PHIL226 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Prenatal Diagnosis, Involuntary Euthanasia, Organ Donation
18 Dec 2016
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Write a thought or question that you think would promt. Imagine that years ago margot, a person with moderately advanced alzheimer"s disease who shows many signs of being happy, had completed an advanced directive about treatment she would want if she were to develop dementia. When she made the ad she was adequately informed. However, since the ad treatment options have advanced. A wish that is not adequately informed is not an autonomous wish, so we can be in favour of respecting autonomy without respecting an ad. The conceptual slippery slope argument says that competence is a vague concept. This concept makes it impossible to allow voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide for competent individuals without also allowing it for some incompetent patients. This is a challenge because even one instance of involuntary euthanasia would be wrong. The problem is with boarder line cases, the cases where the patient is neither clearly competent or incompetent.
