ENGLI 1101 PROVIDE A BRIEF OVERVIEW CASE QUALIFIES ETHICAL ISSUE / TU ENGLI 1101 PROVIDE A BRIEF OVERVIEW CASE QUALIFIES | Page 4

wish. This is what it is to
respect persons, as Kant might put it, to recognize
them as ends in themselves, able to determine in
accord with their own values how they choose
to spend the last moments of their lives. This is
a deontological response to the deep moral problem here: whatever
the consequences, it would be
wrong to lie to the astronauts or to deprive them of
the truth. It would be wrong to rob them of autonomous choice during
their last moments, and of the
knowledge that these are their last moments.
But isn't this just what happened, out there in
space? If we know there's a reasonable chance the
seven astronauts will die, and that there's nothing
we can do to save them, shouldn't we tell them?
Would they live that last week any differently?
Surely, in undertaking a space mission in the first
place, they would have made their wills, put their affairs in order, told
their spouses and their children that they loved them. But now
suppose that 83 they knew the end was really coming. Would they
communicate differently? Live differently among
themselves, there in the spaceship? Try to extend
the length of the voyage until their supplies ran
out? Or vote to "reenter" earlier, so that the fearsome end
would be over sooner? Plead for help? Or send consoling messages to
Earth, recognizing
that this is a risk they voluntarily assumed and that
they are willing to bear? There are many possibilities for heroism and
despair, insight and cowardice, and the whole range of human
emotion and
reflection-not easy to bear but part of full human life-even one about
to be made abruptly short.
How will they live this week, before what may be
a catastrophic end? These are the things the astronauts themselves
should have a hand in deciding,
not that should be decided by others.
If we move in the direction favored by Linda