PHL 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Moral Responsibility, Correlation Does Not Imply Causation

• School: Tunxis Community College
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHL 111
• Professor: Minor

Document Summary

Three points where voluntary euthanasia push us in the wrong direction: The scope of autonomy vs. the common good. The scope of parochial views of the good life vs. the aims of medicine. Arguments in favour of voluntary euthanasia are not persuasive. The common arguments fall into four categories callahan deals with each in turn. Giving away our life is a strange route to dignity. Other practices of giving away our life have been outlawed for this reason (e. g. voluntary slavery, dueling). Doctors are also moral agents, so there are further problems: Doctors must have an independent reason to kill. Treating the patient"s values, rather than condition. Some people want to conflate the distinction between killing and letting die. Ceasing treatment does not cause death, the disease causes death. The person would not have died if they were healthy. Moral responsibility and culpability are human constructs.