摘要：D. Micah Hester’s new book End-of-Life Care and Pragmatic Decision Making: A Bioethical Perspective is a refreshing examination of moral issues surrounding care for the dying using what he calls a “radically empirical” philosophy heavily indebted to William James. For Hester, “radical empiricism” accepts as ‘real’ any and all experience, and thus requires that all experience be taken seriously.” Hester goes on to note that radical empiricism says “value, itself, arises in experience, not imposed upon experience from some transcendent realm of value.” This account of experience and value would entail that the “dying process is part of living.”1 Hester’s approach to dying builds on his earlier work in Community as Healing. In that work, he argues that “living healthily” is the appropriate normative goal of medical practices. In this most recent work, Hester defends the thesis that the dying process represents a possibility for “meaning.” Hester adopts a Jamesian account of meaning, which holds that meaning “arises as the marriage of our ‘intelligently conceived ideals’ with the fortitude necessary to achieve them.”2 Hester uses the notion of “narrative” to help elucidate James’s theory of meaning in relation to ethical issues. For Hester, meaningful lives include meaningful deaths. Meaningful deaths are created through ethical narratives authored by the dying person and her community. The book will be of interest to James scholars and medical ethicists. However, because the writing is so clear, this book should make an impact on medical professionals and their clients. Overall, I think Hester makes good use of James’s ideas, particularly in his third chapter relating James’s theory of obligation to the question of whether there is a duty to die. I only have a few reservations, but they do not undermine the basic arguments of the book.
