A Study of the Ethical Foundation of Terminal Care in Health Care

Abstract

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The 'terminal care' is one of the most important and urgent problems in health care. Human nature is not only a mortal existence. but also a suffering-from-illness existence. Everyone is destined to pass into death through illness. Every human being dies through 'terminal' stage. Therefore we are required what to think of the terminal care. The taking care of the terminal patients is really a hard job to medical professionals and their family members at the same time. But none of them can evade it, for what the patients are today reflects what we shall be tomorrow. In order to endure the hard task in terminal care, what spiritual and ethical background can we expect? To our astonishment we can find in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics a really great and attractive Philia theory to support our terminal care. Philia is love which treats even with our friends as same as with ourselves. With philia, we could regard our terminal patients as if they were equal to ourselves. Philia might be one of the greatest foundations of the exhausting duty of terminal care.

departmental bulletin paper