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KMID : 1172020100110020023
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Journal of Korean Bioethics Association
2010 Volume.11 No. 2 p.23 ~ p.38
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The Ethical Status of Vegetative State Patients : A Neuroethical Perspective
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Kim Hyo-Eun
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Abstract
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This paper critically examines criteria of the existence of consciousness for people who is in a persistent vegetative states(PVS). Whether people who is in PVS is concerned with ethical and social questions regarding how to treat them. Whereas the received criterion of consciousness is behavioristic, the brain imaging study today offers a new perspective. On one hand, I interpret the brain imaging study of PVS as not necessarily suggesting that VS patients are conscious. On the other hand, the result from brain imaging study pose a significant question to the traditional criterion of being conscious. Peter Singer considers behaviour showing pain as the bottom line for ethical status for a creature. But it is conceivable that we attribute the ethical status to mental states beyond behavioristic criterion. For this claim I argue that sentience is not necessary for being conscious, and that we should confer ethical status to creatures who have phenomenal states without sentience. If my claim is plausible, ethical issues surrounding embryos, fetus, non-human animals which is closely related with philosophical problems of mind and cognitive science can be reexamined.
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KEYWORD
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Neuroethics, persistent vegetative state, consciousness, sentience, pain, suffering, brain imaging
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