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This book is a philosophical discussion of moral, legal, and medical issues related to aging, dying, and death. One of its aims is to decide whether and when it might make sense to not resist or bring about the end of one's life. To answer this question it considers views about meaning in life and what makes life worth living. It also evaluates recent attempts to help the general public plan in advance for the end of life. It also considers whether or not physician-assisted suicide is morally permissible and if it should be legalized.
Table des matières
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: The Badness of Death and What to Do About It (If Anything)
- Chapter 2: The Purpose of My Death: Kagan on the Worth of Living On
- Chapter 3: Death, Dying, and Meaning: Gawande on Choosing How to Die
- Chapter 4: Advanced and End of Life Care: Some Cautionary Suggestions
- Chapter 5: Direction and Distribution in Life: Lessons from Benjamin Button
- Chapter 6: Death Wish: Beyond End of Life Care
- Chapter 7: Five Easy Arguments for Assisted Suicide and Objections of Velleman and Gorsuch
- Chapter 8: Death and the State: Public Policy of Suicide, Assisted Suicide, and Capital Punishment
- Appendix: Cost of Effectiveness Analysis and Fairness
A propos de l'auteur
F. M. Kamm is Henry Rutgers University Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. Previously she has been Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Medicine (Bioethics), and Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University; she was also Littauer Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy, Professor of Philosophy, and Law School Affiliated Faculty at Harvard University. She is the author of numerous articles on normative ethical theory and practical ethics as well as the author of such books as Creation and Abortion (OUP 1992), Morality, Mortality, vols. 1 and 2 (OUP 1993, 1996), Intricate Ethics (OUP 2007), Ethics for Enemies (OUP 2011), Bioethical Prescriptions (OUP 2013), and The Trolley Problem Mysteries (OUP 2015). She serves on the editorial boards of Philosophy & Public Affairs, Legal Theory, and the Journal of Moral Philosophy. She has received NEH, AAUW, and Guggenheim Fellowships.
Résumé
In Almost Over, F. M. Kamm presents a wide-ranging philosophical discussion of the moral, legal, and medical issues related to aging, dying, and death. She begins by considering different views about whether and why death is bad for the person who dies and what these views imply about the death of humanity. She then considers whether there are conditions under which it might make sense to deliberately bring a person's death about, given the processes of aging and dying that precede it. In the opinion of some it is not only serious illness but ordinary aging that may give rise to this question and Kamm pays particular attention to the various ways in which aging could affect the distribution of "goods" and "bads" in a particular life. Specifically, she considers how the limitations and changes due to aging and the dying process affect meaning in one's life, and whether the absence of meaning affects the reasonableness of not resisting or even seeking one's death.
Kamm explores these questions not only as they relate to individuals' decisions but also as they relate to public policy and state action. Recently attempts have been made to help the general public think about end-of-life issues by devising questionnaires and conversation guides; Kamm evaluates some of these resources and articulates the moral implications of the assumptions they make about aging, dying, and value. She also takes up the issue of physician-assisted suicide as a way of ending one's life, considering its moral permissibility and whether or not it ought to be legalized as a matter of public policy. In doing so, she examines arguments from discussions about capital punishment concerning state action and also methods of balancing costs and benefits (including cost effectiveness analysis). In her analysis, Kamm engages with the views of such prominent philosophers, medical doctors, and legal theorists as Shelly Kagan, Susan Wolf, Atul Gawande, Ezekiel Emanual, and Neil Gorsuch, among others, shedding new light on conversations about the moral complexities and consequences of aging, dying, and death.
Texte suppl.
For many years, Kamm has written with great insight about death and related issues such as euthanasia and assisted suicide. She is justly renowned among philosophers for the originality of her ideas and the subtlety and intricacy of her arguments. The essays in Almost Over, while retaining the rigor of her earlier work, engage with the thinking of more popular writers and explore issues of policy as well as philosophical theory. Her thoughts in this book are humane, profound, and wise. They are the mature reflections on the meaning and value of life, and on the meaning of death, of one of the greatest living moral philosophers.
