“Home” is well known from everyday experience, plays a crucial role in all kinds of narratives about human life, but is hardly ever systematically dealt with in the philosophy of medicine and health care. The notion of home is ambiguous, is often used in a metaphorical way, and is closely related to concepts such as house and dwelling. In this paper the phenomenon of home is explored by means of some phenomenological writings of Heidegger, Bollnow, Bachelard and Levinas. Common in (...) their views is that being at home and dwelling mean something more fundamental than an activity we do along with other activities, such as working and travelling. Dwelling, building a house and being at home are fundamental aspects of human existence. Being human is dwelling. While exploring the relevance of this phenomenological perspective for medical theory and practice, the focus is on the care of people suffering from dementia. (shrink)

When patients have progressive and incurable dementia, should their advance directives always be followed? Contra Dworkin, Dresser argues that when patients remain able to enjoy and participate in their lives, directives to hasten death should sometimes be disregarded.

This paper explores the claim that someone can reasonably consider themselves to be under a duty to respect the autonomy of a person who does not have the capacities normally associated with substantial self-governance.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the ethical issues relating to privacy that arise in smart homes designed for people with dementia and for people with intellectual disabilities. We outline five different conceptual perspectives on privacy and detail the ways in which smart home technologies may violate residents’ privacy. We specify these privacy threats in a number of areas and under a variety of conceptions of privacy. Furthermore, we illustrate that informed consent may not provide a solution to (...) this problem. We offer a number of recommendations that designers of smart homes for people with dementia and people with intellectual disabilities might follow to ensure the privacy of potential residents. (shrink)

Der Artikel untersucht den Zusammenhang zwischen Erinnerung, Vergessen und personaler Identität und wendet die Ergebnisse auf den Fall der Alzheimer-Demenz an. Während in der philosophischen Debatte Gedächtnis und Erinnerung zumeist im Kontext von Theorien zur diachronen Identität als formale Kriterien für die Zuschreibung von Identität über die Zeit aufgefasst werden, steht hier das Konzept der biographischen Identität im Zentrum. Es wird argumentiert, dass sowohl explizite als auch implizite Erinnerungen und das Wechselspiel zwischen beiden auf unterschiedliche Weise an der Konstituierung und (...) Aufrechterhaltung biographischer Identität beteiligt sind, und dass die Einbeziehung der empirischen Gedächtnisforschung für die philosophische Analyse von großem Wert sein kann. Auf dieser Grundlage kann für den Fall der Alzheimer-Demenz gezeigt werden, welche Elemente biographischer Identität durch die Erkrankung berührt werden. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 66 Heft: 1 Seiten: 48-61.