ethics take home testt 2
Michael Hagen
Guy Heath, Professor
Active and Passive Euthanasia
Rachels stresses the difference between active and passive euthanasia in terms of ethics. It is alright in some circumstances to simply withhold anything the patient needs to survive, but direct action may never be taken. Rachels gives arguments on why that doctrine needs to be reconsidered. if patients are in agony and want to be relieved of treatment, the doctrine says they may with consent. However, the relieving of treatment may actually prolong the pain where direct action would end it quickly with less pain. In this case active euthanasia is preferred as opposed to the opposite. Rachels goes on to explain on what is worse; “killing” or “letting die”. The difference is crucial but conclusions are hard to make. If someone committed murder whereas somebody saw another person get hurt and slowly die while they watched, who was more morally correct? The answer can be clear. Neither can be consider better or correct in the first place. In court “letting die” has no more defense as killing. This applies to euthanasia, if a doctor withholds proper medication, is it more morally correct as opposed to giving a lethal injection? The doctor’s intentions were not for personal gain, but can they still be considered “bad”? The AMA states bans “the intentional termination of the life of one human being by another”. But aren’t both forms that exact thing? In what cases makes “letting die” more correct than “killing”. There are obvious way of the word “killing” that deter us in the first place such as murder. There are never headlines of letting die as there are with murder. Killing is in much worse lighting than letting die because of this. But this does not make killing worse than letting die. With this being said, active euthanasia is no worse than passive euthanasia. It is a matter of how the patient die, the patient will either die from their natural cause they already have or to end it with the doctor’s
Guy Heath, Professor
Active and Passive Euthanasia
Rachels stresses the difference between active and passive euthanasia in terms of ethics. It is alright in some circumstances to simply withhold anything the patient needs to survive, but direct action may never be taken. Rachels gives arguments on why that doctrine needs to be reconsidered. if patients are in agony and want to be relieved of treatment, the doctrine says they may with consent. However, the relieving of treatment may actually prolong the pain where direct action would end it quickly with less pain. In this case active euthanasia is preferred as opposed to the opposite. Rachels goes on to explain on what is worse; “killing” or “letting die”. The difference is crucial but conclusions are hard to make. If someone committed murder whereas somebody saw another person get hurt and slowly die while they watched, who was more morally correct? The answer can be clear. Neither can be consider better or correct in the first place. In court “letting die” has no more defense as killing. This applies to euthanasia, if a doctor withholds proper medication, is it more morally correct as opposed to giving a lethal injection? The doctor’s intentions were not for personal gain, but can they still be considered “bad”? The AMA states bans “the intentional termination of the life of one human being by another”. But aren’t both forms that exact thing? In what cases makes “letting die” more correct than “killing”. There are obvious way of the word “killing” that deter us in the first place such as murder. There are never headlines of letting die as there are with murder. Killing is in much worse lighting than letting die because of this. But this does not make killing worse than letting die. With this being said, active euthanasia is no worse than passive euthanasia. It is a matter of how the patient die, the patient will either die from their natural cause they already have or to end it with the doctor’s