and in such choice "we want both to die and to be" (1989, 45). Ethically, there is no choice but to be for the Other to the last, to be hostage always to the stranger, the widow, the orphan- to be responsible to the end for their pain and suffering. The question is neither "to be" nor "not to be," but ethically to be. To choose death is irresponsible; it is to choose to kill the hostage, thus exposing the Other to "outrageand wounding"(1981, 55). To be sure, it is, at the extreme, to choose "expiationfor another"(1981, 125), a process ending in death, but this is not to choose death. It is to choose to live ethically,

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and if in so choosing,one ends up dyingsoonerthan otherwise,then so be it. In choosingto be ethical, "I am exposedto absoluteviolence,to murderin the night"(1969, 233). However,until death comes,there is and alwayshope.As Levinasputs it in "Time the Other," priorto death, and "thisis what heroes seize, not death" "thereis always a chance," (1989, 42)- even if in seizing that chance, they hasten death. is (1989, 42). The will is ultimately "breathing hoping" "Spiro/spero"; betrayedby death,but the will "onthe way to death, but a death ever has time to be for the future, exposedto death but not immediately, Other,and thus to recovermeaningdespite death"(1969, 236). To be ethicallyis to be like the hero who "alwaysglimpsesa last chance,. . . who obstinately finds chances"(1989, 42). Spiro/spero. The ethical violence"and realizes that "all the possibilities of being "postpones discourseare not reducedto desperateblowsof a head struckagainsta wall"(1969,236). It may be asked:Whatgoodis one to anotherif one is wrackedwith Isn't or pain, bedridden, has little time left for any meaningfulproject? of the demandof ethicalbeingbeyondthe capability personsin the last stages of terminalillnesses?The answeris that ethicalresponsibilities can be dischargedby simple gestures that anyone still breathingcan make, such as welcomingthe strangerinto one's house, sharing food the with the widowandthe orphan; required gesturescanbe, as Levinas "thesmallestand himselfputs it in an interviewwith Richard Kearney, such as saying 'afteryou'"(Levinasand most commonplace gestures, couldsimplymean"investing our Kearney1986,32). Being responsible towardsthe other" of generosityor goodwill (1986,32). everydayactions Levinasgoes on:
I remember meeting once with a group of Latin American students, well versed in the terminology of Marxist liberation and terribly concerned with the suffering and unhappiness of their people in Argentina. They asked me rather impatiently if I had ever actually witnessed the Utopian rapport with the other that my ethical philosophy speaks of. I replied, "Yes,indeed- here in this room"[1986, 32].

with the as Ironically, anotherexampleof this Levinasian"rapport I other," might mentionHume, our defenderof suicide.Hume did not exercisethe right to die that he had so eloquentlydefended; rather,in the last days of dyingfromcancerof the bowel,he cheerfullyreceived to his friends,investinghis wordswith generosityand goodwill the last oneselfin this way couldwell take (Mossner1980,589-603).Toconduct a great deal of effort,a great deal of medication effortand medication if that might hasten death. Furthermore, there are "familyand loved ones"who are bearingburdens,then the effortwill have to be much greater,and the terminusof one'sexpiationfor the Othercouldwell be

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much closer. However, to choose to make this effort, with the appropriate medication if necessary, is not to choose death. "Death is thus never assumed, it comes"(Levinas 1989, 42). It comes not because one chooses to discharge the responsibility to die, as Hardwig would have it; it comes when it does because one chooses to live ethically for the Other. Before it comes, there is always a last chance, and it is the hero who seizes it. Spiro Ispero. 3.3 The neighbor in pain What if suicide is contemplated by the Other, by my neighbor, who has asked me to assist? Am I bound by ethical responsibility to assist? Unfortunately, there is no straightforward Levinasian answer. Given what has been said, it may be thought that I can refuse on the grounds that what is ethically required of me should be ethically required of all. If it is irresponsible for me to choose death, then it must be irresponsible for my neighbor as well. However, to reason in this way is to thematize my neighbor, to understand him as I understand myself, to render him the same as me. This is something that I must not do. As we have seen, the Other is "absolutely foreign to me- refractory to every typology, to every genus, to every characterology,to every classification"(1969, 73). It is true that the Other, as a concrete Other, cannot shirk his or her responsibility, but it is never for me to insist. Responsibility cannot be generalized into a law. Quoting a line from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, Levinas reminds Kearney in their dialogue that "we are all responsible for everyone else- but I am more responsible than all the others"(Levinas and Kearney 1986, 31). If there is a cry for help from my neighbor, I simply have to respond to it, without telling him that his cry should have been muted by his own responsibility. My neighbor simply "commands me and ordains me [as] the first on the scene" (Levinas 1981, 11). Does this mean, then, that I must obey his command to assist him in his attempt to end his life? As it turns out, this is a command that I cannot obey. We have seen that "suicideis a contradictoryconcept."It follows that the command to assist someone in his or her suicide is also contradictory,and as such it cannot be obeyed. For something to be a command, one who is under the command must be accountable to one who issues it, either to show that the command has been carried out or to explain why it has not. In the case of the command to assist suicide, I can be accountable only by disobeying it. This certainly does not mean that I can ignore my neighbor's cry for help. I am still responsible for addressing his pain and suffering, and I must do whatever it takes to end such pain and suffering, even if in my doing so, death comes. What I must do is to say, "HereI am";my duty is to see that the Other does not "facedeath alone."In bad conscience, in

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anguish, I have to disobey the command to assist suicide but must respond to the pain out of which the command arises, even if the response itself hastens death. The differencebetween assisting suicide and responding by taking whatever measures are necessary to end suffering is that in the latter death is not assumed, and so there is always hope before death comes; there is always a glimpse of a last chance. 3.4 Summary Leaving aside for the moment the possibility of "inserting death into a primitive (or developed)religious system that would explain it" (Levinas 1969, 234), in the philosophical literature the question of (assisted or unassisted) suicide in the face of physical suffering and immanent death is almost always cast in terms of whether it is permissible as a right or required as a duty. This study of Levinas's ethical philosophy shows that there is another way of looking at the problem. From a Levinasian point of view, death is always a violence, an extinguishing of the desire for transcendence, that is, for goodness- a murder of the will to be for the Other. Before death, particularly when it is announced by extreme pain and suffering, the will can either stay inviolate or it can succumb. "The will remains on this moving limit between inviolability and degeneration"(1969, 237). To accept death is to serve the will up to violence; thus, "he who has accepted death is not free"(1969, 241). To remain inviolate, the will has to seize every chance of postponing death, not so as to prolong the time of being, not so as to extend the opportunity to be, but in order to be for the Other, to satisfy the desire for goodness, which only increases after every effort to satisfy it. "The mortal will can escape violence by driving violence and murder from the world, that is, by profiting from time to delay always further the hours of expiration"(1969, 242). In doing so, the "extreme passivity" of the will before death becomes "extreme mastery" over it (1969, 239). In doing so, the mortal will is free, subject to death but untouchable by it. "Tobe free is to have time to forestall one's own abdication under the threat of violence" (1969, 237). Tobe sure, the effort to "forestallabdication"could very well shorten whatever time one has left, but this does not matter because the point is not to prolong that time for its own sake. The point is to extend as far as possible the time for the Other, for goodness. There may not be a lot of such time left, but like the hero, we must "obstinately find chances"(1989, 42). Spiro/spero. 4. From Ethics to God It is perhaps unavoidable that Levinas's position on euthanasia will be crudely characterized as "anti-euthanasia," and a question will

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followas to how differentit is fromother anti-euthanasia unavoidably positions. In particular,since Levinas'sreligious orientationplays a crucialrole in his ethical claims,especiallyhis claimsregardingdeath and dying, it will be asked whether his position on euthanasia is merely part of the widespreadoppositionto euthanasia found among religiousethicists. It is beyondthe scopeof this articleto examinethe standardtheologicalposition.Sufficeit to say that it is a positionconsistent with the theologicalunderstandingof being as a creationof a divine entity and subjectto divine commands.As such, the standard theologicalposition differs from that of Levinas with respect to both sides of the relationshipbetween the human and the divine. On the side of the human,Levinas'sethics, hencehis ethicalpositionconcerning euthanasia,is groundednot in being, or its essence, but in being's reachingbeyondits essence. On the side of the divine, too, there is a of clearbreakwith the standardtheologicalunderstanding the divine. In the latter, our understandingof the divine dictates what we must journeyis say abouteuthanasiaand otherethicalissues. The standard from a discourseon God to ethics. For Levinas, it is the other way round.Ethicsis first philosophy; is also first theology.Tounderstand it this is to see why Levinas'spositionon euthanasiais at oncereligious and radicallydifferentfromthe virtual consensusin religiousethics. It is religiousbecauseit arises, as we have seen, from an ethics of of and becausethere is "signification the Infinite in reresponsibility Godis knownto us neither throughrational (1981, 162). sponsibility" discourse,such as Kant's,nor throughmystical experiences.Rather, Godis knownto us throughresponsibility alone:"Thegloryof the Infinite is glorifiedin ... responsibility" (1981, 144). God's"holiness. . . leaves a trace in cognition," cognitionof our responsibility(1981, the 162).The saying "HereI am"is a "witnessof the Infinite" (1981, 146), and in saying it to the Other,we are one with the Lordwho "willsay, HereI am"to onethat cries(Isa. 58:9).Thus,"the'hereI am'signifiesin me the name of God" (1981, 149). To sharpenthe contrastwith traditionaltheology, can be pointedout also that Levinas,in fact, urgesus it to renounce godsthematized religiousdiscourses. in the Onlyin doingso can we see clearlythe trace of the Infinitein the faces of the neighbor, the stranger, widow,the orphan.Levinaswrites: the
[AJfterthe death of a certain god inhabiting the world behind the scenes, the substitution of the hostage discovers the trace, the unpronounceable inscription, of what, always already past, always "he,"does not enter into any present, to which are suited not the nouns designating beings, or the verbs in which their essence resounds, but that which, as a pronoun, marks with its seal all that a noun can convey [1981, 185].

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In Of God Who Comes to Mind, Levinas tells us that only in being responsible for the Other is there "the possibility . . . of understanding the word 'God'" (1998, xi). The religious character of Levinas's position on euthanasia is now clear. To live ethically is to live with responsibility, and, thus, with the "possibility ... of understanding the word 'God,"'with the chance of seeing the glory of the Infinite in the face of the Other. By contrast, to choose death is to choose to return to "supreme irresponsibility"(1989, 41), a choice consistent with the lack of an "understanding[of] the word 'God'" (1998, xi). To choose death is to choose no longer to say "Here I am" to the Other, thus choosing no longer to be alongside the One who also says "HereI am"to those of us who cry. Though religious, this position contrasts sharply with what we typically find in theological ethics, namely, the "insertion of death into a ... religious system that would explain it" (1969, 234). It explains it as God'sprerogative and prohibits the individual's choice of death. In this case, the rejection of euthanasia is a choice made in the heart of being, and it is religious only insofar as the being in question is understood within a certain religious system. By contrast, the Levinasian choice against euthanasia is the choice of a being ethically understood- that is, of a being understood as one who puts his or her own essence into question in the face of the Other. This choice is religious insofar as in making it we glorify the Infinite and grasp "the possibility . . . of understanding the word 'God.'"

in Grounded Holiness 5. A PersonalCommitment

It may be said that I have merely presented certain claims based on Levinas's ethics rather than giving an argument for the case against euthanasia. It may also be said that, even if I am right in my reading of Levinas, there is nothing in what has been claimed that would convince policymakers or those at the "coalface,"such as doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Against these objections, a number of things can be said. First, there is, strictly speaking, no Levinasian case against euthanasia. Neither is there a Levinasian case against the pro-euthanasia position. There is only a case against choosing death for one's own sake or, what amounts to the same thing, a case for choosing to live for others (keeping in mind the fact that such a choice could involve actions that will, in fact, hasten one's death). Second, it is true that what has been said does not amount to anything like a blueprint for social policy concerning euthanasia; it does not even provide an argument on which a hospital could base its policy concerning hastening death. However, what we have here is arguably a

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coherent personal ethics in which a reflective person can ground his or her position on euthanasia. Finally, it may be said that Levinas's ethics does supply a reason for choosing the Levinasian way, or a reason for rejecting the utilitarian and rights-based approaches. The reason has to do with the value of one's choices. Utilitarians and others, no less than Levinas, can claim that the choices they advocate have value, but only Levinas (and perhaps Kant) can claim that the source of the value of his way is holiness itself. Levinas can say this because, as we have seen, his position on euthanasia is ultimately a religious one, albeit one that differs radically from the standard theological account.

REFERENCES
Bauman, Zygmunt 1992 Mortality, Immortality, and OtherLife Strategies. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Campbell,Robert, and Diane Collinson 1988 Ending Lives. Oxford:Blackwell. Cohen, RichardA., ed. 1986 Face to Face with Levinas. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press. Glover,Jonathan 1977 Causing Death and Saving Lives. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin. Hardwig, John 1997 "Dying at the Right Time: Reflections on (Un)assisted Suicide."In Ethics in Practice: An Anthology, edited by Hugh LaFollette, 53-65. Oxford:Blackwell. Hume, David 1907 "Of Suicide." 1741. In Essays Moral, Political, and Literary by David Hume, edited by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, 406-14. London:Longmans, Green, and Co. Kant, Immanuel 1930 Lectureson Ethics. Delivered 1765-66. Translated by Louis Infield. London:Methuen. Kearney, Richard, and Mara Rainwater, eds. 1996 The Continental Philosophy Reader. London and New York: Routledge. Levinas, Emmanuel 1969 Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. French original 1961. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press.

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Otherwisethan Being, or Beyond Essence. French original 1972; 2d ed. 1978. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. 1986 "BadConscience and the Inexorable. French original 1981. Translated by RichardA. Cohen. See Cohen 1986, 35-40. 1989 Time and the Other. French original 1979. Translated by Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press, 1987. Excerpted in The Levinas Reader, edited by Sean Hand, 38-58. Oxford:Blackwell. Page citations are from The Levinas Reader. "Ethics as First Philosophy."French original 1984. Translated by 1996 Sean Hand and Michael Temple. See Kearney and Rainwater 1996, 124-35. 1998 Of God Who Comes to Mind. French original 1986. Translated by Bettina Bergo. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Levinas, Emmanuel, and Richard Kearney 1986 "Dialoguewith Emmanuel Levinas."See Cohen 1986, 13-33. Earnest Mossner, The Life of David Hume. Oxford:ClarendonPress. 1980 A. T. Nuyen, "Some Heideggerian Reflections on Euthanasia." Metaphilosophy 1990 21:133-40. Schopenhauer,Arthur "On Suicide." 1850. In Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2, trans1974 lated by E. F. J. Payne, 306-11. Oxford:OxfordUniversity Press.