What is the conventional doctrine?

What is the conventional doctrine?

The conventional doctrine is that there is such an important moral difference between the two that, although the latter is sometimes permissible, the former is always forbidden. Thirdly, the doctrine rests on a distinction between killing and letting die that itself has no moral importance.

Which Rachels identify as bad consequence of our taking there to be a morally relevant difference between active and passive euthanasia?

Smith kills the boy. Jones lets the boy die. Which does Rachels identify as a ‘bad consequence’ of our taking there to be a morally relevant difference between active and passive euthanasia? Killing and letting die are NOT morally equivalent.

What does Rachels argue?

Rachels argues that active euthanasia is actually more humane than passive since the patient will die in a matter of days in more agony through passive euthanasia.

What is the difference between active and passive euthanasia?

Active euthanasia: killing a patient by active means, for example, injecting a patient with a lethal dose of a drug. Passive euthanasia: intentionally letting a patient die by withholding artificial life support such as a ventilator or feeding tube.

What was James Rachels arguments?

Rachels, who spent much of his career as a philosophy professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, broke ground by arguing that actively killing a patient with a terminal illness was no worse morally than letting the person die by doing nothing.

What is Rachels main thesis?

What is the main conclusion of James Rachels?

Summary: In this scholarly article, philosopher James Rachels argues that there is no significant moral difference between active and passive euthanasia or between killing and letting die.

What is James Rachels thesis?

Rachels’s Thesis: active euthanasia is not any worse than passive euthanasia. Definitions: Active Euthanasia = taking a direct action designed to kill a patient. Passive Euthanasia = deliberate withholding of treatment that could prolong patient’s life, allowing the patient to die.

What is Rachels main point about euthanasia?

Rachels challenges the conventional view that passive euthanasia is permissible but active euthanasia is not. This view is endorsed by the American Medical Association in a 1973 statement. But Rachels holds that in some cases active euthanasia is morally preferable to passive euthanasia on utilitarian grounds.

What is James Rachels argument on euthanasia?

Dr. James Rachels, a philosopher and medical ethicist who wrote some of the most influential works on euthanasia, arguing that the legal distinction between killing and passively allowing a patient’s death had no rational basis, died on Friday at a hospital in Birmingham, Ala.