AbstractIn this paper, I introduce the ideas to be discussed in the articles of this journal with reference to an imaginary case involving a pregnant woman declared dead on the basis of neurological criteria. I highlight the fact that although these ideas have proved useful for advancing certain claims in bioethical debates, their implications are not always well understood and may complicate our arguments. The ideas to be discussed are (1) an ethic internal to the profession of medicine; (2) the difference between killing and letting die; (3) the organism as a whole; and (4) the “lives” and interests of the dead.
I argue that ignorance of who will die makes a difference to the ethics of killing. It follows that reasons are subject to ‘specificity’: it can be rational to respond more strongly to facts that provide us with reasons than to the fact that such reasons exist. In the case of killing and letting die, these reasons are distinctively particular: they turn on personal acquaintance. The theory of rights must be, in part, a theory of this relation.
Acts and omissions, killing and letting die.