David Bourget (Western Ontario)
David Chalmers (ANU, NYU)
Rafael De Clercq
Jack Alan Reynolds
Learn more about PhilPapers
Journal of Ethics 9 (3-4):501 - 515 (2005)
After reviewing the history, rationale, and Jim Rachels’ varied uses of the notion of biographical lives, the essay further develops its social dimensions and proposes an ontological analysis. Whether one person is leading one life or more turns on the number of separate social worlds he or she creates and maintains. Furthermore, lives are constituted by narrated events in a story. Lives, however, are not stories, but rather are extended “verbal objects,” that is, “narrative objects” with a hybrid character, both linguistic and by inference non-verbal. In this they are like facts, propositions, and histories, grasped only through their verbal expression. Being narrative and socially embedded, lives can arguably be extended beyond the death of the principal liver of a life by the commemorative actions of those who shared it. Jim hoped to persuade doctors to shift from a traditional Sanctity of Life principle to a Sanctity of Lives principle. Accordingly, they could stop pointless prolongation of biological life once a patient permanently loses consciousness, his criterion of the end of a biographical life. It might seem that allowing lives to be extended past that point or death would forego that clinical benefit, but that is not so.
|Keywords||biographical lives James Rachels multiple lives narrative objects post-mortem harms and benefits Sanctity of Life withdrawing treatment|
|Categories||categorize this paper)|
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server
Configure custom proxy (use this if your affiliation does not provide a proxy)
|Through your library|
References found in this work BETA
No references found.
Citations of this work BETA
No citations found.
Similar books and articles
Galia Patt-Shamir (2010). The Value in Storytelling: Women's Life-Stories in Confucianism and Judaism. Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 9 (2):175-191.
Gustaf Arrhenius (2009). Egalitarianism and Population Change. In Axel Gosseries & Lukas H. Meyer (eds.), Intergenerational Justice. Oup Oxford.
Gustaf Arrhenius (2008). Life Extension Versus Replacement. Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (3):211-227.
Morwenna Griffiths & Gale Macleod (2008). Personal Narratives and Policy: Never the Twain? Journal of Philosophy of Education 42 (s1):121-143.
Aaron Smuts (2013). To Be or Never to Have Been: Anti-Natalism and a Life Worth Living. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (4):1-19.
Dale Dorsey (2009). Headaches, Lives and Value. Utilitas 21 (01):36-.
David DeMoss (2011). Empty and Extended Craving: An Application of the Extended Mind Thesis to the Four Noble Truths. Contemporary Buddhism 12 (2):309-325.
Helga Kuhse (1987). The Sanctity-of-Life Doctrine in Medicine: A Critique. Oxford University Press.
John Martin Fischer (2005). Free Will, Death, and Immortality: The Role of Narrative. Philosophical Papers 34 (3):379-403.
Added to index2009-01-28
Total downloads7 ( #183,626 of 1,098,628 )
Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #285,836 of 1,098,628 )
How can I increase my downloads?