Defamiliarizing Self-Determination on Death: Governance of Death and Concealed Desire

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to raise the question of what the right to self-determination of death means as a civil right and to expand social discussions on this topic. First, it explores the paradoxical characteristics of death, such as its non-existence in the actual realm, the intersectionality of the subject of death and experience, death as a process, and the identity between death and life. It argues that the right to death, in which death is justified as an object of right, can be derived from these paradoxes. Focusing on the Life-Sustaining Medical Decision Act, which embodies dignified death as a citizen’s right, I address how the right to death and the right to self-determination are mobilized as governance strategies for power and capital in the transition from life politics to death politics. As a result, the essence of the right to self-determination over death may diminish as a civil right and be reduced to a mechanism of death governance, transferring absolute power to political, administrative, and life authorities. Finally, I emphasize that when human life is threatened, the right to self-determination regarding death risks becoming a dislocation of a life that has lost dignity. Thus, the right to self-determination concerning death should be understood only as a practice of dignified death, predicated on the premise of a dignified life.