The Moral Equivalence of Action and Omission

Lichtenberg, Judith

doi:10.1080/00455091.1982.10715821

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The literature has shown a clear preference for discussing a number of distinctions later related to questions of withdrawing and withholding treatment. At least initially, and perhaps still, such discussions prioritized questions related to killing, letting die, and euthanasia [26,27] as well as the doctrine of acts and omissions [28,29]. Ultimately, this early literature has directly shaped the ways in which the issues of withdrawing and withholding are set out and discussed in contemporary bioethics (cf.…”

Section: A Historical Sketch Of the Academic Debate On Withdrawing Anmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of course, the E of Thesis E stands for equivalent, but the fact that Kamm refers to the idea in this way seems to indicate that philosophers and applied ethicists had not uniformly adopted the Equivalence Thesis as a terminological standard. The term does, however, appear elsewhere, such as in an essay by Lichtenberg entitled "The Moral Equivalence of Action and Omission" [28]. Published in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy's supplementary volume for 1982, this essay makes scattered reference to the "equivalence 1 3…”

Section: The Et and Its Problematic Application To Withdrawing And Wimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thomas considers those who advocate for what he calls the doctrine of the moral equivalence of acts and omissions, particularly Rachels[26] and Lichtenberg[28], as treating it as a "pre-theoretical moral truth"[29]. He also cites a collection of essays edited by Bonnie Steinbock as some of the most important papers written on the topic[43].…”

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confidence: 99%

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Beyond the Equivalence Thesis: how to think about the ethics of withdrawing and withholding life-saving medical treatment

Emmerich

Gordijn

2019

Theor Med Bioeth

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With few exceptions, the literature on withdrawing and withholding life-saving treatment considers the bare fact of withdrawing or withholding to lack any ethical significance. If anything, the professional guidelines on this matter are even more uniform. However, while no small degree of progress has been made toward persuading healthcare professionals to withhold treatments that are unlikely to provide significant benefit, it is clear that a certain level of ambivalence remains with regard to withdrawing treatment. Given that the absence of clinical benefit means treating patients is not only ethically questionable but also taxing on resources that could meet the needs of others, this ambivalence is troubling. Equally, the enduring ambivalence of professionals might be taken to indicate that the issue warrants further attention. In this paper, we review the academic literature on the ethical equivalence of withdrawing and withholding medical treatment. While we are not in outright disagreement with the arguments presented, we suggest that asserting theoretical and decontextualized claims about the ethical equivalence of withdrawing and withholding life-saving treatment does not fully illuminate the moral questions associated with the relevant clinical realities. We argue that what is required is a broader perspective, one rooted in an understanding that withdrawing and withholding lifesaving treatment are different practices, the meanings of which are fully comprehensible only through an appreciation of their place within the practice of healthcare more generally. Such an account suggests that if one is to engage with the inappropriate protraction of life-saving treatment resulting from healthcare professionals' disinclination to withdraw it, then the differences between these practices should be taken seriously.

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Section: A Historical Sketch Of the Academic Debate On Withdrawing Anmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Et and Its Problematic Application To Withdrawing And Wimentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Beyond the Equivalence Thesis: how to think about the ethics of withdrawing and withholding life-saving medical treatment

Emmerich

Gordijn

2019

Theor Med Bioeth

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“…5. In any case, many ethicists are skeptical that a stark moral distinction can be drawn between action and omission in the first place (see, e.g., McMahan 2002;Lichtenberg 1982;Glover 1977). Although sociologically speaking there is a clear tendency to view doing harm as morally worse than allowing harm to occur (see Kamm 1996), these intuitions can usually be explained by the presence of other morally significant variables, such as mental state, which tend to coincide with the doing-allowing distinction (see HowardSnyder 2007).…”

Section: Organisms and Ecosystems Are Not Delicately Balancedmentioning

confidence: 98%

What’s the Harm?: An Evolutionary Theoretical Critique of the Precautionary Principle

Powell¹

2010

ken

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The precautionary principle has been hailed as the new paradigm for contending with health and environmental risk in the context of emerging technologies. In the philosophical literature, however, it has been met with skepticism. Weaker conceptions of the precautionary principle are accused of being trivial or vacuous, while stronger versions are criticized for issuing irrationally restrictive or even contradictory prescriptions. Although the precautionary approach suffers from a number of conceptual defects, it nonetheless could be justified in certain biological domains if it were the case that evolution tended to produce optimal, delicately balanced equilibria that generally coincided with what we value. This justification fails, however, since it is premised on assumptions about the causal structure of the world that do not accord with contemporary evolutionary theory. This does not exclude the possibility that the precautionary principle may be warranted for other reasons or in certain settings, but it does remove a potentially powerful rationalization, one that has motivated much of the scholarship, law, and policy that is inclined toward the precautionary approach.

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“…Such differences at best illustrate a practical difference between killing and letting die. 3 It is not difficult to find explicit appeals to similarity in the literature. For instance, Rachels claims that:…”

Section: Similarity and Its Purposementioning

confidence: 99%

Killing and Letting Die: the Similarity Criterion

Asscher

2007

J Applied Philosophy

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Applied ethics engages with concrete moral issues. This engagement involves the application of philosophical tools. When the philosophical tools used in applied ethics are problematic, conclusions about applied problems can become skewed. In this paper, I focus on problems with the idea that comparison cases must be exactly alike, except for the moral issue at hand. I argue that this idea has skewed the debate regarding the moral distinction between killing and letting die. I begin with problems that can arise from attempts to produce comparison cases that are exactly alike, except for the moral issue at hand. I then argue that attempts to produce such examples are doomed to failure. Finally, I argue that abandoning concerns about similarity advances the debate regarding the moral distinction between killing and letting die.

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The Moral Equivalence of Action and Omission

Cited by 9 publications

References 4 publications

Beyond the Equivalence Thesis: how to think about the ethics of withdrawing and withholding life-saving medical treatment

Beyond the Equivalence Thesis: how to think about the ethics of withdrawing and withholding life-saving medical treatment

What’s the Harm?: An Evolutionary Theoretical Critique of the Precautionary Principle

Killing and Letting Die: the Similarity Criterion

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