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When Suicide is not a Self -Killing: Advance Decisions and Psychological Discontinuity—Part II

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: Derek Parfit’s view of personal identity raises questions about whether advance decisions refusing life-saving treatment should be honored in cases where a patient loses psychological continuity; it implies that these advance decisions would not be self -determining at all. However, rather than accepting that an unknown metaphysical ‘further fact’ underpins agential unity, one can accept Parfit’s view but offer a different account of what it implies morally. Part II of this article argues that contractual obligations provide a moral basis for honoring advance decisions refusing life-saving and/or life-sustaining medical treatment; advance decisions have similarities to contracts, such as life insurance policies and will-contracts, that come into effect when the psychological discontinuity is through death.

Source: Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics

DOI: 10.1017/s0963180124000239

Author: Suzanne E. Dowie

Institution: University of Glasgow

Language: English

Topic: Ethics and bioethics in healthcare

Subfield: Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,450

OpenAlex ID: W4396762676