Death, Dying and the Ending of Life, Volumes I and II

by Battin,Margaret P.

• ISBN13: 9780754621744
• ISBN10: 075462174X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-09-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

These two volumes present the core of recent philosophical work on end-of-life issues. Volume I examines issues in death and consent: the nature of death, brain death and the uses of the dead and decision-making at the end of life, including the use of advance directives and decision-making about the continuation, discontinuation, or futility of treatment for competent and incompetent patients and children. Volume II, on justice and hastening death, examines whether there is a difference between killing and letting die, issues about physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia and questions about distributive justice and decisions about life and death.

Table of Contents

Death: The Nature of Death

On defining a `Natural Death'

Why is death bad?

Some puzzles about the evil of death

Brain death and personal identity

Brain death: a durable consensus?

The dead donor rule: should we stretch it, bend it, or abandon it?

Some must die

Decision-Making at the End of Life: Competent Patients

Medical paternalism

Arrogance

Depression, competence and the right to refuse lifesaving medical treatment; Advance Directives

Do-not-resuscitate orders: no longer secret, but still a problem

Advance directives and the personal identity problem

Why I dont have a living will; Incompetent Patients

Deciding for others: standards for decision-making

The severely demented, minimally functional patient: an ethical analysis

Terminating life-sustaining treatment of the demented

Quality of life and treatment decisions for incompetent patients: a critique of the orthodox approach

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.