The University of Wollongong Philosophy Research Seminar

Held in the CAPSTRANS Seminar Room 1003 (Building 19, Arts) on Wednesdays at
17.30, all are welcome.

2nd April 2008 Dr. Kim Atkins (Wollongong)

"A qualified justification for ending one's life: autonomy and the concept
of "an alternative of oneself" 

 

Abstract

 

I provide a qualified defence of ending one's life that draws upon recent
work in personal identity and normative ethics. Much has been written on the
question of whether death is a harm, but much less on the question of
whether acting to end one's life can be considered a continuation of one's
personal or moral identity.  I propose that it can be where it constitutes a
genuine instance of what Jan Bransen has called moral self-love, expressed
in "an alternative of oneself". This account gives a role to the
inter-personal and social relations that inform and constrain an
individual's identity and normative choices within a process that explicitly
allows the agent to make a moral exception of herself by articulating a
uniquely self-defining continuation of herself. In this way I attempt to
provide an account that is sensitive to the liberal concern with autonomy
without relying on a liberal conception of the self. 

 

 

With best wishes, 

Richard 

Dr. Richard Menary 
Lecturer in Philosophy and Research Seminar Convenor 
The University of Wollongong

Personal <http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/selpl/philosophy/UOW025977.html>
Webpage

Book:
Cognitive Integration Available from: Palgrave
<http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=275285>  Macmillan and
Amazon
<http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Integration-Mind-Cognition-Unbounded/dp/140
398977X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0660778-1972653?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190152573&s
r=8-1> 

 

 

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