Citation

Prado CG. Int. J. Law Psychiatry 2013; 36(5-6): 471-476.

Affiliation

Department of Philosophy, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada. Electronic address: pradocg@queensu.ca.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijlp.2013.06.003

PMID

23845164

Abstract

Moral individualism (Brooks, 2011; Smith, 2011) is a contemporary interpretation of morality as entirely a matter of personal choice. It is a popular rather than theory-based interpretation and has a number of social generative sources related to present-day preoccupation with individuality and personal distinctiveness. A key generative source is popularization of postmodernism, which prioritizes self-reinvention and provides moral individualism with the appearance of intellectual legitimacy. Moral individualism is a deeply flawed misconception of morality because it abolishes moral communality. My concern in this paper is that in doing so, it seriously jeopardizes productive discussion of the moral permissibility of elective death or choosing to die in despairingly and dire circumstances.

Language: en