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Full Idea
The cause of death (injection or disease) is important from the legal point of view, but not morally. If euthanasia is desirable in a given case then the patient's death is not an evil, so the usual objections to killing do not apply.
Gist of Idea
If it is desirable that a given patient die, then moral objections to killing them do not apply
Source
James Rachels (No Moral Difference [1975], p.102)
Book Ref
'Ethics for Modern Life', ed/tr. Abelson,R./Friquegnon,M [St Martin's 1987], p.102
A Reaction
Seems reasonable, but a very consequentialist view. Is it good that small children should clean public toilets?
| 7253 | In Utopia, legal euthanasia is considered honourable [More,T] |
| 4050 | We only allow voluntary euthanasia to someone who is both sane and crazed by pain [Kamisar] |
| 4051 | People will volunteer for euthanasia because they think other people want them dead [Kamisar] |
| 4681 | The Nazi mass murders seem to have originated in their euthanasia programme [Glover] |
| 4683 | Involuntary euthanasia is wrong because it violates autonomy, and it has appalling side-effects [Glover] |
| 4682 | Euthanasia is voluntary (patient's wish), or involuntary (ignore wish), or non-voluntary (no wish possible) [Glover] |
| 4684 | Maybe extreme treatment is not saving life, but prolonging the act of dying [Glover] |
| 4053 | If it is desirable that a given patient die, then moral objections to killing them do not apply [Rachels] |
| 4052 | It has become normal to consider passive euthanasia while condemning active euthanasia [Rachels] |
| 20882 | Euthanasia may not involve killing, so it is 'killing or not saving, out of concern for that person' [Hooker,B] |
| 20885 | Euthanasia is active or passive, and voluntary, non-voluntary or involuntary [Hooker,B] |