ABSTRACT
The widely used Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives three meanings for the word "euthanasia": the first, "a quiet and easy death"; the second, "the means of procuring this"; and the third, "the action of inducing a quiet and easy death." This chapter considers the morality of euthanasia both voluntary and nonvoluntary, and active and passive. It discusses the social consequences and possible abuses of the practice of euthanasia, but only about acts of euthanasia considered in themselves. Interestingly enough we have arrived by way of a consideration of the right to life at the distinction normally labeled "active" versus "passive" euthanasia, and often thought to be irrelevant to the moral issue. An act of euthanasia, whether literally act or rather omission, is attributed to an agent who opts for the death of another because in his case life seems to be an evil rather than a good.
