Rawls and the Questionof Physician-Assisted Suicide
Rawls and the Questionof Physician-Assisted Suicide

Summary/Abstract: Rawls’s theory of justice is capable of providing an important contribution to thequestion of physician-assisted suicide (PAS). PAS should be guaranteed as a rightto make decisions in accordance with the conception of the good the individualformulates as a rational being. This defense is supported, therefore, by a Kantianpremise. But it is also possible to oppose this kind of proposal by relying on differentaspects of Kant’s theory, i.e. on some variant of the famous argument against suicidebased on the means/end formulation of the categorical imperative. In this paper, Itry to show that these attempts are not well founded, and that the Rawlsian appealto the Kantian tradition divulges better perspectives. I also try to add considerationsinspired by contextualist epistemology to the Rawlsian appeal to the burdens ofjudgment.

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