研究生英语精读教程Two.pptVIP

Part Summary Para [1] Rachels has identified the distinction between active and passive euthanasia as well as AMAs standpoint that allows for withholding or withdrawing treatment in some cases where certain circumstances obtain, i.e. treatment may be withheld or withdrawn if such an action is requested by an autonomous, competent decision-maker and if the patient is terminal, death is imminent, treatment is judged extraordinary, and death is not directly intended. Part Summary Para. [2]-[4] The writer justifies active euthanasia by an argument based on mercy. If one is going to die very soon but is in terrible pain, it is more merciful to kill the person. You may cut his life from five more days to one day but, given the horrible agony that the person is experiencing, mercy demands a quick death with dignity. Part Summary Para. [5]-[8] Rachels takes the case of the infants with Downs syndrome and intestinal obstruction to argue that the conventional doctrine leads to decisions concerning life and death made on irrelevant grounds. Part Summary Para. [9]-[13] Rachels sets up two cases that are supposed to be exactly alike except that one involves killing and the other involves letting die. According to Rachels, neither man behaved better from a moral point of view even though Smith killed the child and Jones merely let the child die. Thus the only difference between the two cases is killing versus letting die, and since the cases are morally equivalent this distinction is morally irrelevant. Part Summary Para. [14] Rachels points out a mistake in AMAs statement. According to him the cessation of treatment is exactly the intentional termination of the life of one human being by another. Text Summary James Rachels believes that there is no distinction between killing someone directly or letting that person die. There is no morally important difference between these. His main argument for it is called the bare difference argument. In the text Rachels sets up two cases