Grant Gillett

About the author: Grant Gillett is an associate professor of medical ethics at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. He teaches philosophy at Otago University and has published a number of articles and books on medical ethics. He is also an operating neurosurgeon.

There are many arguments that attempt to demonstrate that no ethical distinction exists between the act of letting a patient die, or passive euthanasia, and the act of killing a patient, or active euthanasia. However, these cogent and clearly premised arguments are usually based solely on ethical generalizations and theory and, therefore, fail to acknowledge the complex and subjective nature of individual reasoning and intuition about matters relating to death. Additionally, intuition suggests that an act of medical intervention that purposely hastens death...