Given the Following Position on Euthanasia (Doctor-Assisted Suicide), Identify Which

question 105

Short Answer

Given the following position on euthanasia (doctor-assisted suicide), identify which of the three major ethical theories discussed in the text-utilitarianism, duty theory, or virtue ethics-it follows. Note that each theory may encompass several possible viewpoints on an issue.
Active euthanasia should be legalized. After all, what are the overall consequences in terms of happiness or unhappiness? Euthanasia may not make the patient who wants to die happy, but at least it can end his or her misery. And although the relatives may feel unhappy at the assisted suicide, they too have suffered, and they will grieve whether the patient dies assisted or unassisted. As a matter of fact, they may grieve less if they know the patient has been spared a substantial amount of suffering.

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Definitions:

First-Order Autocorrelation

A statistical measure that tests the extent to which current values in a time series are correlated with their immediate preceding value, indicating a lag-1 autocorrelation.

Durbin-Watson Statistic

A quantitative method utilized for detecting autocorrelation in the residuals resulting from regression analysis.

Critical Values

Specific points on the scale of a test statistic beyond which we reject the null hypothesis in hypothesis testing.

Autocorrelation

The correlation of a signal with a delayed copy of itself, often used to analyze functions or series of values, like time series data.