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Sleep softly: Schubert, ethics and the value of dying well

Ethical discussions about medical treatment for seriously ill babies or children often focus on the ‘value of life’ or on ‘quality of life’ and what that might mean. In this paper, I look at the other side of the coin—on the value of death, and on the quality of dying. In particular, I examine wheth...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Wilkinson, Dominic
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8053338/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33246997
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2020-106937
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author Wilkinson, Dominic
author_facet Wilkinson, Dominic
author_sort Wilkinson, Dominic
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description Ethical discussions about medical treatment for seriously ill babies or children often focus on the ‘value of life’ or on ‘quality of life’ and what that might mean. In this paper, I look at the other side of the coin—on the value of death, and on the quality of dying. In particular, I examine whether there is such a thing as a good way to die, for an infant or an adult, and what that means for medical care. To do that, I call on philosophy and on personal experience. However, I will also make reference to art, poetry and music. That is partly because the topic of mortality has long been reflected on by artists as well as philosophers and ethicists. It is also because, as we will see, there may be some useful parallels to draw.
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spelling pubmed-80533382021-05-05 Sleep softly: Schubert, ethics and the value of dying well Wilkinson, Dominic J Med Ethics Feature Article Ethical discussions about medical treatment for seriously ill babies or children often focus on the ‘value of life’ or on ‘quality of life’ and what that might mean. In this paper, I look at the other side of the coin—on the value of death, and on the quality of dying. In particular, I examine whether there is such a thing as a good way to die, for an infant or an adult, and what that means for medical care. To do that, I call on philosophy and on personal experience. However, I will also make reference to art, poetry and music. That is partly because the topic of mortality has long been reflected on by artists as well as philosophers and ethicists. It is also because, as we will see, there may be some useful parallels to draw. BMJ Publishing Group 2021-04 2020-11-27 /pmc/articles/PMC8053338/ /pubmed/33246997 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2020-106937 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Feature Article
Wilkinson, Dominic
Sleep softly: Schubert, ethics and the value of dying well
title Sleep softly: Schubert, ethics and the value of dying well
title_full Sleep softly: Schubert, ethics and the value of dying well
title_fullStr Sleep softly: Schubert, ethics and the value of dying well
title_full_unstemmed Sleep softly: Schubert, ethics and the value of dying well
title_short Sleep softly: Schubert, ethics and the value of dying well
title_sort sleep softly: schubert, ethics and the value of dying well
topic Feature Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8053338/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33246997
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2020-106937
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