PHILOS 2D03 Lecture 8: Lecture 8 – Euthanasia (Glover)
12 Mar 2018
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What"s wrong with killing: often thought that it violates the sanctity of life, idea: that life has intrinsic or inherent goodness, and that killing someone robs them of this inherent goodness. Glover: killing is not intrinsically wrong, but it is directly wrong (i. e. wrong for the person who is killed) Three ways we can understand this: taking life is always wrong. Glover: this commits us to pacifism, yet non-pacifists can also agree that taking life is wrong: taking life is directly wrong. Glover: only makes sense to talk of electrical brain activity if we first assume that the person is conscious: so, irreversible loss of consciousness seems to be the correct standard for determining death. However, we might feel we have to add to this, and include something like the irreversible loss of respiratory and circulatory activity in the body. Consider someone who lives in a permanent coma for the rest of their life.
