Is Euthanasia Wrong?

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Is Euthanasia Wrong?
Is Euthanasia Wrong?
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Winston Nesbitt Is Killing No Worse than
Letting Die?
Nesbitts Project

• Nesbitt argues that the examples employed by
  Rachels (and Michael Tooley) to show that killing
  is no worse than letting die are faulty, and
  that, in fact, killing is worse than letting die.

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The Difference Thesis

• There is a moral difference between killing and
  letting die it is morally worse to kill someone
  than to let them die.
• It seems that common moral intuitions favor the
  Difference Thesis.
• Consider two cases

• Case 1 I push someone who I know cannot swim
  into the river, thereby killing her.
• Case 2 I come across someone who is drowning,
  and who I could easily rescue, yet fail to do so,
  thereby letting her die.

• It seems that my behavior is morally worse in the
  first case than the second.
• We assume some malicious motive in the first
  case, but perhaps only fear or indifference in
  the second.

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The Difference Thesis

• James Rachels and Michael Tooley argue that we
  favor the Difference Thesis because most cases
  are not adequately set up.
• Tooley Besides motives, there are other morally
  relevant differences between typical acts of
  killing and typical acts of failing to save which
  make us judge such cases differently.

1. Typically, saving someone requires more effort
   than refraining from killing someone.
2. An act of killing necessarily results in
   someones death, but an act of failing to save
   does not (someone else may come to the rescue).

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The Difference Thesis

• Tooley concludes that if one wishes to appeal to
  intuitions, one must be careful to confine ones
  attention to pairs of cases that do not differ in
  these, or other significant respects.
• Rachels Tooley When we compare a case of
  killing with one which differs from it only in
  being a case of letting die, we will agree that
  either agent is as culpable as the other.

• We tend to think killing is worse than letting
  die because we tend to think of cases that differ
  in other morally relevant respects.

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Rachels Smith and Jones Cases

• Recall Both Smith and Jones stand to gain if
  their respective six-year-old cousins die.
• Smith sneaks in while his cousin is bathing, and
  drowns him in the tub.
• Jones is planning to do the same, but sneaks in
  to find his cousin drowning all on his own. He
  standsready to drown the child if need be, but
  the child drowns without Jones having
  to lift a finger.

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Rachels Smith and Jones Cases

• Rachels assumes that we will agree that Smith,
  who kills his nephew, is no worse, morally
  speaking, than Jones, who merely lets his nephew
  die.
• Rachels argues that if letting die were in itself
  less bad than killing, Jones defense that I
  didnt kill him I only let him die would carry
  some weight.
• So we conclude that Jones is just as
  reprehensible as Smith.
• But what is the ground of our judgment of the
  agent in each case?

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Rachels Smith and Jones Cases

• Note that Jones was perfectly prepared to kill
  his nephew, and would have done so had it proved
  necessary.
• Someone who is fully prepared to perform a
  reprehensible action, in the expectation of
  certain circumstances, but does not do so because
  the expected circumstances do not eventuate, is
  just as reprehensible as someone who actually
  performs that action in those circumstances.
  (49)
• To think otherwise would seem to place some moral
  value on one person having opportunity or luck
  and the other not.
• We should judge Jones just as harshly as Smith,
  given what he was prepared to do, even if he had
  not let his nephew die.

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Rachels Smith and Jones Cases

• Modified Jones Case Jones manages to slip and
  fall and knock himself unconscious before he can
  drown the child, which he is attempting to do.
• By the time he regains consciousness, the child
  (unaware of Jones intentions) manages to call
  his parents, and Jones opportunity is gone.
• Here, Jones neither kills his nephew nor lets him
  die, but it would be agreed that given his
  preparedness to kill the child for personal gain,
  he is as reprehensible as Smith. (49)

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Tooleys Smith and Jones Cases

• Case 1 Jones wants Smith dead, and shoots him.
• Case 2 Jones is about to shoot Smith, when he
  sees that Smith will be killed by a bomb unless
  Jones warns him, as he easily can.

• Jones does not warn Smith, and the bomb explodes,
  killing Smith.

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Tooleys Homicidal Sons Case

• Two sons are looking forward to the death of
  their wealthy father, and independently decide to
  poison him.
• Son 1 puts poison in his fathers whiskey, and
  is discovered doing so by Son 2, who was just
  about to do the same.
• Son 2 allows his father to drink the poisoned
  whiskey, and refrains from giving him the
  antidote, which he happens to possess.
• Tooley says that the agent whokills is morally
  no worse than theone who lets his victim die.

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Revisiting the Cases

• We judge Jones to be just as reprehensible as if
  he had killed Smith, but since he was fully
  prepared to kill him had he not been saved the
  trouble by the bomb, we should make the same
  judgment even if he had neither killed Smith nor
  let him die (say, if both the bomb and the bullet
  were duds).

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Revisiting the Cases

• With the homicidal sons, the son who didnt kill
  was prepared to do so, and given this, would be
  as reprehensible as the other even if he had not
  let his father die (say, if he did not have the
  antidote).

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Revisiting the Cases

• Both Rachels and Tooley overlook that what
  determines whether or not someone is
  reprehensible is not simply what he does, but
  what he is prepared to do.
• While Rachels is correct that we will be inclined
  to judge Smith and Jones equally harshly, it is
  because they were both prepared to kill for
  motives of personal gain.
• The same is true of Tooleys examples.
• In their efforts to ensure that each person in
  their cases does not differ in any morally
  relevant way, they make the agents too similar
  each agent is guilty of the same moral offense.

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Revisiting the Cases

• What modifications do Rachels and Tooleys cases
  require if they are to be used to legitimately
  gauge our attitudes towards killing and letting
  die?

• With Rachels case of Smith Jones, we must
  remove Jones being prepared to kill the child
  it must be the case that, though Jones was
  prepared to let his nephew die, he was not
  prepared to kill the child.
• It further cannot be the case that he is not
  prepared to kill the child because he fears
  punishment, or that he is too lazy, or that the
  idea simply hadnt occurred to him.
• Rather, he must be reprehensible enough to let
  the child die for his gain, but not enough to
  kill the child.

• With these modifications, Smiths behavior is,
  indeed, morally worse than Jones.

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The Social Argument

• The reason we have morality is to make it
  possible for people to live together in
  reasonable peace and security.

• It is clearly preferable to have (modified)
  Jones-like people around than Smith-like people
  we are threatened by the latter, but not by the
  former.
• This is why killing is, indeed, morally worse
  than letting die.

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Back to Euthanasia

• Nesbitt does not reconnect the killing/letting
  die distinction back to Rachels central topic of
  interest euthanasia.

• If killing is, indeed, worse than letting die,
  would active euthanasia thereby necessarily be
  worse than passive euthanasia?
• If Nesbitts larger social theory about morality
  is correct, does it back up the idea that active
  euthanasia is worse than passive euthanasia?