Frances M. Kamm

Voluntary euthanasia—the act of killing dying patients with their consent—and physician-assisted suicide are morally permissible, asserts Frances M. Kamm in the following viewpoint. Physicians often participate in a “lesser evil,” such as a leg amputation, to bring about a “greater good”—saving a patient’s life. In terminal cases involving intractable pain, Kamm argues, pain relief may be the greater good and loss of life the lesser evil. Therefore, she concludes, intentionally killing a dying patient is morally permissible if the patient consents and if death is the only way to stop the pain. Kamm is a New York University philosophy professor who specializes in legal and medical ethics.

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1. According to Kamm, in...