Review of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: A Natural Law Ethics Approach
Ethics and Medicine 26 (1):23-4 (2010)
| Abstract | As medical technology advances and severely injured or ill people can be kept alive and functioning long beyond what was previously medically possible, the debate surrounding the ethics of end-of-life care and quality-of-life issues has grown more urgent. In this lucid and vigorous book, Craig Paterson discusses assisted suicide and euthanasia from a fully fledged but non-dogmatic secular natural law perspective. He rehabilitates and revitalises the natural law approach to moral reasoning by developing a pluralistic account of just why we are required by practical rationality to respect and not violate key demands generated by the primary goods of persons, especially human life. Important issues that shape the moral quality of an action are explained and analysed: intention/foresight; action/omission; action/consequences; killing/letting die; innocence/non-innocence; person/non-person. Paterson defends the central normative proposition that ‘it is always a serious moral wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human person, whether self or another, notwithstanding any further appeal to consequences or motive’. | |||||||||
| Keywords | Assisted Suicide Euthanasia Death and Dying Homicide Killing and Letting Die Natural Law Ethics | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesHazel Biggs (2001). Euthanasia, Death with Dignity, and the Law. Hart Publishing.
L. W. Sumner (2011). Assisted Death: A Study in Ethics and Law. Oxford University Press.
Mary Warnock (2008). Easeful Death: Is There a Case for Assisted Dying? Oxford University Press.
Craig Paterson (2009). A History of Ideas Concerning the Morality of Suicide, Assisted Suicide and Voluntary Euthanasia. In Rajitha Tadikonda (ed.), Physician Assisted Euthanasia. Icfai University Press.
Craig Paterson (2000). On "Killing" Versus "Letting Die" in Clinical Practice: Mere Sophistry With Words? Journal of Nursing Law 6 (4):25-44.
Craig Paterson (2001). The Contribution of Natural Law Theory to Moral and Legal Debate Concerning Suicide, Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. Universal Publishers.
Susanna Maria Taraschi (2010). Paterson, Craig: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: A Natural Law Ethics Approach. [REVIEW] Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 31 (3):245-247.
Glenys Williams (2009). Craig Paterson - Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: A Natural Law Ethics Approach. [REVIEW] King's Law Journal 20 (3):553-8.
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