Death Wish

Almost Over ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 142-207
Author(s):  
F. M. Kamm
Keyword(s):  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Preventive Measures ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
Moral Permissibility ◽  
Death Wish ◽  
Susan Wolf

Chapter 6 examines Ezekiel Emanuel’s reasons for thinking that after a “complete life” (by around age seventy-five) it can be reasonable (at least for some) to omit easy preventive measures (e.g., flu shots) that would extend life even when such life would not be worse than death. To better understand such a position the chapter makes use of the views of Susan Wolf and Bernard Williams on meaning in life and reasons to go on living, and also considers different ways of judging the worth of activities. It further compares Emanuel’s views with those of Atul Gawande, B. J. Miller, and Douglas MacLean. Finally, it considers whether Emanuel’s arguments succeed and also whether they support the moral permissibility of suicide and assisted suicide.

Request for euthanasia by a psychiatric patient with undetected intellectual disability

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. e239862
Author(s):  
Olga Schmahl ◽  
Richard Oude Voshaar ◽  
Aïda van de Poel-Mustafayeva ◽  
Radboud Marijnissen
Keyword(s):  
Case Report ◽  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Treatment Resistance ◽  
Second Opinion ◽  
Psychiatric Evaluation ◽  
Bipolar I Disorder ◽  
Hyperactivity Disorder ◽  
Death Wish

In the Netherlands, euthanasia or assisted suicide (EAS) in psychiatric disorders is legal in certain circumstances. Guidelines recommend a second opinion to independently check diagnosis and treatment resistance. A 68-year-old patient, diagnosed with bipolar I disorder, with a request for euthanasia because of tiredness, repeated falls and racing thoughts was seen for such a second opinion. Persisting in her wish, her reluctant family and psychiatrist became convinced of euthanasia. Our disagreement with the diagnosis of bipolar I disorder upset her, but she agreed with discontinuation of psychotropic drugs. Her mobility and tiredness improved, whereafter her request for euthanasia evolved into a death wish due to completed life. Intellectual disability and an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder could explain her struggle in life. This case report shows that extending the procedure regarding EAS with an independent psychiatric evaluation is important. For our patient, this second opinion supported her to find meaning in life.

When slippery slope arguments miss the mark: a lesson from one against physician-assisted death

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (10) ◽  
pp. 657-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Blackstone ◽  
Stuart J Youngner
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Regulatory Agencies ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Assisted Death ◽  
Slippery Slope Arguments ◽  
Life Sustaining Treatment ◽  
American Society ◽  
Susan Wolf

In 1989, Susan Wolf convincingly warned of a troublesome consequence that should discourage any movement in American society towards physician-assisted death—a legal backlash against the gains made for limiting life-sustaining treatment. The authors demonstrate that this dire consequence did not come to pass. As physician-assisted suicide gains a foothold in USA and elsewhere, many other slippery slope arguments are being put forward. Although many of these speculations should be taken seriously, they do not justify halting the new practice. Instead, our courts, regulatory agencies, journalists, professional organisations and researchers should carefully monitor and study it as it unfolds, allowing continuous improvement just as our society has done in implementing the practice of limiting life-sustaining treatment.

Susan Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why it Matters

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-422
Author(s):  
Simon Derpmann
Keyword(s):  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Susan Wolf

scholarly journals Understanding patients’ experiences of the wish to hasten death: an updated and expanded systematic review and meta-ethnography

BMJ Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. e016659 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Rodríguez-Prat ◽  
Albert Balaguer ◽  
Andrew Booth ◽  
Cristina Monforte-Royo
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Advanced Disease ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Free Text ◽  
Qualitative Synthesis ◽  
Care Plans ◽  
Wish To Hasten Death ◽  
Life Threatening

ObjectivesPatients with advanced disease sometimes express a wish to hasten death (WTHD). In 2012, we published a systematic review and meta-ethnography of qualitative studies examining the experience and meaning of this phenomenon. Since then, new studies eligible for inclusion have been reported, including in Europe, a region not previously featured, and specifically in countries with different legal frameworks for euthanasia and assisted suicide. The aim of the present study was to update our previous review by including new research and to conduct a new analysis of available data on this topic.SettingEligible studies originated from Australia, Canada, China, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Thailand and USA.ParticipantsStudies of patients with life-threatening conditions that had expressed the WTHD.DesignThe search strategy combined subject terms with free-text searching of PubMed MEDLINE, Web of Science, CINAHL and PsycInfo. The qualitative synthesis followed the methodology described by Noblit and Hare, using the ‘adding to and revising the original’ model for updating a meta-ethnography, proposed by Franceet al. Quality assessment was done using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme checklist.Results14 studies involving 255 participants with life-threatening illnesses were identified. Five themes emerged from the analysis: suffering (overarching theme), reasons for and meanings and functions of the WTHD and the experience of a timeline towards dying and death. In the context of advanced disease, the WTHD emerges as a reaction to physical, psychological, social and existential suffering, all of which impacts on the patient’s sense of self, of dignity and meaning in life.ConclusionsThe WTHD can hold different meanings for each individual—serving functions other than to communicate a genuine wish to die. Understanding the reasons for, and meanings and functions of, the WTHD is crucial for drawing up and implementing care plans to meet the needs of individual patients.

scholarly journals Meaning in Life and Becoming More Fulfilled

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Jared Parmer
Keyword(s):  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Dynamic Interaction ◽  
Viable Option ◽  
Objective Value ◽  
Susan Wolf ◽  
Subjectivist Theory

Subjectivism about meaning in life remains a viable option, despite its relative unpopularity. Two arguments against it in the literature, the first by Susan Wolf and the second by Aaron Smuts and Antti Kauppinen, fail. Pace Wolf, lives devoted to activities of no objective value need not be pointless, unproductive, and futile, and so not prima facie meaningless; and, pace Smuts and Kauppinen, subjectivism is perfectly compatible with people being mistaken about how meaningful their own lives are. This paper elaborates a novel subjectivist view according to which becoming more fulfilled is what makes a life meaningful for a person. Becoming more fulfilled is a process that has being more fulfilled as its end-state, and, as with any process, it can come to a halt before it is complete. More substantively, this process is a dynamic interaction between a person and the activities she does that are of a goodness-fixing kind, wherein her doing them changes her cares in a way partly explained by her antecedently caring about doing activities of that kind. Finally, this paper shows why the becoming more fulfilled view is to be preferred to the standard subjectivist theory, the being fulfilled view, and how it produces intuitive results.

Meaning in Lives Nearing Their End

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 277-296
Author(s):  
F. M. Kamm
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Bernard Williams

AbstractIn this paper, I consider the idea of meaning in life as I believe it has arisen in some discussions of ageing and death. I critically examine and compare the views of Atul Gawande and Ezekiel Emanuel, connecting their views to the idea of meaning in life. I further consider the relation of meaning in life to both the dignity of the person and the reasonableness of continuing or not continuing to live. In considering these issues, I evaluate and draw on Bernard Williams’ distinction between categorical and conditional desires, Susan Wolf's work on meaning in life, and Jeremy Waldron's views on dignity in old age.

“Fatal Practices”: A Feminist Analysis of Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Hypatia ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Diane Raymond
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Feminist Analysis ◽  
Women’S Agency ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Susan Wolf

In this essay, I examine the arguments against physician-assisted suicide (PAS) Susan Wolf offers in her essay, “Gender, Feminism, and Death: Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia.” I argue that Wolf's analysis of PAS, while timely and instructive in many ways, does not require that feminists reject policy approaches that might permit PAS. The essay concludes with reflections on the relationship between feminism and questions of agency, especially women's agency.

Death, Dying, and Meaning

Almost Over ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 57-84
Author(s):  
F. M. Kamm
Keyword(s):  
Medical Treatment ◽  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Hospice Care ◽  
Death And Dying ◽  
Meaningful Use ◽  
Bernard Williams

Chapter 3 discusses Atul Gawande’s views about the choice between trying to live on by way of medical treatment and trying to retain meaning during one’s dying process through hospice care. It first compares medical and philosophical conceptions of death and dying. It then considers how Gawande’s views relate to Bernard Williams’ distinction between categorical and conditional desires and how they compare with views discussed in Chapter 2 about when it can make sense not to resist the end of one’s life. There is discussion of Gawande’s conception of the dying role, fear, the importance of how things end, and meaning in life. Suggestions are offered about possible meaningful use of suffering and death.

“Would my life still be meaningful?”: Intersubjectivism and changing meaning in life

Human Affairs ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 462-469
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Politi
Keyword(s):  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Hybrid View ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Susan Wolf

Abstract Susan Wolf maintains that the meaningfulness of a life arises when someone acts upon the subjective desire of doing something objectively valuable. This amounts to a hybrid view, which contains both subjectivist and objectivist elements. Wolf’s tentative definition of what is objectively valuable amounts to what, in this article, we define as ‘intersubjectivism’. As it will be argued, however, intersubjectivism poses a number of problems, which are exacerbated in contemporary society and which shed a new light on the problem of meaning in life.

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