Content area
Testo completo
ABSTRACT
Death has preoccupied humanity since before the dawn of civilization. As a multidimensional and moral problem, the end of life has concerned different civilizations, and different approaches to euthanasia, or "good death," have been developed in each culture. In Greece, there is a long record of the culture's evolving attitudes toward death and euthanasia. A more widespread knowledge of the views and traditions surrounding the act of euthanasia can contribute to a better understanding of the controversies surrounding modern attitudes and practice.
Come to me death, be my doctor, and do not condemn me; you are the only one who can heal all incurable diseases.
-Aeschylus
THERE HAS BEEN MUCH DISCUSSION of euthanasia as a philosophical, religious, and ethical issue. This article presents a review of the attitudes to euthanasia as they appear in Greek culture, as viewed through literature. The concept of euthanasia goes back to the Homerian epics. Death, as a unique charactcristic, but also inseparable from human nature, consists of the second strength of the ancient Greek civilization; the first strength is birth (Vogt 1982). Euthaasia, meaning good or painless death (from the Greek eu, "good," and thanatos, "death"), came to be used in the last decade of the 20th century to mean a death that is perpetrated or accelerated with the help of medicine (Kriaras 1995). Many definitions of euthanasia have been formulated. Voluntary euthanasia is that which is requested or agreed to by the subject. Involuntary euthanasia is practiced when the agreement of the subject could be obtained but is not. Non-voluntary euthanasia is that in which the agreement of the subject cannot be obtained because of his or her physical or mental state. Active euthanasia is where death is produced deliberately and actively, while passive euthanasia is where death is deliberately produced by the withholding or withdrawing of the ordinary means of nutrition or the treatment of the subject's condition (Wilkinson 1994). Physicians assist suicide when they intentionally help a person to commit suicide by providing drugs for self-administration, at the person's voluntary and competent request (Dreitbard and Passik 1994).
The distinction between voluntary euthanasia and suicide rests upon the presence or absence of an incurable and progressive disease that is inevitably-that is to say independently of...