Philippa Foot: Killing and Letting Die
If a doctor has a scarce drug that can be used either to save one person or save five, it seems permissible for her to give the drug to the five, even if it means allowing the one to die. On the other hand, it does not seem permissible for the doctor to carve up one person and use his organs to save the lives of five others. According to Foot, cases like these seem to show that there is a morally significant distinction between killing and letting die. Yet this distinction seems to improperly classify other cases. For example, there does not seem to be a significant difference between turning off a dying patient's respirator and deliberately refusing to turn it on. Foot explains these cases in terms of a morally important distinction between being the agent of a harm - i.e., being the agent that initiates a sequence that results in the harm - and simply allowing an existing harm to befall a person.
This distinction, Foot claims, can be given an even more fundamental explanation in terms of a distinction between two types of duties. Negative duties are duties of noninterference, whereas positive duties are duties to provide goods or services. According to Foot, our negative duties are typically more stringent than our positive duties, and this explains why it is often worse to be the agent of a harm than to merely allow the same harm to befall someone.
Foot concludes by applying this distinction to the issue of abortion. In particular, Foot argues that Thomson's famous violinist analogy is faulty. While unplugging oneself from the violinist does not make one the agent of harm to the violinist, aborting a fetus does make one the agent of harm. Given this, Foot suggests, abortion is morally impermissible if the fetus has the moral status of a person.
-According to Foot, being an agent of harm is always morally worse than simply allowing a harm to befall someone.

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The Answer of Philippa Foot: Killing and Letting Die
If a doctor has a scarce drug that can be used either to save one person or save five, it seems permissible for her to give the drug to the five, even if it means allowing the one to die. On the other hand, it does not seem permissible for the doctor to carve up one person and use his organs to save the lives of five others. According to Foot, cases like these seem to show that there is a morally significant distinction between killing and letting die. Yet this distinction seems to improperly classify other cases. For example, there does not seem to be a significant difference between turning off a dying patient's respirator and deliberately refusing to turn it on. Foot explains these cases in terms of a morally important distinction between being the agent of a harm - i.e., being the agent that initiates a sequence that results in the harm - and simply allowing an existing harm to befall a person.
This distinction, Foot claims, can be given an even more fundamental explanation in terms of a distinction between two types of duties. Negative duties are duties of noninterference, whereas positive duties are duties to provide goods or services. According to Foot, our negative duties are typically more stringent than our positive duties, and this explains why it is often worse to be the agent of a harm than to merely allow the same harm to befall someone.
Foot concludes by applying this distinction to the issue of abortion. In particular, Foot argues that Thomson's famous violinist analogy is faulty. While unplugging oneself from the violinist does not make one the agent of harm to the violinist, aborting a fetus does make one the agent of harm. Given this, Foot suggests, abortion is morally impermissible if the fetus has the moral status of a person.
-According to Foot, being an agent of harm is always morally worse than simply allowing a harm to befall someone.