Is Death Ever Preferable to Life? Book

	Acknowledgement
Ch. 1	In the Beginning	1
	Defining Death	3
	Regarding Life	4
	The Relative Value of Life and Individual Autonomy	5
	Slippery Slopes	5
	Rationing Health Resources	6
Ch. 2	The Definition of Death	8
	Biological Approach to Death	10
	Heart-lung Death	10
	Brain Death Criteria	11
	Lower Brain Death	12
	Upper Brain Death	13
	Anencephaly	15
	A Hierarchy of Organ Deaths	16
	Personhood	18
	Application of the Hierarchy of Orgain Deaths	22
	Respect for Dead Bodies	25
Ch. 3	Death Relative to Life	28
	The Value of Life	29
	The Inability to Create Life	30
	Comparing Life to Death	32
	Death as Foreclosure of Life's Options	37
	Acts and Omissions	47
	The Principle of Double Effect	51
	Ordinary and Extraordinary Means	56
	Defending Life on Top of the Hierarchy of Values	58
Ch. 4	Autonomy and Life or Death Decisions	69
	Ranking Autonomy and Quality of Life	69
	Whose Life is it Anyway?	70
	What is an Autonomous Decision?	71
	Voluntariness	71
	Intentionality	72
	Effective Deliberation	72
	Authenticity	76
	Moral Reflection	79
	Autonomy Requires Life	80
	Mill's Paradox in Defending Autonomy	81
	Occurrent and Dispositional Autonomy	82
	Autonomy as a Right	83
	HVL and Making an Autonomous Decision to Die	86
	Mill's Bridge Example	87
	Delaying a Decision	87
	Re-education or Coercion	88
	HVL vs An Autonomous Decision to Die	91
Ch. 5	Slippery Slopes and Life and Death	95
	Slippery Slope Arguments	96
	Sorites Slippery Slope Arguments	96
	Causal Slippery Slope Arguments	97
	Precedent Slippery Slope Arguments	98
	Combined Slippery Slope Arguments in Bioethical Debate	99
	The Case of Nazi Germany	99
	Slippery Slopes and the Definition of Death	102
	Slippery Slopes at the End of Life	104
	Respect for the Dead and Slippery Slopes	105
	Respecting the Wishes of the Dead	106
	Slippery Slopes and the Sanctity of Life Doctrine	107
	A Slippery Slope Between Passive and Active Euthanasia?	109
	Legalising Euthanasia and Intolerable Circumstances	110
	What Do We Mean By Bad Results?	111
	Euthanasia and the Precedent Slippery Slope	113
	Euthanasia and the Causal Slippery Slope	114
	Boundaries to Slippery Slopes	115
	Autonomy and Slippery Slopes	118
	Conclusions	119
Ch. 6	Limited Resources Limiting Life?	120
	Distribution of Resources	121
	Distributive Justice	121
	Libertarian Theories of Justice	122
	Utilitarian Theory and Distributive Justice	124
	QALY's	126
	The Oregon Plan	128
	Triage	130
	Egalitarian Theories and Resource Allocation	131
	Rawls's Theory of Justice	132
	HVL and Health Distribution Policies	134
	HVL and Distributive Justice for Health Care	137
	Health Resource Allocation as a Constraint on HVL
	Should Clinicians Have a Dual Role?	139
	Conclusions	141
Ch. 7	Future Ethics	143
	Intensive Care Ward Round	143
	Case Studies and HVL Policy	146
	Is Death Ever Preferable to Life?	150
	Endnotes	152
	Index	161