Abstract

The assisted suicide in 2018 of David Goodall, more than a hundred years old, raises some questions on the acceptability of a request for euthanasia not only on the basis of incurable diseases or terrible pains. The paper exposes the contribution of some philosophers (David Hume and Bernard Williams particularly) to the reflexions on the «meaning of life» as a preamble for a choice of the euthanasia. Another contribution of the philosophy – Williams is again considered – is on the alternative between «sense of guilt» and «shame» as essential emotion for reckoning the dignity of another person in the legislative deliberation on the laws concerning the end of human life.