PHL275H1 Lecture Notes - General Idea, Deontological Ethics, Euthanasia
Document Summary
The moral significance of the two distinctions is harder to assess when they are operating alone ex. Rachels nephew example vs. case where you actively drown nephew; one is not more morally objectionable than the other, so sometimes doing/allowing doesn"t make a moral difference. Also in the trolley case, doing/allowing seems to make little difference since the death of the one is merely foreseen. It"s hard to assess the two distinctions on their own, and to decide how much each counts when separated from the other; but this doesn"t affect central examples that deontologists use against utilitarianism and consequentialism more generally. This is because in those the two distinctions work together. One option is morally more objectionable in both respects and one is morally less so in both respects. In the sheriff case example-the utilitarian can point to long-term effects: it would be terrible if the deception were found out, and there"s a risk of that.
