8/13/2019 BlattiS2012-DeathsDistinctiveHarm
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American Philosophical Quarterly (forthcoming)
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Stephan Blatti
ABSTRACT: Despite widespread support for the claim that death
can harm the one who dies, debate contin-
three issues that any defense of HT must resolve: the subj
is
of which it is an instance: mortal harm is subject to the same
kind of analysis plausibly given of other non-mortal harms.
Furthermore, note that the weak formulation of HTasserting only
that death can inflict
harm, not that it always or necessarily doesaccommodates the
intuition that instances of rational suicide
and justifiable euthanasia present cases in which death fails to
harm. DV is equipped to explain how in the-se cases the harms
involved in continued existence outweigh the goods of which death
deprives the subject.
I agree that suicide can be rational and that euthanasia can be
justifiable. Likewise I accept both HT and
DV as far as they go. But they do not go far enough.
Specifically, I argue here that death harms even those
nor wholly contingent, but multifaceted and part ly nece
s-tinctive, inflicting a peculiar restriction on the autonomy of
one who dies; and, regarding the timing and
subject issues, that this restriction harm is inflicted on the
antemortem subject prior to her death.
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