PHIL 2408 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Voluntary Euthanasia
25 May 2016
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Document Summary
Brock is interested in the relationship between pas and ae. Arguments in favour of #1: patient autonomy/self-determination, alleviation of suffering/mercy. Legal/causal/empirical/a posteriori: whether legally okay or not (even if morally ok) Active euthanasia not allowed; passive euthanasia allowed. Moral objection (for move from #1-3 to #4): Euthanasia is the deliberate killing of an innocent person! Killing vs letting die (doing/allowing distinction): we can"t infer from a right to refuse treatment to active euthanasia because the former just allows death to happen, while the latter actively brings it about. Eg. pull the lever for train so only one person dies (actively killing that person), but not pulling lever would result in 5 people dying. Eg. kill a healthy person to redistribute his organs to 5 people in need. Removing patient from life support is the same as allowing patient to die naturally. Actively killing person is putting a person under threat when the threat did not exist previously.
