display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, and an even more wonderful man can teach this. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135a) |
| 4053 | If it is desirable that a given patient die, then moral objections to killing them do not apply [Rachels] |
| 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. | |
| From: James Rachels (No Moral Difference [1975], p.102) | |
| A reaction: Seems reasonable, but a very consequentialist view. Is it good that small children should clean public toilets? |
| 4052 | It has become normal to consider passive euthanasia while condemning active euthanasia [Rachels] |
| Full Idea: It seems to have become accepted that passive euthanasia (by withholding treatment and allowing a patient to die) may be acceptable, whereas active euthanasia (direct action to kill the patient) is never acceptable. | |
| From: James Rachels (No Moral Difference [1975], p.97) | |
| A reaction: He goes on to attack the distinction. It is hard to distinguish the two cases, as well as being hard to judge them. |