Death with dignity

The purpose of this article is to develop a conception of death with dignity and to examine whether it is vulnerable to the sort of criticisms that have been made of other conceptions. In this conception "death" is taken to apply to the process of dying; "dignity" is taken to be something that attaches to people because of their personal qualities. In particular, someone lives with dignity if they live well (in accordance with reason, as Aristotle would see it). It follows that health care professionals cannot confer on patients either dignity or death with dignity. They can, however, attempt to ensure that the patient dies without indignity. Indignities are affronts to human dignity, and include such things as serious pain and the exclusion of patients from involvement in decisions about their lives and deaths. This fairly modest conception of death with dignity avoids the traps of being overly subjective or of viewing the sick and helpless as "undignified".     

Making sense of dignity

In this review of Leon Kass's Life, liberty and the defense of dignity and Deryck Beyleveld and Roger Brownsword's Human dignity in bioethics and biolaw. I consider the prospects for a theory of dignity as a basis for bioethics research. I argue that dignity theories are worth exploring in more detail, but that research needs to consider both "antitheory" accounts of the language of bioethics, and to give more weight to accounts of dignity as an outcome of holding positive liberties and as something that has a psychological dimension.     

在病床边重新发现尊严 保持病人尊严的ABCD教学法

当Gerasim先生坐在他旁边甚至有时坐上一整夜的时候，对于他来说真的是一种安慰。Gerasim是惟一一个从不说谎的人。从他的所作所为可以看出他是惟一一个清楚情况而且对此不加掩饰的人。因此这种关系对于他来说是个安慰。