News - Interdisciplinary Centre for Ethics - Faculty of Philosophy

6th Ocober 2021: Research seminar - Ivar Hannikainen: Experimental philosophical bioethics, advance directives, and the true self in dementia

We have the pleasure to invite you to a research seminar in the ‘BIOUNCERTAINTY’ research project. The subject of the seminar is “Experimental philosophical bioethics, advance directives, and the true self in dementia" and it will be delivered by Ivar Hannikainen. The seminar will take place on Wednesday, 6th of October 2021 at 5:30PM in room 25 in the Institute of Philosophy of Jagiellonian University, Grodzka 52 Cracow.

Abstract: There has been a resurgence of interest in how we should think about the validity of advance directives following significant personal change. An advance directive (AD) is a formal record of a person’s preferences regarding end-of-life care: for example, whether they would like to be treated, or have treatment withheld, under certain conditions (i.e., in the case of illness following loss of capacity). Typically an AD is not legally binding, in that a proxy decision-maker is not obligated to follow it, but it does relieve physicians of liability if they choose to follow the recorded preferences in an AD. In two studies, we examined (a) the factors influencing ordinary people’s judgments about whether to follow an AD that was put into effect at Time 1, and (b) how such judgments relate to their assessment of the personal (identity) relation between the autonomous individual at Time 1 and the non-autonomous individual with dementia at Time 2. Our results demonstrated that people are profoundly divided about whether to follow advance directives or not, and this disagreement can be understood by drawing on a dual character view of personhood.

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