Ethics in Progress, 2022, Volume 13, Issue 2
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Item Go Unattended. A Review of Anthony Stavrianakis’ Book “Leaving. A Narrative of Assisted Suicide” (2019)(Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Faculty of Philosophy, 2022) Napiwodzka, KarolinaThis is a review of Anthony Stavrianakis’ book Leaving. A Narrative of Assisted Suicide (University of California Press, 2019). Medically-assisted suicide still raises many issues and controversies of various types: ethical, legal, organizational and institutional. The situation varies greatly between countries, and depends on health care policies and socially recognised values. However, the overriding question is as follows: under what conditions should this form of death be allowed? Among the arguments that are well known, recognized and now tame, Stavrianakis’ research brings new light and perspective. The author goes deeper and searches for the real motives driving people to choose this manner of death. He sees the nuances and recounts the difficulties. In this article, I highlight aspects of Stavrianakis’ work that I find relevant and crucial for the issues considered.Item Anthropos Metron versus Bous Metron? The Significance and Suffering of Animals in Regard to Sacrificial Rituals(Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Faculty of Philosophy, 2022) Perliński, DominikHumanity has practised animal sacrifice for the greater part of its history, from the time of the Neolithic Revolution. The ritual forms have varied, depending on the culture. They have also been subject to change, in connection with the development of human understanding and knowledge of animals, which is reflected in the ontological, cultural and moral status assigned to animals in the human world. Sacrificing animals involved not only killing them in a particular way – their treatment was sometimes sophisticated or ‘ritualistic’; often it was simply cruel. Human attitudes towards non-human living beings have also evolved in the context of animal killing and sacrifice. The treatment of animals reveals a great deal about human beings – in terms of their culture, beliefs, and morals. The article outlines this issue in a historical manner, referring to the practices adopted in selected cultural circles (in the Mediterranean Basin): ancient Mesopotamia and Greece, as well as in Judaism and Islam. The key findings of researchers are presented, along with the evaluations of philosophers, ethicists and anthropologists.Item The Central Role of Schools in Promoting Death Education Interventions(Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Faculty of Philosophy, 2022) Fagnani, GiudittaAvoidance of discussion about death is common in contemporary Western societies. Plenty of literature substantiates that (at the beginning of the sentence), the actual tendency toward death denial can produce many negative effects such as the suppression of death-related thoughts and emotions. Death Education aims to strengthen the psychological anchors that allow us to recognize the profiles of anguish, prevent the decompensating factors of pathological mourning and process the experiences of loss at all ages. The article aims to support the usefulness and use of Death Education interventions in schools and their central role in promoting these interventions.Item The COVID-19 Pandemic Between Bio-Ethics, Bio-Law and Bio-Politics: A Case Study on The Italian Experience of The DuPre Commission(Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Faculty of Philosophy, 2022) Testoni, InesThe aim of this qualitative study was to consider the question of whether the Italian political management of the pandemic respected the European bio-ethical and bio-juridical approaches in light of the principles of autonomy, dignity, integrity and vulnerability. As no specific consolidated literature exists on the subject, the Italian situation was taken into consideration, specifically the work of a spontaneous commission (DuPre) that collected the reflections of academics and researchers interested in discussing political decisions for the management of the emergency, which was the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The analysis took into account the contributions of scholars during two conferences (without proceedings), which were transcribed and examined. From the texts processed with a thematic analysis, three main themes emerged: ‘pandemic as a state of exception, sovereignty and crisis of democracy’, ‘the value of doubt and refutation’ and ‘elimination of informed consent between persuasion and blackmail’. In this paper, the final bio-political considerations on the European approach and the management of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy are presented.Item Palliative Care and Physician Assisted Death(Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Faculty of Philosophy, 2022) Kőmüves, SándorIn the recent decade quite a few countries and regions legalised physician assisted death. While palliative care is already or becoming the standard end of life care in many countries, the increased availability of physician assisted death coupled with the secularisation of hospice in more settings require – where this has not happened yet – a clear response of palliative care specialists to patients’ requests for physician assisted death. The paper analyses the World Health Organisation’s current description of palliative care with a special focus on its prohibition of hastening death. Some palliative care professionals do not agree with the ban on hastening death, and these professionals’ non-conventional interpretation of palliative care actually seems to meet the wishes of some patients.Item Limits of and Alternatives to Conventional Medicine in the Context of Terminal Illness (e.g., Palliative Care)(Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Faculty of Philosophy, 2022) Bastianello, Stefania; Cattaneo, Daniela AntonellaThis paper aims at analysing the evolution of palliative care in the international context and their role in the path of care for the patient and the family. Method: born in 1967 by Cicely Saunder, palliative care were aimed at assisting the terminally ill, accommodating both the needs of the patient and the family. Not only to be cured or healed, but to be taken care of. The paper examines the definitions of palliative care provided by the World Helth Organization. We observe that palliative care is not only an effective and timely response to the clinical, psychological, social and spiritual needs of the sick person and their family in an advanced and terminal stage, but an integrated care to support specialist treatment in the presence of an advanced disease picture; a space for in-depth study for the sick person and the family so that the sick person can consciously and freely choose the available treatment proposals, their limits and their consequences. A treatment path in which the transparency of the proposals is a condition for building a shared consensus with the patient and adequate communication with the family. Palliative care has acquired its own identity, its own role in the path of care for the patient and the family, pursuing the proportionality of therapeutic options and the support of the patient and the family without discrimination, with equity and equality.Item The Doctrine of Double Effect and Medical Ethics: A New Formulation(Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Faculty of Philosophy, 2022) Sharifzadeh, RahmanThe standard version of the doctrine of double effect, a significant doctrine in applied ethics particularly medical ethics, not only fails to capture some morally significant components of Aquinas’ view, but it does not resort to proper complementary features in order to accommodate the doctrine to our moral intuitions. We attempt to offer a new formulation of the doctrine incorporating the main components of Aquinas’ view and also to extend the view using some complementary features. We will examine the strength of the formulation applying it into some ethically controversial situations, mainly in medical ethics.Item The Outline of Communal ‘Ars Moriendi’ in Egalitarian Transhumanism(Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Faculty of Philosophy, 2022) Polowczyk, Łukasz PawełThis paper outlines the proposal for an egalitarian, transhumanist, and communal version of ars moriendi that should be coherent and meet the consequentialist criteria of the principle of minimizing anti-values and maximizing values, especially the ethical values of freedom and happiness. Transhuman-ist augmented dying (AD) refers to the extended body-mind, free from harmful religious and political ideologies. At present, a feasible art of dying can be systematically supported by anesthetics and psy-chedelics (entheogens), computer games, virtual reality, and good death machines. Its egalitarian form requires a deeply democratic society, and its progress may need a transition to a type 1 society on the Kardashev scale.Item Language, Time, and Death. An Ethico-Philosophical Perspective Following Hegel, Heidegger, Lévinas, and Blanchot(Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Faculty of Philosophy, 2022) Kaushal, SanjayOur daily existence is affected by how we perceive death, be it our own’s death to-come or others’ death. The intimidating nature of death has the potential to affect our daily ethical existence in relation to the other, as is seen in various crises in human history. In such a context, since expansive literature in various approaches such as biological, sociological, psychological, and political addressing the question of death is already available, this essay presents an ethico-philosophical perspective on death and argues if death should be seen as the worst event that is to be experienced by being. In this essay, I correlate language, time, and death, contrasting popular analogies, i.e., death is possibility of impossibility (Hegel and Heidegger), and death is impossibility of possibility (Lévinas and Blanchot). Firstly, the essay stages the discussion with contrasting synchronic and diachronic perspectives of language, i.e., historical understanding of language and time in Hegelian terms and the messianic time in Lévinasian terms, to see how sensibility, i.e., universal meaning, is expressed through concept. Secondly, the essay sees how sensibility is expressed through a concept beyond dialectic opposition and negativity while acknowledging that the question of ethics arises only after the end of philosophy, for something is always inexpressible through expression; there is always remnant beyond philosophical significance. This essay not only argues language, time, and death as the ethical responsibility of the self towards the other, but also contributes to the understanding of language as ethics beyond philosophy, and death as passivity beyond ontology following Lévinas’s idea of messianic time and Blanchot’s views on literature and death.Item Ars Moriendi. Ethical Challenges of the Ultimate Realities of Life(Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Faculty of Philosophy, 2022) Sgarlata, Sara; Dłużewicz, Alicja; Napiwodzka, KarolinaThe aim of this issue of Ethics in Progress is to provide a provisional, open-ended view on the ultimate realities of life and the ethical challenges they pose in medical, sociological, and existential contexts. The issue explores axiologies and meta-ethical narratives related to the art of dying, or in other words the moral domain encompassing the quest for a good life and a good death. Two problematic aspects emerge from the latest body of research: (1) the difficulty involved in tackling ethical challenges in medical and sociological contexts; and (2) the marginal role of the patient’s agency and narrative-ownership of end-of-life decision-making. A direction is pointed out that suggests that interventions across interdisciplinary groups involved in medical aid to dying should focus on promoting ethical behaviour on the side of healthcare personnel. Finally, attention to language, discourse, communication, and the narratives of death and dying call this edition of Ethics in Progress to examine the ontological and epistemological categories that underlie the study of lifeworlds and ‘discourse communities’, which are those associated with moral agents interlacing historical motives, language, communication, normative beliefs, social norms and roles, power relations, hard clinical evidence, and contested values in the context of medical practices and, broadly speaking, practices surrounding death.Item