title: Physician-assisted dying and two senses of an incurable condition.
abstract: It is commonly accepted that voluntary active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide can be allowed, if at all, only in the cases of patients whose conditions are incurable. Yet, there are different understandings of when a patient's condition is incurable. In this article, I consider two understandings of the notion of an incurable condition that can be found in the recent debate on physician-assisted dying. According to one of them, a condition is incurable when it is known that there is no cure for it. According to the other, a condition is incurable when no cure is known to exist for it. I propose two criteria for assessing the conceptions and maintain that, in light of the criteria, the latter is more plausible than the former.
authors.forename: Jukka
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Varelius
mesh_terms: D016223:Advance Directives / Q000941:ethics*; D000066491:Clinical Decision-Making / Q000941:ethics*; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D006801:Humans; D018447:Medical Futility / Q000941:ethics; D010344:Patient Advocacy; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012297:Right to Die / Q000941:ethics; D017236:Suicide, Assisted / Q000941:ethics; D026712:Value of Life
keywords: Autonomy; Death; End-of-life; Euthanasia