Killing and letting die: an irrelevant distinction to bioethics

James Rachels’s distinction between killing and letting die maintains that there is morally no difference between killing a terminally ill patient and letting him/her die. Therefore, active and passive euthanasia dichotomy is a distinction without a difference. Hence, if passive euthanasia is allowe...

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Main Author:	Malik, Mohammad Manzoor
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	IIUM Press 2011
Subjects:	BJ1725 Ethics of social groups, classes, etc. Professional ethics RA1001 Forensic Medicine. Medical jurisprudence. Legal medicine
Online Access:	http://irep.iium.edu.my/17282/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/17282/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/17282/1/Killing_and_Letting_Die_An_Irrelevant_Distinction_to_Bioethics.pdf

id	iium-17282
recordtype	eprints
spelling	iium-172822012-01-30T00:56:50Z http://irep.iium.edu.my/17282/ Killing and letting die: an irrelevant distinction to bioethics Malik, Mohammad Manzoor BJ1725 Ethics of social groups, classes, etc. Professional ethics RA1001 Forensic Medicine. Medical jurisprudence. Legal medicine James Rachels’s distinction between killing and letting die maintains that there is morally no difference between killing a terminally ill patient and letting him/her die. Therefore, active and passive euthanasia dichotomy is a distinction without a difference. Hence, if passive euthanasia is allowed, active euthanasia should be permitted too. The paper demonstrated that the distinction between killing and letting die is: (1) irrelevant to euthanasia(2) extraneous to the medical profession, and (3) methodologically degressive. Furthermore, the paper demonstrated invalidity of the bare difference argument of Rachels based on the distinction because of four reasons: (1) irrelevance to American Medical Association’s statement; (2) differences between the cases such as intentionality, causality, and agency; (3) straw man fallacy, (4) and weak analogy. Therefore, the paper concluded that relating the distinction between killings and letting die to bioethics and euthanasia is unjustifiable. IIUM Press 2011-12 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://irep.iium.edu.my/17282/1/Killing_and_Letting_Die_An_Irrelevant_Distinction_to_Bioethics.pdf Malik, Mohammad Manzoor (2011) Killing and letting die: an irrelevant distinction to bioethics. Journal of Islam in Asia, S.Iss (4). pp. 383-396. ISSN 1823-0970 (In Press) http://www.iium.edu.my/jiasia/ojs-2.2/index.php/Islam
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	International Islamic University Malaysia
building	IIUM Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
topic	BJ1725 Ethics of social groups, classes, etc. Professional ethics RA1001 Forensic Medicine. Medical jurisprudence. Legal medicine
spellingShingle	BJ1725 Ethics of social groups, classes, etc. Professional ethics RA1001 Forensic Medicine. Medical jurisprudence. Legal medicine Malik, Mohammad Manzoor Killing and letting die: an irrelevant distinction to bioethics
description	James Rachels’s distinction between killing and letting die maintains that there is morally no difference between killing a terminally ill patient and letting him/her die. Therefore, active and passive euthanasia dichotomy is a distinction without a difference. Hence, if passive euthanasia is allowed, active euthanasia should be permitted too. The paper demonstrated that the distinction between killing and letting die is: (1) irrelevant to euthanasia(2) extraneous to the medical profession, and (3) methodologically degressive. Furthermore, the paper demonstrated invalidity of the bare difference argument of Rachels based on the distinction because of four reasons: (1) irrelevance to American Medical Association’s statement; (2) differences between the cases such as intentionality, causality, and agency; (3) straw man fallacy, (4) and weak analogy. Therefore, the paper concluded that relating the distinction between killings and letting die to bioethics and euthanasia is unjustifiable.
format	Article
author	Malik, Mohammad Manzoor
author_facet	Malik, Mohammad Manzoor
author_sort	Malik, Mohammad Manzoor
title	Killing and letting die: an irrelevant distinction to bioethics
title_short	Killing and letting die: an irrelevant distinction to bioethics
title_full	Killing and letting die: an irrelevant distinction to bioethics
title_fullStr	Killing and letting die: an irrelevant distinction to bioethics
title_full_unstemmed	Killing and letting die: an irrelevant distinction to bioethics
title_sort	killing and letting die: an irrelevant distinction to bioethics
publisher	IIUM Press
publishDate	2011
url	http://irep.iium.edu.my/17282/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/17282/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/17282/1/Killing_and_Letting_Die_An_Irrelevant_Distinction_to_Bioethics.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T20:26:06Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T20:26:06Z
_version_	1777408427283185664

Killing and letting die: an irrelevant distinction to bioethics

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