Medical Ethics: End of Life

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

In this course we will explore how one might enhance the lives of those who are dying by investigating the ethical choices we make with respect to their medical care. A fundamental assumption for the course is that those who are dying are still living, and retain a capacity for flourishing as the mortal kinds of things that they are. Moreover, as part of the human community, they can enhance the lives of those who survive them. We will read both classical and contemporary works to help us delve deeply into specific ethical issues, including: suffering and the goals of medicine, the withholding and withdrawing of life-sustaining treatments, the distinction between killing and allowing to die, euthanasia and assisted suicide, the medical application of the rule of double-effect, palliative sedation, brain death, organ donation after cardiac death, advance directives, surrogate decision making, therapy, healing, death, and the ethics of attending to the spiritual needs of dying patients. The class will be conducted in classical seminar style, with students assigned to lead class discussions of particular texts.