Philosophy, The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
English and Philosophy, Snow College, Ephraim, Utah, USA.
J Med Ethics. 2023 Oct;49(10):707-714. doi: 10.1136/jme-2021-108049. Epub 2022 Oct 3.
The Dead Donor Rule is intended to protect the public and patients, but it remains contentious. Here, I argue that we can abandon the Dead Donor Rule. Using Joel Feinberg's account of harm, I argue that, in most cases, particularly when patients consent to being organ donors, death does not harm permanently unconscious (PUC) patients. In these cases, then, causing the death of PUC patients is not morally wrong. This undermines the strongest argument for the Dead Donor Rule-that doctors ought not kill their patients. Thus, there is nothing wrong with abandoning the Dead Donor Rule with regard to PUC patients. Importantly, the harm-based argument defended here allows us to sidestep the thorny debate surrounding definitions of death. What matters is not when a patient dies but whether their death constitutes some further harm.
《死亡捐献者规则》旨在保护公众和患者，但仍存在争议。在这里，我主张我们可以放弃《死亡捐献者规则》。我利用乔尔·范伯格（Joel Feinberg）对伤害的论述，主张在大多数情况下，特别是当患者同意成为器官捐献者时，死亡并不会对永久无意识（PUC）患者造成永久性伤害。在这些情况下，导致 PUC 患者死亡在道德上是没有错的。这就破坏了《死亡捐献者规则》最强有力的论据，即医生不应杀害他们的患者。因此，放弃《死亡捐献者规则》对 PUC 患者来说没有什么错。重要的是，这里辩护的基于伤害的论点使我们能够回避围绕死亡定义的棘手辩论。重要的是，患者死亡的时间无关紧要，重要的是他们的死亡是否构成了进一步的伤害。
