James Rachels' "Killing and Letting Die"

Paper Summary:

This paper, based on James Rachels' essay "Killing and Letting Die", explains that, although killing and letting someone die may be very different from some moral perspectives, from other viewpoints and in certain scenarios, they can be equivalent. The author uses examples from Rachels' essay to explore the issue of intentions and the concept of action versus inaction. The equivalence thesis, which implies that nothing separates killing and letting someone dies because both actions have the same consequence in that both persons end up dead, is evaluated and supported by the author.

From the Paper:

"The reasoning Corrie ten Boom exercised was somewhat a combination of a few of the viewpoints that Rachels covered. What she did was refuse to reveal the name of a man (who would be killed if she spoke), but this man himself was responsible for many other deaths, and would continue to cause the killings of others. She felt that her revealing this man's name was an action equivalent to killing him, and it is from that that I will explain her view. She believed it was better not to kill this one man (by revealing his identity) than to save others."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Rachels, James. "Killing and Letting Die". In Encyclopedia of Ethics, 2nd edition. Becker, Lawrence and Charlotte. Routledge Publishing, New York, 2001. Pages 947-950.

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