Here is an extract from a longer article giving a humanist, Aristotelean justification for euthanasia, by Paul Kurtz.

Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m6875/is_n3_8/ai_n25021537/

There are basic values that we don’t necessarily all share but that have emerged in democratic societies as the rules of the game. These values are also the values of humanistic culture. Humanism, as I interpret it, is not a recent invention but has a long history going back to the classical philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome. It emerges again in the Renaissance and with the democratic and scientific revolutions of the modern world. Among these key values–l can again only enumerate them in order to give you something of the flamework of this ethical theory-is the value of autonomy, namely, that freedom of choice of the individual is cherished. The good is to maximize the range of human choice and allow people to grow creatively and develop so they can make their own decisions about their lives. It involves individual responsibility as a basic value and an effort to nourish it.

It also involves the value of excellence. There is a long-standing debate in the history of Western philosophy about hedonism versus self-realizationism. I would defend a combined theory, basic to which is the notion that we want to achieve a life in which there are significance, meaning, and degrees of perfectibility that are humanly attainable. Excellence emerges with the cultivation of a creative life in which there is a fullness of being and a quality of life in which people can enjoy happiness and well-being. I have used the term exuberance to describe the highest reaches of happiness, a life overflowing with joy.

Third, I also wish to refer to the notion of human rights. This is a recent development of the past three centuries, and it largely comes out of the democratic revolutions. It is not found, for example, in the religious or biblical tradition, and the struggle to gain recognition for human rights has been long and hard. I won’t here catalog these rights fully because I think that the United Nations’ Declaration and other declarations have stated them well. They range from the right to life, which includes the security and protection of one’s own person and the defense from external aggression, to the right to personal liberty, the fight to equal protection of the law, and to other democratic rights. Among the human rights recognized today is the right to health care, and this right applies in a significant way to the questions that we are debating in medical ethics. The question of what to include under the rubric of human rights is a growing one. There are struggle, debate, and dialogue on a worldwide basis. There is a framework of human rights widely accepted by the world community, but there are also demands that new rights and claims against society be recognized and that individuals be protected.

My fourth point concerns how we ought to guide our behavior and decide what to do among competing principles, values, and rights – but this in the last analysis depends upon the situations that we find ourselves in. Human agents are constantly faced with moral dilemmas and with alternatives to choose from. Moral dilemmas in the most dramatic form involve the tragedies that we encounter in life. There are often insoluble problems that we confront, and often our choice is between the lesser of two evils or the conflict between two rights, each obligatory. The question in life often is not between the good and the bad, or the right and the wrong- that’s easy. It’s between two goods, both of which we cannot have, or two unmitigated evils, the lesser of which we must choose. How do we do this? Moral philosophers from Aristotle to John Dewey have recognized that we have to deal with the concrete situation at hand. We need, for example, to take into account the facts of the case. We need to ask, What are the unique circumstances in this context? Exhaustive investigation of the particulars is essential to decisionmaking. A focus on the agent or agents involved in the decision process is required. Next we need to ask, What are the conditions that here prevail? This involves a causal investigation of how and why the facts are what they are. For example, in a case of terminal illness we ask, What is the disease or disorder, and why has it developed thus far, and what is the prognosis? Next we have to ask, What are our options, what are the alternatives that are viable, the means that can fulfill our ends? Intelligent inquiry may bring to light new ones. Last, we ask, What are the consequences of our decisions? What are the effects of our actions?