Euthanasia

• Key thinker For

  Peter Singer, quality of life
• Key thinker Pro

  Maguire, medicine that prolongs life is also playing god
• Key thinker Pro

  Mill's harm principle, as long as they're consenting and not hurting others, people can do as much harm to themselves as they want
• Key thinker Against

  Grizes and Boyle, anyone bodily alive is a person
• Key thinker Against

  Hippocrates, "I will not prescribe a deadly drug to please someone, nor give advice that may cause his death" (hippocratic oath)
• Quality of life



  human life is not inherently valuable, it depends on what kind of life it is, can be used to permit abortion
• sanctity of life

  all human life is sacred, killing is always wrong, based in scripture "before i formed you in your mothers womb i knew you" "god created man in his own image"
• Arguments For

  prolonging life is too expensive, it puts a strain on the NHS and takes up more hospital beds
• Arguments For

  we already put animals down, so there's precedent for ending life for the sake of stopping suffering
• Arguments For

  it might supply someone with a happier, more dignified death than what prolonging their life would. eg someone with Alzheimer's or dementia might prefer to die before they lose themself
• Arguments For

  death might serve as a release from suffering like for people with painful chronic and terminal illnesses
• Arguments Against

  the elderly might become afraid of doctors
• Arguments Against

  religious suffering for salvation
• Arguments Against

  pain can be controlled
• Arguments Against

  sanctity of life
• Acts & Ommissions

  some people may draw a moral difference between active and passive euthanasia.

  Active could be morally worse because you are killing with a deliberate act. Whereas a doctor who withholds treatment and lets a patient die is better. "thou shalt not kill, but needst not stive officiously, to keep alive"

  However it could be argued that letting die is still a deliberate act with moral weight (The Smith and Jones example illustrates this), and can make death longer and more painful so could be worse.
• Acts & Omissions

  two men want insurance money from their nephew. one sneaks in while the nephew is having a bath and drowns him, the other sneaks in and sees the child slip hit his head and not get back up and does nothing, allowing him to drown.
• Exodus 3:16

  "Do not commit murder"
• Natural Moral Law- primary precepts

  Euthanasia goes against three of the precepts, preserve innocent human life, live peacefully in an ordered society and worship God
• Natural Moral Law- secondary precept

  euthanasia is wrong because it doesn't preserve innocent human life
• Natural Moral Law- secondary precept


  euthanasia is wrong because it is a violent act, and thus does not uphold living peacefully
• Natural Moral Law- secondary precept

  euthanasia is wrong because it doesn't worship god, since it goes against the sanctity of life idea and the decalouge "thou shalt not kill"
• Euthanasia- examples for

  • diane pretty diagnosed with a motor neurone disease which eventually progressed to her being unable to communicate
• Euthanasia- examples for

  • Lillian Boyes case where her doctor ended her life upon request and her sons agreed w him
• Euthanasia- examples for

  • Chantal Sebire was refused the right to die and suffered a disfiguring incurable facial tumor and ended up killing herself
• Euthanasia- examples for

  sacrificial suicide, a man will die sooner if he doesnt take his meds but it will save his family financially
• Euthanasia- examples against

  • abandoning your family who need you
  • dying when the juries still out about your condition
• euthanasia- Morals and Medicine 1954

  suggests "relief from demoralising pain where there is no further possibility of serving others" is sufficient justification to end one's life/ have it ended
• euthanasia- Morals and Medicine 1954

  • "to prolong life uselessly while the personal qualities of freedom, knowledge, self passion and control and responsibility are sacrificed is to attack the moral status of a person"
  • personality is sacred
• The views fletcher expresses in Morals and Medicine echo the quality of life arguments
• natural moral law- aquinas


  Aquinas rejected any form of euthanasia or suicide

  • the most fearsome evil is death to bring death upon oneself in order to escape afflictions of this life, is to adopt a greater evil in order to avoid a lesser
  • its wrong as death is not up to men's freewill but god so its unlawful to take your life to escape any unhappiness
  • aquinas also says that only the state can excecute the guilty and euthanasia is done by private organisations or if theyre innocent its wrong to excecute them
• natural moraql law- catholic church


  • 1980 Declaration on Euthanasia reinforces Aquinas’ judgements.
  • Euthanasia and assisted suicide ignores the value of suffering for salvation like jesus on the cross rip my bro
  • However, allows dying to proceed without medical intervention that would become extraordinary or disproportionate like the nineteenth-century English poet, Arthur Hugh Clough said, “Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive Officiously to keep alive.”
• virtue ethics- virtues

  • If a person is in a state where he or she is no longer able to achieve Eudaimonia, then further living would seem to be pointless, in which case Aristotle might accept that voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide are the courageous option.
  • Alternatively, enduring pain might be equally courageous, depending on one’s disposition and occupation
• virtue ethics example


  George tells the non-responsive Anne a story and then kills her by smothering her with a pillow. He then adorns the bed with flowers – his last act of love for her.

  • the virtue of justice goes against this but it also shows the virtues of charity and compassion, so it's a case where the virtues conflict, though aristotle is partial to justice so that would win out for him. it may have been more courageous and just to share in her pain than kill her