CHAPTER 10 Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Background and Facts about Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
A. Euthanasia
B. Types of Euthanasia
C. Physician-Assisted Suicide
D. Defining Death
II. Moral Theories and Euthanasia/Physician-Assisted Suicide
A. Utilitarianism
B. Kantian Theory
C. Natural Law Theory
1. Doctrine of Double Effect
III. Moral Arguments and Euthanasia/Physician-Assisted Suicide
A. Arguments for Active Voluntary Euthanasia
1. Right of Self-Determination
2. Duty of Beneficence
B. Arguments against Active Voluntary Euthanasia
1. Slippery Slope Argument
1. ________ is allowing someone to die by NOT doing something (i.e., by withholding or
withdrawing measures necessary for sustaining life).
a. Passive-active euthanasia c. Nonvoluntary euthanasia
b. Passive euthanasia d. Active euthanasia
2. ________ involves taking a direct action to kill someone (i.e., to carry out a mercy killing).
a. Involuntary euthanasia c. Active euthanasia
b. Passive euthanasia d. Nonvoluntary euthanasia
3. If you believe that there is no moral difference between killing someone and letting someone
die, you might reason that
a. active and passive euthanasia are not morally equivalent.
b. in neither active nor passive euthanasia is the patient’s death caused.
c. in both active and passive euthanasia the patient’s death is caused, but this has no moral significance.
d. in both active and passive euthanasia the patient’s death is caused, and they are therefore morally equivalent.
4. Nowadays machines can keep an individual’s heart and lungs functioning long after the brain
permanently and completely shuts down. Thus, we can have an individual whose organs are
mechanically operated while he is in a coma or persistent vegetative state. To some, these
facts suggest that the
a. conventional notion of death is still adequate.
b. conventional notion of death is inadequate.
c. cessation of breathing and blood flow are not signs of death.
d. conventional notion of death has always seemed inadequate.
5. Consider this rule-utilitarian argument against legalizing euthanasia: Passing a law to permit
active voluntary euthanasia would inevitably lead to abuses such as more frequent use of
nonvoluntary euthanasia and unnecessary killing; therefore, no such law should be passed.
Such an argument is characterized as
a. abductive. c. a slippery slope.
b. Kantian. d. equivocation.
6. According to the dominant reading of natural law theory, euthanasia is wrong primarily because
a. it amounts to using a person as a means and not as an end.
b. it always results in less overall happiness.
c. we have a moral duty to preserve life.
d. scripture condemns it.
7. The obligation to ease the agony of another when we can do so without excessive cost to
ourselves is called the duty of ________.
a. maleficence c. cooperation
b. beneficence d. justice
8. Some opponents of active euthanasia argue that euthanasia is uncalled for; a dying patient in
the grip of unimaginable pain, for example, does not have to be killed to escape her agony.
Modern medicine offers dying patients unprecedented levels of pain relief. A common reply to
this argument is
a. although it is possible to manage even severe pain well, too often pain is not well managed.
b. in arguments about euthanasia, pain is irrelevant.
c. although it is possible to manage even severe pain well, physicians do not try to do so.
d. pain is a fact of life that patients must learn to live with.
9. The principle of autonomy (the right of self-determination) can be used to argue for
a. active euthanasia.
b. a ban on active euthanasia.
c. the Roman Catholic view of active euthanasia and suicide.
d. restrictions on autonomy for dying patients.
10. A key premise in the argument for active euthanasia is that the right of self-determination
includes the right of competent persons to decide the manner of their dying. This premise is
a. accepted by virtually all parties to the euthanasia debate.
b. clearly false.
c. incoherent.
d. controversial.
11. In 2009 Jeffrey Locker was found tied up in his car and dead as a result of multiple stab
wounds. Kenneth Minor was arrested and charged with his murder, but Minor claimed that
Locker had hired him to assist in his death so that his family could receive a life insurance
payment that would eliminate Locker’s large debts. Assume that Minor’s claim was true.
A natural law theorist would determine that Minor’s action was
a. morally permissible, because it was a legitimate application of the doctrine of double effect.
b. morally impermissible, because it was not a legitimate application of the doctrine of double effect.
c. morally permissible, because Jeffrey had consented and Minor had respected his autonomy.
d. morally impermissible, because the law does not allow for citizens to assist others in committing suicide.
12. In 2002, the eighty-six-year-old war hero Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Jr., in a suicide pact
with his eighty-nine-year-old wife, ended his life with an overdose of sleeping pills. According
to a news report, “Having lost 30 pounds from a stomach disorder, suffering from congestive
heart failure and in constant back pain, the admiral had been determined to dictate the hour of
his death. His wife, who suffered from osteoporosis so severe her bones were breaking, had
gone blind. She had no desire to live without her husband.” Assuming this is an accurate
account of Admiral Nimitz’s motivations, to what moral principle did he appeal to justify taking
his own life?
a. justice c. right to life
b. beneficence d. autonomy
TRUE/FALSE
1. Imagine a situation in which a patient is not competent and has left no instructions regarding end-of-life preferences. Someone other
than the patient then chooses euthanasia on the patient’s behalf. This would be an instance of nonvoluntary euthanasia.
2. Involuntary euthanasia is mercy killing at the patient’s request.
3. The idea that an individual is dead when all brain functions permanently stop is called the
vegetative notion of death.
4. It is likely that active euthanasia would be used at least occasionally in a hospice guided by act-utilitarianism.
5. According to the doctrine of double effect, a doctor’s giving a dying, pain-racked patient a
large dose of morphine with the intention of easing her pain (while knowing the act has the
side effect of expediting her death) is permissible.
6. It is the case that active euthanasia is legal in the United States and widely believed to be
morally acceptable.
7. In 2005 the Netherlands passed a law that allows parents to choose to intentionally end the
lives of their newborns, provided that five criteria, including the presence of unbearable
suffering, are met. If we assume that newborns are persons, such a law has its basis in
natural law theory.
8. If you were an American physician who accepted the active-passive distinction, you would
also likely believe that, whereas euthanasia is always wrong, in some cases physician-assisted
suicide may be permissible.
SHORT ANSWER
1. Directly or indirectly bringing about the death of another person for that person’s sake is
known as ________.
2. In ________ euthanasia, the patient requests or agrees to have his or her death hastened.
3. When a person’s death is caused by his or her own hand with the help of a physician, this is
known as ________.
4. Luann believes that the best definition of death says that an individual is dead when those
brain functions that give rise to consciousness permanently stop. She advocates for the
________ definition of death.
5. If someone argues that euthanasia is permissible because it maximizes happiness, she would
be taking a ________ view of the matter.
6. A ________ argument against euthanasia would assert that mercy killing involves treating
persons as mere things of no more value than a beast and is therefore wrong.