The paper presents different approaches to the relationship of life and death among selected authors as a review of their articles within the last volume of the Ethics & Bioethics (in Central Europe) journal. The resource of the review is an article by Peter Singer The challenge of brain death for the sanctity of life ethics. Firstly, I try to analyze the issue when death occurs and when we can talk about death as a phenomenon that each and every living (...) human being must come to terms within the course of their lives. Ethics of social consequences is used to analyze different approaches and states a conclusion defending the principles of humanity and human dignity within the scope of this ethical theory applied to various problem cases. I strive to support the question of the quality of life through the paternalistic approach of physicians influenced by their humane and dignified understanding of their relationship towards the patients. Ethics of social consequences offers many solutions to the discussed issues throughout the reviewed articles. (shrink)

My recent article, “The challenge of brain death for the sanctity of life ethic” (Ethics & Bioethics (in Central Europe), 2018, 8 (3–4), pp. 153–165) elicited five commentaries. In this brief response, I clarify my own position in the light of some misunderstandings, and discuss whether the definition of death is best thought of as an ethical question, or as a matter of fact. I also comment on the suggestion that we should allow people to choose the criteria by which (...) they wish their own death to be determined, or their organs removed to be donated to others. (shrink)

The author examines the motives for the behaviour and actions of Dr. Skreta, the main character of Kundera’s novel The Farewell Waltz. The starting point of the novel was the social and political situation in totalitarian Czechoslovakia at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. He compares it to the situation in the developed western world and comes to a realization that there were many similarities in medicine; however, there were significant differences with regard to external factors. The health care (...) system in western democratic societies were placed in contrast with Czechoslovakia, where a doctor’s activities and the system of health care were subordinated to the political, ideological, and social intentions of totalitarian power. In this context, the author has come to the conclusion that Dr. Skreta’s motives for acting arose from his moral responsibility for the country’s future. Dr. Skreta waged a latent personal “moral war” against the totalitarian regime. This was also reflected in his opposition to the preferred morality of socialist health care professionals. Part of this was his eugenics project. According to the author, in the context of ethics of social consequences, Dr. Skreta was a responsible moral agent seeking a better future not only for the country and its people, but his personal selfish interests. (shrink)