My Objection to James Rachels’s Argument

My Objection to James Rachels’s Argument The dramatic advances in medical technology has saved and prolonged the lives of many people who would have hopelessly perished in the past centuries. Nowadays physicians are aware and able to cure more diseases than ever before. Despite our remarkable medical knowledge, however, death is still fearful and inevitable. There is no such thing as a good time to die, but there is perhaps a better way to die. One with incurable or terribly painful illnesses may think that one’s state of living is less bearable than death itself and prefers to end one’s life in order to relieve pain and suffering. Legalization of euthanasia is one of the most controversial subjects in the twenty-first century. Those who argue against euthanasia claim its legalization may lead to a “slippery slope effect,” eventually resulting in non-voluntary or even involuntary euthanasia.
Even those who agree with legalization of euthanasia are divided over another issue: whether or not to permit active euthanasia. According to a former philosophy professor at Duke University James Rachels, active euthanasia is “to take any direct action designed to kill the patient,” where as passive euthanasia is “to withhold treatment and allow a patient to die.”1 He deems active and passive euthanasia in simpler notions, “killing” and “letting die.”
In his well-known article “Active and Passive Euthanasia,” Rachels denies the seemingly popular viewpoint that passive euthanasia is more morally permissible than active euthanasia. He believes both types of euthanasia should be either allowed or disallowed all together because, “active euthanasia is not [morally] worse than passive euthanasia.”2 My paper will evaluate the soundness of the four paragraphs, from the article, that begins “One reason why….” and ends with “no defense at all.”3 In these paragraphs, he argues that killing is not in itself morally worse than letting die.
He uses the following scenario to prove