What Is the Fundamental Difference Between Active and Passive Euthanasia?

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Part 1:

What is the fundamental difference between Active and Passive Euthanasia?

Active Euthanasia is the process of being actively engaged in the death of the person. Passive Euthanasia is simply letting die. In this case, one does not directly cause the death of the other person. However, they sit back and watch without assisting as something else causes death to the person. Is one better than the other according to Rachels?  According to Rachels, none is better than the other. In both cases, death results. The basic factor is the motive behind the death. If the motive is to get financial gain, then neither is better than the other.

How does his example of Smith and Jones illustrate this difference? Make sure to explain Rachels’s argument?

         Smith has a nephew and he stands to gain if the nephew dies. Smith decides to kill the nephew through drowning him, thereby having a direct connection to his death and hence active killing. Jones  has a nephew as well and he stands to gain if the nephew dies. As he plans to kill him, the nephew falls into the sink and starts drowning. Jones decides to let him die, noting that he would not have had a direct connection to his death. This is passive killing according to Rachels.

Rachel argues that   killing and letting die has no difference. In the Smith and Jones case, the motive was the same. Whichever way was used, the result was the same. Killing in this case is on the same level as letting die and vice versa. Neither Jones nor Smith could say that their method was humanitarian. Smith might say that his nephew died fast because he did not want to prolong his suffering unlike Jones who watches his nephew slowly suffer and die a bad death.

Nesbitt on the other hand challenges Rachel’s thesis “that there is no difference between killing and letting die”. How does Nesbitt go about challenging it? And what modifications need to be made to Rachel’s example about Smith and Jones according to Nesbitt? Why does he think it is important to make these modifications? Explain Nesbitt’s argument

Nesbitt argues that in the case of passive Euthanasia, the doctor does not bring death to the patient. Rather, the ailment that the patient is suffering from is the cause of death. For instance, when a doctor refuses to treat a patient suffering from cancer, the patient dies from cancer. If the doctor applied active Euthanasia, this would imply that he killed the patient.

Jones is cleared of all ills. This is because the death of his nephew does not happen by his hand as it did with Smith. For this reason, keeping all other factors constant, Smith is the villain in this case.  .

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