The Moral Permissibility of Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
Prior to investigating the moral implications of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, the definitions of both must be established in order to wholly understand exactly why euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are morally acceptable in some cases. For our purposes, euthanasia is the act or practice of killing or allowing someone to die on grounds of mercy. Physician-assisted suicide in this paper will be defined as a physician being involved in some degree in assisting an individual to commit suicide. It is important to consider both the mode of death and the mode of consent when discussing the moral permissibility of euthanasia, the mode of death being whether …show more content…
This specific case of euthanasia can be morally permissible under certain conditions. If there is irrefutable evidence that the patient’s death is imminent and the goal of the euthanasia is not to kill but only to relieve suffering, then active euthanasia is moral. Since the outcome is the rapidly approaching death of the patient whether or not euthanasia is implemented and since the patient will suffer excruciating pain up until the point of death, then it is morally permissible to use active euthanasia to end the patient’s terrible suffering. By relieving such great human suffering, the net value of active euthanasia with patient consent is much more positive than the net value of allowing a person to experience such a miserable and agonizing …show more content…
If the patient is consenting for a form of passive euthanasia (i.e. removing care that is keeping him alive), then in this case euthanasia is morally permissible if its purpose is to relieve patient suffering instead of to end a life. Note that the moral permissibility of this case depends on certain criteria such as if the patient is terminally ill and if there is irrefutable evidence that the patient is dying and will suffer up until the point of death. If this is indeed the situation and the patient requests his death based on mercy and to relieve his suffering, then passive euthanasia in this case is morally
Prior to investigating the moral implications of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, the definitions of both must be established in order to wholly understand exactly why euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are morally acceptable in some cases. For our purposes, euthanasia is the act or practice of killing or allowing someone to die on grounds of mercy. Physician-assisted suicide in this paper will be defined as a physician being involved in some degree in assisting an individual to commit suicide. It is important to consider both the mode of death and the mode of consent when discussing the moral permissibility of euthanasia, the mode of death being whether …show more content…
This specific case of euthanasia can be morally permissible under certain conditions. If there is irrefutable evidence that the patient’s death is imminent and the goal of the euthanasia is not to kill but only to relieve suffering, then active euthanasia is moral. Since the outcome is the rapidly approaching death of the patient whether or not euthanasia is implemented and since the patient will suffer excruciating pain up until the point of death, then it is morally permissible to use active euthanasia to end the patient’s terrible suffering. By relieving such great human suffering, the net value of active euthanasia with patient consent is much more positive than the net value of allowing a person to experience such a miserable and agonizing …show more content…
If the patient is consenting for a form of passive euthanasia (i.e. removing care that is keeping him alive), then in this case euthanasia is morally permissible if its purpose is to relieve patient suffering instead of to end a life. Note that the moral permissibility of this case depends on certain criteria such as if the patient is terminally ill and if there is irrefutable evidence that the patient is dying and will suffer up until the point of death. If this is indeed the situation and the patient requests his death based on mercy and to relieve his suffering, then passive euthanasia in this case is morally