Disorders of Consciousness (DoCs) raise difficult and complex
questions about the value of life for persons with impaired
consciousness, the rights of persons unable to make medical decisions,
and our social, medical, and ethical obligations to patients whose
personhood has frequently been challenged and neglected. Recent
neuroscientific discoveries have led to enhanced understanding of the
heterogeneity of these disorders, and focused renewed attention on the
medical and ethical problem of misdiagnosis. This book examines the
entanglement of epistemic and ethical uncertainty in DoCs and other
medical contexts, and how they interact to create both epistemic and
ethical risks. Philosopher and bioethicist L. Syd M Johnson pulls
together multiple threads in this work: the ontological mysteries of
consciousness, medical uncertainty about unconsciousness, ableist
bias, withdrawal of treatment in neurointensive care, and the rarely
questioned view that consciousness is essential to personhood and
moral status. Johnson challenges longstanding bioethical dogmas about
DoC patients, and argues for an ethics of uncertainty for contexts
where there is a need for decisive action in the presence of
unavoidable uncertainty. The ethics of uncertainty refocuses ethical
inquiry concerning persons with DoCs, placing less emphasis on their
contested personhood, and more on inductive risk and uncertainty, on
respect for autonomy, and especially on epistemic justice. With
applications to various decisional contexts where uncertainty and
ethical risk interact, this ethical approach enables surrogate
decision makers facing fraught and risky choices to fulfill their
obligations as moral and epistemic agents.
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Entangled Ethical and Epistemic Risks in Disorders of Consciousness
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780190943677
Publisert
2021
Utgiver
Vendor
Oxford University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter