Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

Euthanasia has been the subject of much controversy during the last three decades. In ethics most philosophers divide it into active and passive euthanasia and consider the first option to be immoral. There are some thinkers, however, who deny any moral significance in such a distinction. Among them and perhaps the first in this arena is James Rachels who is followed by other thinkers like Jonathan Bennett and Michael Tooley. Rachels poses his equivalence theory. By this he means that assuming the stability of other factors in a given circumstance and focusing on the variable of act and omission alone we would find that there is no moral difference between the two. He tries to defend his theory by the way of parallel examples and parity of reasons. We are going to evaluate his arguments by explaining and then criticizing them. In this regard we will examine briefly some counter-examples, and then we will have a look at some answers of other philosophers like Philippa Foot and Will Cartwright. We try to assess these refutations and finally we are going to offer two answers in the hope that these answers solve the problem.