Reading?

Yes, I have managed a little reading of late. At bedtime, I've been going through P.D. James' Devices and Desires. Murder mysteries are a favourite of mine, but she raises the genre to the level of serious literature. I've borrowed The Children of Men for my next read.

And over the weekend, I read John Finnis' Fundamentals of Ethics. It's a bit of a slog for a quick read, but I need a more sophisticated conceptual vocabulary. One of the possible questions on the mid-term involved constructing an argument about whether or not voluntary active euthanasia should be legal. It took quite a bit of thinking to come up with an argument (nine premises and a final conclusion) that seemed doable. I was planning to go against the Professor's recommended strategy: liberty of the individual takes precedence, so use a slippery slope argument if you oppose the legality of euthanasia.

Since he left open the possibility that Virtue Theory might have an argument against euthanasia, I tried reconstructing the argument, based loosely on what I read here. In a way, it's too bad that question didn't come up. I put so much effort into it. On the other hand, it was long and involved. And I barely finished the exam on time as it was. C'est la guerre.