How does a transhumanist respond to a person that wants to die? Like not in the future in a “death has X benefit” way, but an actual concrete “I’m going to finish up these things here and then put on my nice shoes and die” way?
Not all transhumanists share the same normative ethics and preferences, so the question is underspecified.
Oh, sorry! What various normative ethics and preferences are there? What else should I specify? o.O I guess I’m confused because I agree with the “death bad, health good” idea on the macro level, but I know a number of … strange individuals on the micro level.
Immortalism (probably what you meant by “transhumanist”) is the norm here. I’m not sure what the normative response to your query is, though; my response would be “try to persuade them otherwise, forcibly restrain them until you succeed in doing so.”
I’m not sure how literally I’m supposed to take that last statement, or how general its intended application is. It just doesn’t seem practicable.
I’m assuming you wouldn’t drop everything else that’s going on in your life for an unspecified amount of time in order to personally force a stranger to stay alive, all just as a response to them stating that it would be their preference to die. Was this only meant to apply if it was someone close to you who expressed that desire, or do you actually work full-time in suicide prevention or something?
Well, that’s a best-case scenario. Obviously opportunity costs and such might make it impractical. But if possible you should prevent them from killing themself and work on persuading them not to try.
I don’t work in suicide prevention and I don’t know anyone who does; this is just my judgement of the hypothetical scenario presented (with a few additional assumptions for details that weren’t specified.)
Not all transhumanists share the same normative ethics and preferences, so the question is underspecified.
Oh, sorry! What various normative ethics and preferences are there? What else should I specify? o.O I guess I’m confused because I agree with the “death bad, health good” idea on the macro level, but I know a number of … strange individuals on the micro level.
Immortalism (probably what you meant by “transhumanist”) is the norm here. I’m not sure what the normative response to your query is, though; my response would be “try to persuade them otherwise, forcibly restrain them until you succeed in doing so.”
I’m not sure how literally I’m supposed to take that last statement, or how general its intended application is. It just doesn’t seem practicable.
I’m assuming you wouldn’t drop everything else that’s going on in your life for an unspecified amount of time in order to personally force a stranger to stay alive, all just as a response to them stating that it would be their preference to die. Was this only meant to apply if it was someone close to you who expressed that desire, or do you actually work full-time in suicide prevention or something?
Well, that’s a best-case scenario. Obviously opportunity costs and such might make it impractical. But if possible you should prevent them from killing themself and work on persuading them not to try.
I don’t work in suicide prevention and I don’t know anyone who does; this is just my judgement of the hypothetical scenario presented (with a few additional assumptions for details that weren’t specified.)