TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2004//
TI  - The Diane Pretty case and the occasional impotence of justification in ethics
JO  - Ethical perspectives
A1  - Cowley, Christopher
SP  - 250
EP  - 258
VL  - 11
IS  - 4
N2  - Most discussions in ethics argue that a certain practice or act is morally justified, with any underlying theory taken as supporting a guide to general action by aiding discovery of the objectively and singularly right thing to do. I suggest that this oversimplifies the agent's own experience of the moral dilemma, and I take the recent English case of Diane Pretty's request for assisted suicide as an example. The law refused, despite the obvious sympathy many felt for her. This only appears paradoxical, I suggest, because too much is expected of the concept of justification, and because moral understanding of a particular case is too often reduced to the legalistic search for general justificatory reasons. The starting point should be, I conclude, a full awareness of the phrase "there but for the grace of God go I".<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1370-0049
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/
ID  - ref1
ER  -