The Sanctity-Of-Life Doctrine in Medicine: A Critique

By Helga Kuhse

According to the "sanctity-of-life" view, all human lives are equally valuable and inviolable, and it would be wrong to base life-and-death medical decisions on the quality of the patient's life. Examining the ideas and assumptions behind the sanctity-of-life view, Kuhse argues against the traditional view that allowing someone to die is morally different from killing, and shows that quality-of-life judgments are ubiquitous. Refuting the sanctity-of-life view, she provides a sketch of a quality-of-life ethics based on the belief that there is a profound difference between merely being alive and life being in the patient's interest.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198249438
• ISBN13: 9780198249436
• Release Date: December 1987
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.8" x 5.8"