PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Adam Omelianchuk
TI  - ‘Total disability’ and the wrongness of killing
AID  - 10.1136/medethics-2014-102244
DP  - 2015 Aug 01
TA  - Journal of Medical Ethics
PG  - 661--662
VI  - 41
IP  - 8
4099  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/41/8/661.short
4100  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/41/8/661.full
SO  - J Med Ethics2015 Aug 01; 41
AB  - Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Franklin G Miller recently argued that the wrongness of killing is best explained by the harm that comes to the victim, and that ‘total disability’ best explains the nature of this harm. Hence, killing patients who are already totally disabled is not wrong. I maintain that their notion of total disability is ambiguous and that they beg the question with respect to whether there are abilities left over that remain relevant for the goods of personhood and human worth. If these goods remain, then something more is lost in death than in ‘total disability,’ and their explanation of what makes killing wrong comes up short. But if total disability is equivalent with death, then their argument is an interesting one.