Recent empirical work on the concept of intentionality suggests that people’s assessments of whether an action is intentional are subject to uncertainty. Some researchers have gone so far as to claim that different people employ different concepts of intentional action. These possibilities have motivated a good deal of work in the relatively new field of experimental philosophy. The findings from this empirical research may prove to be relevant to medical ethics. In this article, we address this issue head on. We (...) first describe a study we conducted on intention ascription. Drawing on recent work in experimental philosophy, we investigated the possibility that the ascription of intentions to clinical actors in clinical settings is influenced by prior judgments about the goodness or badness of the consequences of the action in question. Our study was modeled on experimental studies in other contexts that have shown that people, when presented with a range of scenarios, are more likely to classify a side effect of an action as intended if the side effect is negative or reflects poorly on the actor than if it is positive or reflects well on the actor. We investigated whether this asymmetry in intention ascriptions was also present among physicians who were asked to ascribe intentions to clinical actors in certain well-defined clinical scenarios. After describing the study and its results, we discuss its implications for medical ethics. (shrink)

Although Theravada Buddhism and Roman Catholicism agree on the moral justification for palliative sedation, they differ on the premises underlying the justification. While Catholicism justifies palliative sedation on the ground of the Principle of Double Effect, Buddhism does so on the basis of the Third Noble Truth. Despite their theological differences, Buddhism and Catholicism both value the moral significance of the physician’s intent to reduce suffering and both respect the sanctity of life. This blurs the demarcation line between Buddhism and (...) Catholicism regarding the moral justification of palliative sedation. -/- . (shrink)

After a review of terminology, I identify—in addition to Margaret Battin’s list of five primary arguments for and against aid-in-dying—the argument from functional equivalence as another primary argument. I introduce a novel way to approach this argument based on Bernard Lonergan’s generalized empirical method. Then I proceed on the basis of GEM to distinguish palliative sedation, palliative sedation to unconsciousness when prognosis is less than two weeks, and foregoing life-sustaining treatment from aid-in-dying. I conclude that aid-in-dying must be justified on (...) its own merits and not on the basis of these well-established palliative care practices; and that societies must decide, in weighing the merits of aid-in-dying, whether or not to make the judgment that no life is better than life-like-this part of their operative value structure. (shrink)

The papers in the 2010 “Clinical Ethics” number of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy explore issues along La Frontera, the borders and boundaries of clinical ethics. The first three papers in this “Clinical Ethics” number of the Journal explore borders and boundaries drawn within clinical ethics, concerning the moral standing of complementary and alternative medicine, palliative sedation, and induced abortion and feticide. The fourth and fifth papers explore the borders and boundaries between research ethics and clinical ethics.

The main premise of the Royal Dutch Medical Association's (RDMA) guideline on palliative sedation is that palliative sedation, contrary to euthanasia, is normal medical practice. Although we do not deny the ethical distinctions between euthanasia and palliative sedation, we will critically analyse the guideline's argumentation strategy with which euthanasia is demarcated from palliative sedation. First, we will analyse the guideline's main premise, which entails that palliative sedation is normal medical treatment. After this, we will critically discuss three crucial propositions of (...) the guideline that are used to support this premise: (1) the patient's life expectancy should not exceed 2 weeks; (2) the aim of the physician should be to relieve suffering and (3) expert consultation is optional. We will conclude that, if inherent problematic aspects of palliative sedation are taken seriously, palliative sedation is less normal than it is now depicted in the guideline. (shrink)

Society and social structures play an important role in the formation and evaluation of concepts and practices in clinical ethics. This is evident in the ways the authors in this issue explore a wide range of arguments and concepts in clinical ethics including moral distress and conscience based practice, phenomenological interview techniques and gender dysphoria, continuous deep sedation (CDS) at the end of life, the notion of patient expertise, ethically permissible medical billing practices, the notion of selfhood and patient centered (...) care in dementia patients, and the definition of minimal risk as used in research regulations. (shrink)

It has long been thought that by using morphine to alleviate the pain of a dying patient, a doctor runs the risk of causing his death. In all countries this kind of killing is explicitly or silently permitted by the law. That permission is usually explained by appealing to the doctrine of double effect: If the use of morphine shortens life, that is only an unintended side effect. The paper evaluates this view, finding it flawed beyond repair and proposing an (...) alternative explanation. It is not the intention of the doctor that counts, but the availability of an “objective” palliative justification. (shrink)

In an article somewhat ironically entitled “Disambiguating Clinical Intentions,” Lynn Jansen promotes an idea that should be bewildering to anyone familiar with the literature on the intention/foresight distinction. According to Jansen, “intention” has two commonsense meanings, one of which is equivalent to “foresight.” Consequently, questions about intention are “infected” with ambiguity—people cannot tell what they mean and do not know how to answer them. This hypothesis is unsupported by evidence, but Jansen states it as if it were accepted fact. In (...) this reply, we make explicit the multiple misrepresentations she has employed to make her hypothesis seem plausible. We also point out the ways in which it defies common sense. In particular, Jansen applies her thesis only to recent empirical research on the intentions of doctors, totally ignoring the widespread confusion that her assertion would imply in everyday life, in law, and indeed in religious and philosophical writings concerning the intention/foresight distinction and the Principle of Double Effect. (shrink)