This chapter focusses on the generic class of killing that intends to terminate intolerable (actual or possible) states of suffering, thus in general terms pertaining to relevant acts of euthanasia, suicide, and abortion. This intention again confronts, in the Buddhist context, the thesis of post-mortem mental continuity, and with it possible states of post-mortem suffering. The discussion compares the Buddhist view with the ‘consensus view’ of post-mortem oblivion, in terms of soteriology, the metaphysics of mental causation, and the philosophy of mind which theorises the subject, mental states, states of suffering, and their possible ending. A Buddhist prudential argument for resisting lethal mercy gathers these themes to refute the possibility of post-mortem oblivion and the necessary relief of suffering in death. Nonetheless, a possible analogue to the oblivion thesis is explored in the Buddhist ‘state of cessation’ empirically resembling oblivion: if theoretically also available to the ‘subject’ of lethal mercy, then it might justify the latter in that rare case. However, this possibility too is refuted, leaving only the prudential conclusion that acts of lethal mercy are unable to reliably produce a final release from suffering for their subjects, by comparison to the Buddhist and other means available for its potential amelioration in the living state.

1. 1.

   See Kovan (2014) for argument defending the intrinsic moral value of altruistic self-immolation in the contemporary Tibetan Buddhist context.

2. 2.

   The principle of ‘double effect’ (Cavanaugh 2006) where death is foreseen but not intended, relevant to medical and military ethics, and the law.

3. 3.

   Keown argues against a Buddhist permissibility of any form of euthanasia, while recognising therapeutic rather than homicidal acts whereby “the refusal or withdrawal of medical treatment […] incidentally leads to the patient’s death […] within the normal parameters of his medical care.” (2018a, 613).

4. 4.

   Schlieter (2014) also considers all three domains of abortion, euthanasia and suicide, with an emphasis on the Buddhist sense of the mitigation of suffering. His discussion, too, largely engages applied Buddhist-bioethical questions and concerns, rather than the metaphysical ones of the present chapter, and on which the former supervene.

5. 5.

   Such a materialist view is described at length (and later rejected) at DN I 55. Westerhoff (2017) provides a recent philosophical discussion of the canonical rejection of materialist nihilism, in favour of anon-naturalised Buddhist account of mental continuity, such as is the one offered here.

6. 6.

   See again Westerhoff (2017) for discussion of this theme.

7. 7.

   See for example the mass-suicide of monks at Vin. III 65 and SN V 320.

8. 8.

   Reasons for bypassing the prohibition importantly differ in the varied contexts of euthanasia, abortion and suicide; Harvey (2000) summarises these with respect to the Buddhist-textual and anthropological record. However, a discussion of the modal status of post-mortem suffering remains globally relevant to all of these.

9. 9.

   Hughes also reports that “The Dalai Lama has argued, for instance, that although abortion is generally inappropriate, it may be permissible in cases of severely handicapped foetuses that may suffer in life” (2007, 129).

10. 10.

    One of the signs of a growing maturity in Buddhist discipline is the ability to experience pain without disproportionate attendant suffering (see Miln. 445).

11. 11.

    See Harvey (1995, 102–104) for early Buddhist context.

12. 12.

    Moreover, the alleviation of even intractable physical pain does not require euthanasia. Ratanakul (2009) notes, “The Buddhist objection to the experience of unbearable pain as the reason for euthanasia is justified. The hospice movement has shown that we already possess the means to control [physical] suffering and the knowledge to maintain people without severe pain.”

13. 13.

    This of course assumes a minimal degree of voluntary control and cognitive capacity. Where these are lacking, it is not clear that the relevant suffering is of a kind that the subjectcould identify as apt for mercy-killing.

14. 14.

    MN-a II 351.14—352.4. Note that the canonical account of death does not ever appear to be contradicted by that of any later body of Buddhist literature. While discussion ofnirodhasamāpatti is marginal, the basic conditions for it and for death (as the end of the continuum of the organism) remain consistent throughout the relevant theoretical discussion.

15. 15.

    A caveat needs to be noted in the context of Buddhist discussion of the state of cessation. The theorization ofnirodhasamāpatti requires explaining how mental continuity is possible following immersion in cessation, if it is characterized by an absence ofall mental phenomena and if mental continuity requires contiguous temporal-causal relations between mental events and episodes of the same psychophysical continuum. This was a problem for the classical theorists of cessation, who had to consider whether it was plausible to conceive of a non-conscious but nevertheless mental substratum that could qualify as the causal link between pre- and post-cessation mental processes. The theorization of unconscious mentation or nonintentional consciousnesses (notably thebhavaṅga-citta andālaya-vijñāna) arose to account forpost-cessation mental continuity in the absence of direct mental causationduring cessation. The classical discussion of this problem, among Buddhist theorists of different schools, is complex and contentious, but its details need not detain us here. Our problem might however be that permitting the existence of such a mental substratum in the state of cessation would appear, if the state of oblivion is utterly non-mental, to threaten its analytic alignment with that of cessation. However, a non-conscious but causally efficacious mental substrate that allows mental function to re-occur explains the emergence ofpost-cessation mentality, not the state of cessation as such and how it occurs, which is our sole concern here. The theory of subliminal mental continuity does not qualify our discussion of a synchronic state of mindlessness (even if cessation is not in the living case permanent, and inasmuch as the state itself disallows diachronicity). For purposes of conceiving death-as-oblivion in Buddhist terms, we need not be concerned with thepost-cessation continuity problems ofnirodhasamāpatti that ancient commentary and modern scholarship articulates. As Griffiths notes of the wider Buddhist context:

    if consciousness is identified with empirically perceptible mental events, and if all mental events must be intentional in the sense of possessing an object—which is, in essence, the canonical view—then there are clearly many states in which there are no mental events. (1986, 38, my italics)

    If an intentional model of mind is the Buddhist canonical view of the mental (the view also of Arnold 2014; Coseru 2012) then we can take it, as Griffiths does, that these many non-intentional states must uncontroversially include at least the state of cessation. If there is no sense in which cessation allows for intentionality then the theoretical posit of quasi-mental continuityduring cessation (arguably entailed by the theorization ofpost-cessation continuity) can be safely put aside without compromising what follows.

16. 16.

    These stages are most typically classified as the nine successive abodes (anupubbavihāra) or attainments (anupubbanirodha), or alternately, the eight liberations (vimokkha). The former includes the fourjhānas of form plus the four of formlessness ending with the final state of cessation. The latter replaces the first set of fourjhānas with a threefold set of meditative visualisations (see DN II 71; Walshe 229–30).

17. 17.

    The attainment ofnibbāna cannot be understood as a possible analogue of this immanent causal process, as it (both with and without ‘remainder’) is unique in being a state by definition transcendental to the conditioned field of causality.

18. 18.

    However, according to Vism. (XXIII, 18; p. 735) the attainment of cessation is such that its subject is either an Arhat or near to one, so is only minimally conditioned by volitional formations of an unwholesome kind.

19. 19.

    Sukhaṃ ti niddukkhaṃ (Vism-ṭ. 1673.22).

20. 20.

    Could not thenarhats themselves commit permissible lethal acts of mercy? If so, they could at best only mercifully kill otherarhats, and contradict the canonical record onarhat homicide (see DN III 133).

Authors and Affiliations

1. Sydney, NSW, Australia

   Martin Kovan

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