Der Verlust des Sittlichen im Recht

Abstract

The Federal Constitutional Court has derived from the general right of personality a right of the individual to end his or her life consciously and deliberately and to have recourse to outside help in carrying out the suicide. The paper examines whether autonomy actually gives human beings the right to dispose of themselves freely and without restraint or whether autonomy is subject to certain limitations. After outlining the reasons given by the Federal Constitutional Court for a right of suicide (B.), the author discusses whether the free pluralistic constitutional state is morally based (C.). In this respect the author emphasizes that human dignity as a moral value forms the basis of social coexistent. The moral foundation of law guarantees freedom, peace and justice. In a further section the author examines the freedom of the individual within the framework of the state (D.) In the author’s point of view human freedom is not arbitrary and limitless. It finds its basis and its limitation in the moral law. This is followed by a moral assessment of suicide from the angle of Christianity and the Philosophy of Enlightenment, which have had a significant influence on the legal system and the jurisprudence of the Federal Constitutional Court (E.). On this basis, the author analyses and evaluates the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court on assisted suicide (F.). According to the author neither human dignity, the right to live nor the general right of personality give the individual a right to suicide; rather freedom and autonomy of man, based on the angle of Christianity and the Philosophy of the Enlightenment, are limited by moral law. An outlook on the consequences of the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court concludes the article (G.).