Must a pacifist also be opposed to euthanasia?

✍ Scribed by Daniel A. Dombrowski

• Book ID: 104650227
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 181 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5363
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00162896

✦ Synopsis

James Rachels, in his highly influential book, The End of Life: Euthanasia and Morality, ~ argues that a pacifist opposed to killing (especially killing of the innocent) in war must also, for the sake of consistency, be opposed to the killing of suffering (innocent) patients with terminal illnesses who wish to be euthanized. Because Rachels is in favor of euthanasia for such patients, the implication is that something is defective about the pacifist's universal opposition to killing in war (especially killing of the innocent). The purpose of the present essay is to show how one can be a pacifist who opposes killing in war (especially killing of the innocent) and still see euthanasia in appropriate circumstances as morally permissible. 2

If pacifists are committed to the belief that all killing of human beings is wrong (especially the killing of the innocent), they should be opposed, according to Rachels, not only to killing in war, but also to c~tpital punishment, infanticide, abortion (at least in the later stages of pregnancy when the fetus, with a central nervous system so as to feel pain, becomes a moral patient3), etc. It would be a "peculiar combination of views," he thinks, to leave euthanasia off this list, but it is a possible combination. The question is, can we justify this combination? The simple principle that killing human beings (or killing innocent human beings ) is always wrong will not suffice in that patients who wish to be euthanized are, obviously enough, human beings. What principle, if any, will permit euthanasia while at the same time forbid the other types of killing?

The best candidate that Rachels can think of is the view that the killing of healthy human beings is always wrong. The opponent to war who nonetheless permits euthanasia might offer the following syllogism:

1. The killing of healthy human beings is always wrong. 2. Killing in self-defense or in defense of our country is the killing of healthy human beings. 3. Therefore, killing in self-defense or in defense of our country is always wrong.