Exam 7: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Death

A utilitarian will always support the view that euthanasia is morally acceptable.

James Rachels believes that when a patient is allowed to die (at the patient's request), it is the patient's disease that causes the death not the doctor who takes the patient off life support.

Well-being and health are the same concept.

Active euthanasia is sometimes referred to as an act of omission.

James Rachels supports the opinion that there is a significant moral difference between active and passive euthanasia.

On the Roman Catholic view there is a moral obligation to continue treatment when a person is medically hopeless.

The oldest form of advance directive is a living will.

Passive euthanasia is sometimes referred to as an act of commission.

A persistent vegetative state is synonymous with brain death.

J. Gay-Williams argues that there are no good moral arguments for not allowing patient-requested euthanasia.

Ross holds that we always have a strong prima facie duty not to kill any sentient being.

One advantage of the durable power of attorney over the living will is that the durable power of attorney allows a surrogate to exercise control over novel and unanticipated situations.

In the 1970s and 1980s there were four basic views of what it is to be dead.

Rachels believes that passive euthanasia is morally preferable to active euthanasia.

Peter Singer believes that the utilitarian case for voluntary euthanasia is exceedingly weak.