Minimalism rests on a sharp line between harming and not helping; but letting someone die when one could easily save them can be as culpable as killing.

Objects to

James Rachels · 'Active and Passive Euthanasia' · 1975

Minimalism draws a sharp line between harming, which it forbids, and not helping, which it leaves free: I owe nothing so long as I refrain.
But compare two men: one drowns his nephew for the inheritance; the other, having come to drown him, sees him slip in the bath and withholds the gesture that would have saved him at no risk. Did the second act less wrongly than the first?
Our judgment says no: what counts is the motive and the outcome, not the difference between a movement and a stillness. Letting die when one could easily have saved is a way of causing death.

Therefore So the line between harming and not helping is not so sharp: if the omission can be as culpable as the act, minimalism cannot found a right to indifference upon it.

Possible resolutions of the objection

Your choice is recorded in your profile, like a questionnaire answer.

Challenges

The harm principle

Problem

Doing and allowing