Exploring Ethical Dilemmas in Euthanasia: Rachels vs. Steinbock

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This essay analyzes philosophical arguments on euthanasia.

EUTHANASIA
1

Explain which philosophers are involved in this issue and explain their arguments.
Explain all the major terms and use quotes from the readings to help illustrate the
theories. This is the most important part of the paper, so explain each philosopher
carefully. You should write several paragraphs for each philosopher.
This thesis is related to the fact of Euthanasia which means the killing of a patient suffering
from a severe painful disease or suffering from an irreversible coma. This issue is very much
severe in the world and has several arguments related to this issue which means sometimes it
is said to be legal and sometimes illegal. It is the practice to end someone life with a proper
intention to get rid of severe pain or disease (Berghmans and Lossignol, 2012). The different
countries have different laws regarding this issue. This issue includes a practice to kill
someone who is very old and ill and never get better.
This thesis involved the information of the particular issue giving by two philosophers who
are James Rachel’s and Bonnie SteinBock. Both philosophers have different arguments
related to this issue. So this description is needed in this thesis. There are two types of
euthanasia which are active euthanasia and passive euthanasia. The active euthanasia is the
process when medical professional or any other person does something that causes the death
of the patient whereas passive euthanasia occurs when the patient's die because of the medical
professional did not do something to keep patient alive. Passive euthanasia occurs when:
 Switch off life-support machines
 Don't carry a life-extending operation
 Disconnect a feeding tube
 Don’t give life-extending drugs.
The active and passive euthanasia describes the difference between killing and letting die.
These two terms are related to these two types of euthanasia. The theories of selected two
philosophers are related to the arguments related to the active and passive euthanasia. The
theories of the two different philosophers are discussed below-
The philosopher James Rachel's said that passive euthanasia is ok or legal and it is not an
illegal practice. As per the philosopher, there is a great difference between active and passive
euthanasia as per medical ethics. This process is permissible in some of the cases to hold the
treatment and allow the patient to die (Donahue, 2015). But any medical professional is not
2

permissible to take any direct action to kill the patient. This philosopher supports the passive
euthanasia in which the patient treatment is on hold due to the situation of the patient and
allows them to die. As per the situation, that the patient is dying due to the not recoverable
cancer of throat which is in terrible pain. He is possible to die within a few days if the
treatment is continued but he suffers from unbearable pain in these days and he doesn't want
to live. So he requests the doctor to stop the treatment and his family also included in this
request. So the medical professionals and doctors help them and giving the lethal injection to
the patient or hold their treatment so that he dies as early as possible and not bear such severe
pain. So as per the theory, passive euthanasia is legal and ok. The point of this philosopher
argument is that the process of being allowed to die is very slow and painful whereas giving a
lethal injection is quick and painless. For example, in the United States about one in 600
babies born with the Down syndrome so many babies can be better in health so they can
survive and some needs a large operation to live a life. So that sometimes doctors and parents
decide not to operate and let the baby die. So this example shoes the passive euthanasia. The
philosopher said that he can understand why some people are against all euthanasia because
they want the infants to live a proper life. He can also understand that as per this example
why some parents need to destroy the lives of the babies so that they not to bear a high pain.
The second argument of the philosopher is related to the conventional doctrine leads to the
decisions related to life and death occurs on irrelevant grounds. So again the example of
Down syndrome babies are taken who needs a proper operation to survive in life but some
babies live without any operation. But nowadays, this operation is not such difficult. But in
these cases, the parents and doctors want to baby dies rather than this operation because the
child is suffering from Down syndrome. But this situation can be overcome with only a
small operation so that sometimes parents need to do this operation and let the baby live. So
this example clearly describes the process of passive euthanasia (Louhiala, et. al., 2015). The
philosopher agrees that the passive euthanasia is legal and it is ok to take the patient from
such severe pain and allows him to die. According to the philosopher, there is one reason why
people think that there is a difference between active and passive euthanasia is that they think
that killing someone s really very worse than letting someone die with his own wish. The
passive euthanasia does not come in the ethics and laws of the medical professionals. So to
investigation both the issues, two cases considered related to the killing someone or letting
someone die.
3

The second philosopher SteinBock argues that there is no difference between passive and
active euthanasia. This philosopher defines the revert of James Rachel's theory that he had
given on the passive euthanasia is ok and legal. As per James Rachels, there is a mistake in
medical ethics regarding the moral difference between active and passive euthanasia. This is
a mistake according to James Rachels that there is a large difference among the killing
someone and letting someone die. Whether this moral difference is not a concern according
to the SteinBock. It is clear that this difference is based on the doctrine of the American
Medical Association which is described by Rachels. And if these differences are not based on
the doctrine then these distinctions have no moral force among euthanasia (McCormack, et.
al., 2012). As Rachels attacks this statement as he believes in the passive euthanasia. The
AMA gives the special position to the Rachels so he allows the passive euthanasia and
prohibits the active euthanasia. As this philosopher describes that passive euthanasia also an
illegal practice. In the thesis given by SteinBock, the two situations include the treatment of
life-prolonging treatment which cannot be recognized by the intentional termination of the
life of one human being by another.
These two situations are related to euthanasia. The first situation related to the right of the
patients to deny the treatment. As Rachels give the example of the patient who suffered from
severe pain and needs to end the treatment which cannot be cured (Sercu, et. al., 2012) The
doctor asked to request the stop treatment but the patient does not need to take a treatment or
stop the treatment. The answer lies to refuse the treatment. This process is applied when the
person especially has a reason to deny the treatment. The second situation is related to the
termination of treatment which cannot be recognized as per the intentional termination of life
and treatment have a very low chance to improve the process. The decision is related to the
cease anticancer treatment which cannot be refused as per the treatment. The AMA statement
has been concerned by the Rachels and it is not to be agreed by the other philosopher. It
cannot be argued that passive euthanasia is a legal and good practice used for the welfare of
patients who bears a severe pain. As per this thesis, the philosopher thinks that both of the
euthanasia is not good for the patients it is a kind of killing to someone. The treatment is
related to the sake of the infant unless anyone is prepared for the same process. Sometimes
the philosopher is agreed to the decision of Rachels to not operate the babies of Down
syndrome so that the little babies cannot suffer from the pain. As the patients' needs to die as
part intention so this process did not come in an illegal practice as this is her own decision.
But in some other cases, this comes as an illegal practice which is not related to the particular
4

process. As the SteinBock sometimes agreed with the decision of the Rachels and sometimes
disagreed with this process. As per the thesis is given by the SteinBock, The active and
passive both euthanasia comes in a bad and illegal practice regarding the treatment of the
patients.
5

References
 Berghmans, T. and Lossignol, D., 2012. Euthanasia: from ethical debate to
clinical reality.
 Donahue, B.S., 2015. Infant euthanasia is morally unacceptable. The Journal
of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, 149(6), pp.1684-1685.
 Louhiala, P., Enkovaara, H., Halila, H., Pälve, H. and Vänskä, J., 2015.
Finnish physicians’ attitudes towards active euthanasia have become more positive
over the last 10 years. Journal of medical ethics, 41(4), pp.353-355.
 McCormack, R., Clifford, M. and Conroy, M., 2012. Attitudes of UK doctors
towards euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: a systematic literature review.
Palliative Medicine, 26(1), pp.23-33.
 Sercu, M., Pype, P., Christiaens, T., Grypdonck, M., Derese, A. and
Deveugele, M., 2012. Are general practitioners prepared to end life on request in a
country where euthanasia is legalized?. Journal of medical ethics, 38(5), pp.274-280.
6