A Response to Damien Keown's "Suicide, Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: A Buddhist Perspective"

Abstract

Keown is clear that the Buddhist tradition is remarkably diverse and that his paper presents only one Buddhist perspective, one based on his interpretation of relevant passages from the Pali canon. However, there is a real danger that those readers who are perhaps not broadly read in Buddhism could be misled to think that the position presented in Keown's paper is the Buddhist view rather than a Buddhist view. In fact, he sometimes seems to slide rather far in that direction himself. He states on page two that “an accurate understanding of basic Buddhist values does generate an authentic Buddhist ethic about end-of-life decisions; [and] … suicide, assisted suicide and euthanasia are all contrary to Buddhist ethics.” This claim tends to imply that there is only one normative Buddhist view on these issues. Starting with his premise that “Buddhisms” rather than Buddhism is the more accurate way to speak, it is more likely that there are plural systems of Buddhist ethics rather than a single one, and thus there could be variable authentic Buddhist views on end-of-life issues.