James Rachels Active and Passive Euthanasia addresses one of the most controversial topics regarding human ethics in modern society: the permissibility of active and passive euthanasia. passive. Active euthanasia is essentially the use of a lethal injection to end a patient's life, while passive euthanasia is the refusal of medical treatment that also results in the patient's death. Rachels offers a unique perspective on the traditional doctrine in medicine that prohibits the implementation of active euthanasia on a patient. It states that there are actually a variety of reasons and scenarios why active euthanasia is actually the better and more moral option than the passive approach. The main criticism I found in Rachel's article concerned her premise that there is no moral distinction between passive and active euthanasia, because they are both equally condemnable acts of murder. Although Rachels makes some valid and well-informed arguments, this article will deconstruct this premise by examining his primary thought experiment of Smith and Jones. Rachels bases his argument on the premise that the intention behind an action and the action itself are both separate entities and therefore cannot be morally evaluated as a unit. Rachels explains that since the end result is the same in active and passive euthanasia, there is no moral distinction between "actively killing" a patient and "letting a patient die." Thus, according to his logic, if one believes that passive euthanasia is morally acceptable, one must also believe that active euthanasia is morally acceptable because both result in the death of a suffering patient. In criticizing this, however, I find that the question of intention behind taking a passive or active action would be on the same level as the murder of a little girl because it results in the death of a little girl. same thing. Therefore, if our inaction is not placed on the same level as murder, then passive euthanasia cannot be placed there either. Ultimately, someone who "lets someone die" does not necessarily have the sole intention of causing death like "active murder", but cannot prevent the death of others due to the ignorance, inaccessibility or the desire to let nature do its work. In examining James Rachels' thought experiments, I identified various weaknesses in his article regarding the permissibility of active and passive euthanasia. While my objections are by no means conclusive, they have shown that his belief that "letting someone die" and "actively killing someone" are morally indistinguishable is very misguided, to say the least...