Introduction
Rachel’s famous stance on euthanasia revived the debate on the ethical consideration of passive and active killing. It is widely accepted in the medical field that active euthanasia is wrong, but passive one is right. Rachel challenges these beliefs claiming the moral similarity between the two.
Discussion
The question of letting people die or actively killing them is basically the same for Rachel. Therefore, in his thought experiment about a drowning twin, both the killer and the passive witness are equally guilty. An evil twin could have saved another one but chose not to do that. Rachel’s thought experiment is not the first one to be designed in a way to confuses the audience, steering them towards the author’s argument. Despite the appealing nature of Rachel’s argument, his claims of equity of killing and letting a person die are not ethically right.
In the past, other proponents of active killing in the medical field claimed the moral equity of actively killing an adult man to the inability to revive a dead individual. Through these arguments, they wished to sway public opinion to disregard the scientific knowledge about both consciousnesses of adults and biological death. However, even disregarding science, these claims do not stand the test of ethics. A major distinction between killing and witnessing death is the level of responsibility for the death. Witness bears no responsibility for creating an environment and causes for the death, while a killer is an active creator of such circumstances. If the witness assumes any responsibility, they stop being a witness and become a killer. Moreover, if the witness fails to save the victim, the witness does not become the killer, as the levels of responsibility for creating a deadly situation remain the same.
Conclusion
The possibility of saving the victim is irrelevant in this case, making the witness only a loser at saving but not an actual killer with intent. Thus, Rachel’s thought experiment is aimed at convincing people of active killing but is ethically misguided.