Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
J Med Ethics. 2024 Jul 23;50(8):539-543. doi: 10.1136/jme-2023-109299.
Aristotle's ethical system was guided by his vision of human flourishing (also, but potentially misleadingly, translated as happiness). For Aristotle, human flourishing was a rich holistic concept about a life lived well until its ending. Both living a long life and dying well were integral to the Aristotelian ideal of human flourishing. Using Aristotle's concept of human flourishing to inform the goals of medicine has the potential to provide guidance to clinical decision-makers regarding the provision of burdensome treatments, such as intensive care treatment, where pursuing a chance of survival must be balanced against the risk of exposing patients to a negative dying experience. By conceptually uniting potentially competing goals of medicine, such as prolonging life and the promotion of peaceful deaths, Aristotle's understanding of human flourishing creates an argument for the integration of palliative care considerations into intensive care decision-making and for advanced care planning with healthy patients.
亚里士多德的伦理体系以其对人类繁荣（也被译为幸福，但可能会产生误导）的愿景为指导。对亚里士多德来说，人类繁荣是一个关于美好生活直至终结的丰富整体概念。长寿和善终都是亚里士多德式人类繁荣理想的组成部分。使用亚里士多德的人类繁荣概念来为医学目标提供信息，有可能为临床决策者提供指导，例如在提供可能带来生存机会的治疗时，必须权衡将患者暴露于负面临终体验的风险，例如重症监护治疗。通过将医学中潜在相互竞争的目标（如延长生命和促进安详死亡）从概念上统一起来，亚里士多德对人类繁荣的理解为将姑息治疗考虑因素纳入重症监护决策以及为健康患者制定高级护理计划提供了依据。
