UC Berkeley

Despite universal consensus on life’s intrinsic value, the coordination of context-specific considerations, and the subjectivity, or interpretative nature of moral issues, lead to varied interpretations of this value, and varied expressions of the shared desire to preserve life. The subjectivity of moral judgments obtains salience in situations of pain and suffering, requiring the moral, psychological examination of people’s reasoning about philosophically oriented issues of living, dying, and pain and suffering. This study sought to examine reasoning about (1) the value of life, including about the presumed goodness of its preservation, in the context of diminished quality of life due to experiences of pain and suffering, and (2) the interaction between experiences of pain and suffering and eudaimonic interests, and conceptualizations of the meaning, purpose, and value of suffering. The study newly coded and analyzed existing clinical interview data from adults of two age cohorts (N = 87), including college students (n = 48, Mage = 20.17, SD = 1.09), and older adults (n = 39, Mage = 39.13, SD = 4.40), from a larger, ongoing study on the value of life. Two general, abstract questions addressed concepts of the right to live, and the permissibility of ending life, which were grounded in two contextualized, hypothetical situations about ending one’s life due to illness, and death as punishment for ending another’s life. Participant evaluations showed cooccurring majority support across age cohorts, for the right to live, and for permissibility of the exceptional ending of life, including in the context of greatly diminished quality of life due to serious illness. Evaluations also showed majority rejection of death as punishment, revealing the ultimate goal of the upholding of human dignity across situations. Justifications for evaluations were primarily classified into the moral domain of social knowledge across questions, except for that regarding illness, which primarily involved concerns of the personal domain. The predominantly moral nature of issues of living and dying does not limit application of the intrinsic value of life to a strict prioritization of the continuation of life, but rather allows for interpretations of the preservation of personhood and dignity. Moral responsibility pursues options for the preservation and negotiation of dignity within the circumstantial unfulfillment of human functioning and flourishing, in a way that coexists in necessary tension, with the conviction of the universal, intrinsic, and sacred value of life.