title: Respect for other selves.
abstract: Philosophers have mostly advocated that advance directives should bear the same authority, with regard to refusal of life-extending treatment, as a patient's contemporaneous consent or refusal. Such authors typically support this position through a theory of persistent personal identity. I agree that the loss of mental competence does not render someone a moral stranger to their prior goal but argue that equating advance direction with consent is to ignore the capacity of nonpersons to attribute and withhold moral value. A distinction should be drawn between advance directives that seek to pursue deeply held goals and those that express contempt for the mentally incompetent.
authors.affiliation: University of Western Australia.
authors.forename: Craig
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Edwards
mesh_terms: D024362:Advance Directive Adherence / Q000941:ethics*; D016223:Advance Directives / Q000941:ethics*; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000941:ethics; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003657:Decision Making / Q000941:ethics*; D004532:Ego; D026689:Ethical Analysis; D028663:Ethical Theory; D006801:Humans; D016743:Mental Competency; D028681:Moral Obligations; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D028723:Personhood; D012941:Social Responsibility