Overview

Drawing on his own experience, and on literature, philosophy, and medicine, Daniel Callahan offers great insight into how to deal with the rewards of modern medicine without upsetting our perception of death. He examines how we view death and the care of the critically ill or dying, and he suggests ways of understanding death that can lead to a peaceful acceptance. Callahan's thoughtful perspective notably enhances the legal and moral discussions about end-of-life issues. This title is originally published in 1993 by Simon and Schuster.

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9780878408153

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Reviews

A beautiful book, richly suggestive and wise... This book puts the rampant debate about our contemporary responses to suffering and death in a new light. -- Commonweal Valuable and lucid. -- Chicago Tribune Of the many books that deal with death and dying, end-of-life care, and assisted suicide, none surpasses the work of Daniel Callahan, a name practically synonymous with the emergence of bioethics in this country. His work, The Troubled Dream of Life, is required reading for anyone who cares to think about the place of death in our lives. -- Clergy Journal

A provocative analysis of how our attitudes toward our own mortality underlie society's health-care policies, especially regarding care of the dying and termination of medical treatment, as well as laws on living wills, euthanasia, and assisted suicide. These issues have long concerned medical ethicist Callahan (What Kind of Life, 1990, etc.), but, here, his focus shifts from legal and policy questions to the relationship of death to the self, as well as to nature, society, and modern medicine. The author examines some of our present illusions - that death can be eliminated by eradicating lethal diseases; that we can manage both our selves and technology well enough to select the moment when medical treatment should be halted; that euthanasia or assisted suicide is an acceptable way to achieve a peaceful death. He targets what he terms the mistaken belief that control over one's life is a necessary condition of self-worth, as well as the notion that death is a great evil. For Callahan, death is an unavoidable part of life, acceptable when neither biologically nor morally wrong. His concluding chapter deals with the pursuit of a peaceful death, which he defines at some length in specific personal, medical, and social terms. The goal of a peaceful death, he says, should be an integral part of medicine - but he cautions that this isn't likely to happen outside of a supportive cultural and economic context. Callahan believes that public ambivalence and confusion about the proper stance toward death shape medicine's viewpoint and, in turn, are shaped by it. As he sees it, the task is to create a new cultural understanding of death that will help define our social policies. Well-considered and convincing arguments designed to stimulate private thought and public discussion; of special interest to medical ethicists and health-care policy-makers. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

The co-founder and former president of the Hastings Center, Daniel Callahan is currently the director of international programs there and author of Setting Limits: Medical Goals in an Aging Society, and What Kind of Life? The Limits of Medical Progress (Georgetown University Press).

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