Daniel Callahan and Peter Augustine Lawler discuss end-of-life care.
More and more, our end-of-life care looks like the trench warfare of World War I: heavier and heavier economic and human costs with increasingly less ground being won. (Callahan)
People today think of themselves less than ever as part of wholes greater than themselves—as part of families, communities, countries, churches, or, of course, the species. They also think of themselves less as deeply relational beings and more as free or autonomous individuals. That means the strong tendency is there for one to think that one’s death—one’s personal extinction—is the end of being itself. (Lawler)