Farhad asked:

I've been studying Phillipa Foot's article on euthanasia, but I am not able to understand her views
very well. Could you tell me when Foot thinks euthanasia is morally permissible? What are her
arguments for her views on morality?

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Foot's conclusion is that active non-voluntary euthanasia is impermissible, but that other forms of
euthanasia, namely passive non-voluntary, active voluntary and passive voluntary are sometimes
justified.

Her paper is divided into two parts, the first is concerned with the issue of what it means to say that
life is a good. She argues that it is not just the fact that a person is in the state of being merely alive
that constitutes a good. But rather that the life must reflect some standards of normality and that
when these standards are absent life is no longer a good.

She then asks in the second part of the paper whether it is ever justified to choose the death of
another on the grounds that life is not a good and that death will be a benefit to that person. imagine a
case where killing someone would be a benefit to that person, then killing them would be more
humane than to let then live or striving to keep them alive. On the grounds that it would be more
humane, you may think that we would be justified in killing them. Foot disagrees at least in one kind
of case. Foot argues that an act which is more humane or charitable can be morally objectionable on
other grounds. These other grounds are the persons right to life or more generally the demands of
justice.

Her argument can be represented like this: 1. each person has rights, including the right to life. 2. for
each right a person has there are corresponding duties others have. 3. The right to life has the
corresponding duty of non-interference 4. Therefore killing someone against there will is unjustified.

According to Foot, if a person wishes to be kept alive even when they are in distress and agony then
others must not interfere with this wish, even if all things considered it would be best for them to die,
because life is no longer a good tor them. And so active non-voluntary euthanasia is prohibited.
Passive non-voluntary euthanasia is also prohibited if (i) the person expresses the desire to live, and
(ii) the person and the doctor have entered into some kind of contract specifying that every thing
possible will be done in order to keep that person alive (although Foot admits it is difficult to identify
any such contract or even specify what the content of such a contract would be).

Foot also argues, on the grounds of the right to life, that voluntary euthanasia is justified. Foot see
nothing wrong in foregoing ones right to life, just as one can give up other rights. So if a person
expresses the genuine wish to die, and that this would be a benefit to him, we would be justified in
actively helping him.

As I have presented it Foot's position can be objected to on various grounds. Foot would need to give
an account of what counts as a person, who has a right to life? She does discuss severely mentally
retarded children toward the end of the paper, and she puts forward the possibility that in extreme
cases the basic existence such children share may not be the life for which the right to life refers.
many people I suspect would disagree with Foot. There is also the problem of identifying a person's
"genuine wish for death" as opposed to a depressive exhaustion with life, or an in genuine wish for
death because that person does not want to burden others for example.

Another point of debate is Foot's claim that one can give up ones right to life. Perhaps we can't, but
even if we can would this mean that others would be justified in actively helping someone die, or is
this too close to actual murder to count as morally permissible? These issues would trade on a
conception of what morality consists in, which would need to be agreed upon by Foot and her
objectors. And on these meta-ethical issues Foot has some interesting things to say. For more you
should take a look at her paper, "Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives".

Brian Tee
Dept of Philosophy
University of Sheffield