PHIL 242 Study Guide - Final Guide: Principle Of Double Effect, William Rehnquist, Palliative Sedation
Document Summary
A non-moral distinction capturing only facts about the proximal cause of death that. Criteria for a satisfactory answer to legalization question. Arguments seeking to show why 1 2 should be legal, and 3 4 to be illegal, shouldn"t render (cid:883) 2illegal or 3 4 legal. That is, the criteria should be is supposed to mark a major moral difference between 1 2 and 3 4: First, a doctor"s doing something intending to cause her patient"s death is different from a doctor"s doing something foreseeing that his death will ensue. The doctrine of double effect goes all the way back to st. thomas aquinas (1225 difference makes a moral difference. (thomson 1999: 509). Although proponents of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia contend that terminal sedation is covert physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia, the concept of sedating pharmacotherapy is based on informed consent and the principle of double effect (thomson, quoting rehnquist 510, n. 12).
