Respect for Other Selves
Philosophers have mostly advocated that advance directives should bear the same authority, with regard to refusal of life-extending treatment, as a patient's contemporaneous consent or refusal. Such authors typically support this position through a theory of persistent personal identity. I agre...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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Published: |
Johns Hopkins Univ. Press
2011
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In: |
Kennedy Institute of Ethics journal
Year: 2011, Volume: 21, Issue: 4, Pages: 349-378 |
Online Access: |
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Summary: | Philosophers have mostly advocated that advance directives should bear the same authority, with regard to refusal of life-extending treatment, as a patient's contemporaneous consent or refusal. Such authors typically support this position through a theory of persistent personal identity. I agree that the loss of mental competence does not render someone a moral stranger to their prior goal but argue that equating advance direction with consent is to ignore the capacity of nonpersons to attribute and withhold moral value. A distinction should be drawn between advance directives that seek to pursue deeply held goals and those that express contempt for the mentally incompetent. |
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ISSN: | 1086-3249 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Kennedy Institute of Ethics journal
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/ken.2011.0017 |