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Tong Replies
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10807 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
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3 / 1993 |
2,326 Words |
| Author
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Rosemarie Tong
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Oftentimes when philosophers, theologians, or other thinkers reply to those who have commented upon their work, their primary intent is to rebut arguments raised against their point of view, to correct misunderstandings of their work, and/or to defend every iota of their position as if they were General Custer at his last stand.
None of these goals describe my major mission here, although I would like to note that in his eagerness to defend killing and letting die as the categories best able to clarify our views about euthanasia, Gilbert Meilaender has attributed to me not only a predilection for the distinction between active and passive euthanasia but also some views that I do not necessarily endorse. For example, as indicated in my footnotes, it is philosopher James Rachel who has defended the position that, assuming a physician's intent is to cause the death of a severely imperiled newborn, there is no moral distinction between his withdrawing life-sustaining treatment from that newborn on the one hand and lethally injecting it on the other hand. Rather, there is only the non-moral question of what means the physician will choose to effect the result he intends--the means in the former instance being generally more slow and, therefore arguably more cruel than in the means in the latter instance.
To be sure, as R.G. Frey writes, not all physicians form the same intention or take themselves as playing precisely the same causal role when they withdraw life-sustaining treatments or provide lethal injections or, for that matter, prescribe medications for pain. Faced with a decision about how to serve the best interests of a severely imperiled newborn, one physician may say: "It's time to let nature take its course. We've done all we can. Let's disconnect the machines and let this baby die." Another physician may instead say: "This baby would be better off dead than alive. There's nothing we can do to restore her health. In fact, we can't even alleviate her pain any more, and it's been over two days since we disconnected the machines. Nature is dragging her feet, and all we're doing is standing around as this baby writhes in pain. Letting someone die is fine as far as it goes, but there comes a time when mercy requires us to kill someone."
NAVIGATING THE MAZE OF MORALITY
When intentions as different as these two are articulated, it is clear, as Meilaender correctly observes, that we are speaking about profoundly different actions. What is not clear, however, is which of the two physicians described above is
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