IS KIM LEADBEATER a deontologist or a consequentialist? Philosophical categories do not generally play much part in contemporary politics. But the way in which the Labour MP behind the Bill to legalise assisted suicide is managing the Committee Stage of the proposed legislation has become an ethical question.
When she introduced her Private Member’s Bill (News, 6 December), Ms Leadbeater told her fellow MPs that “a vote to take this Bill forward today is not a vote to implement the law tomorrow. It is a vote to continue the debate.” Those who were undecided could vote in favour and then make changes in the Committee Stage in the House of Commons. “Vote ‘Yes’ today, and vote ‘No’ later,” as one of her fellow travellers helpfully put it.
Both probably knew that the general thrust of a Bill is rarely radically altered in committee; but, to make sure, Ms Leadbeater has deployed dubious parliamentary tactics. First, she selected the Committee members to ensure that it has a majority in favour of the Bill — indeed, the majority on the Committee is proportionally greater than in the Commons, where MPs were fairly narrowly split, with 55 per cent in favour and 45 per cent against. Next, she selected 38 witnesses who are in favour of her Bill and only 20 who are opposed.
When opposing MPs on the Committee objected to this, she unilaterally decided to hold the debate on witness selection behind closed doors, limiting public scrutiny of the process. She next bombarded her most vocal opponent, the Conservative MP Danny Kruger, with points of order. Then she refused to take evidence from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which has expressed concerns about the adequacy of safeguards over an individual’s mental capacity to decide to end their own life, and the effectiveness of procedures to prevent the coercion of vulnerable individuals. She was forced to overturn that decision after a public outcry.
This brings us back to deontology and consequentialism. Let us suppose good faith on the part of Ms Leadbeater, and assume the sincerity of her belief that legalising assisted dying will bring us to what a utilitarian might call the greatest good of the greatest number. Let us assume that she was genuine in her apology for claiming incorrectly, during the Second Reading, that the serving judiciary supported her Bill.
That said, it is hard to square how her reaction this week to dissenting voices and constructive criticism is fair or honest. Advocates of virtue ethics, from Aristotle to Rawls, have argued that moral action requires the alignment of means and ends. The deontological principle insists that certain actions are inherently right or wrong, regardless of their consequences. Integrity, respect, and fairness are as important as the outcomes they produce, if not more so.
Perhaps Ms Leadbeater might align herself with the consequentialist principle of Bentham: that the rightness of an action is judged entirely by its utility; or with Mill’s dispensation, which would suggest that manipulative or coercive behaviour can be morally acceptable if it maximises the overall well-being of the general population.
Those who disagree with her view that legalising assisted suicide is for the greater good might be less charitable. They might regard her as neither a deontologist nor a consequentialist, but as a dishonest politician.
