James Rachels

1941-2003 · American · Ethics, Bioethics, Applied Ethics, Animal Ethics, Metaethics

There is a deep difference between having a life and merely being alive.

When James Rachels published Active and Passive Euthanasia in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1975, he wasn't addressing philosophers — he was addressing doctors who assumed letting a patient die was always morally cleaner than killing one. His argument: if a man drowns his cousin in the bathtub and another stands by while the child drowns, both with the same motive, the bare difference between killing and letting die makes no moral difference. If passive euthanasia is permissible, active euthanasia must be too.

Topics James Rachels addresses

• the Minimum Conception of Morality
• reason and impartiality in ethics
• the Equivalence Thesis
• active and passive euthanasia
• the Bare Difference Argument
• the Smith and Jones drowning thought experiment
• killing and letting die
• biographical life vs biological life
• having a life vs being alive
• moral individualism
• the critique of speciesism
• the Argument from Marginal Cases
• the moral implications of Darwinism
• human dignity as discredited metaphysical idea
• the moral argument for vegetarianism
• the Cultural Differences Argument as invalid
• the critique of cultural relativism
• the rejection of subjectivism in ethics
• Divine Command Theory critique
• ethical egoism refutation
• the Two Arguments Against Ethical Egoism
• psychological egoism vs ethical egoism
• Multiple-Strategies Utilitarianism
• desert-based reasoning in utilitarianism

Questions to put to James Rachels

Reason, Impartiality, and the Minimum Conception

• What do you mean by the Minimum Conception of Morality?
• Why do you think morality is fundamentally an exercise in reason?
• How does giving equal weight to everyone's interests work in practice?
• What role should our moral intuitions play when we're assessing ethical theories?
• Can you walk me through how you use concrete cases to test moral arguments?

Cultural Relativism and Moral Disagreement

• What's wrong with the Cultural Differences Argument?
• How can there be objective moral truth when cultures disagree so much?
• What do the Eskimo infanticide case and the Greek-Callatian disagreement show about moral diversity?
• Why does cultural relativism make moral progress impossible?
• What values must all functioning cultures share?

Active and Passive Euthanasia

• Can you explain the Smith and Jones drowning thought experiment?
• What's the Bare Difference Argument and what does it establish?
• Is there really no moral difference between killing a patient and letting a patient die?
• How do you respond to the AMA's 1973 position that passive euthanasia is sometimes permissible but active euthanasia never is?
• What's the Argument from Mercy for euthanasia?

Biographical Life and the Value of Human Existence

• What's the difference between having a life and merely being alive?
• How should I understand the case of Mrs Florian and her husband Hans?
• Why do you think biological functioning is relatively unimportant?
• What makes a life valuable enough to be protected by the rule against killing?
• How do you respond to the traditional doctrine of the sanctity of life?

Darwinism, Speciesism, and Moral Individualism

• How does Darwinism undermine the doctrine of human dignity?
• What do you mean by moral individualism?
• Does the bare fact that someone is human entitle them to special moral consideration?
• Can you explain the Argument from Marginal Cases?
• Why isn't species-membership a morally relevant characteristic?
• How should we treat non-human animals if moral individualism is right?

Utilitarianism and Multiple Strategies

• You say you ended up a utilitarian without aiming at that destination — how did that happen?
• What's Multiple-Strategies Utilitarianism and how does it differ from standard utilitarianism?
• How do you incorporate desert-based reasoning into a utilitarian framework?
• What would a satisfactory moral theory look like?
• Why did you lose confidence in the Two Arguments Against Ethical Egoism?

Converse with James Rachels on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in James Rachels's own writing, cited to the page.