A fate worse than death? The well-being of patients diagnosed as vegetative with covert awareness

Journal article

Abstract:: Patients in the vegetative state are wholly unaware of themselves, or their surroundings. However, a minority of patients diagnosed as vegetative are actually aware. What is the well-being of these patients? How are their lives going, for them? It has been argued that on a reasonable conception of well-being, these patients are faring so poorly that it may be in their best interests not to continue existing. I argue against this claim. Standard conceptions of wellbeing do not clearly support the conclusion that these patients would be better off having lifesustaining treatment withdrawn, and in fact, it may be possible for these patients to retain a passable level of well-being. I suggest that further research into the subjective experiences of these patients will allow us to better promote their well-being.

Files:: A Fate Worse Than Death.pdf

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Institution:

University of Oxford

Division:

HUMS

Department:

Philosophy Faculty

Role:

Author

ORCID:

0000-0001-6870-1370

Keywords:: vegetative state

neuroimaging

disorders of consciousness

well-being

prudential interests
Pubs id:: pubs:833237
UUID:: uuid:851bb328-6a0e-4b63-82aa-895eff859248
Local pid:: pubs:833237
Source identifiers:: 833237
Deposit date:: 2018-04-04

Copyright holder:: Graham, M
Notes:: © The Author(s) 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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