Life, Death, and Subjectivity

Stan van Hooft is an Associate Professor of Philosophy on the Melbourne campus of Deakin University in Australia. He gained his Masters and Doctoral degrees from the University of Melbourne in the seventies and taught philosophy in a number of colleges before joining Deakin University. It was while contributing to the design of a new nursing curriculum in Victoria College in the eighties that he developed an interest in philosophical issues relating to health care. He is a member of the Australasian Bioethics Association and of the Australasian Association for Professional and Applied Ethics. He is the author of Caring: An Essay in the Philosophy of Ethics (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1995) and numerous journal articles on moral philosophy, bioethics, business ethics, and on the nature of health and disease. He is also a co-author of Facts and Values: An Introduction to Critical Thinking for Nurses (Sydney: MacLennan & Petty, 1995). He conducts Socratic Dialogues for doctors, nurses and a variety of other groups and has organized a monthly Philosophy Café in Melbourne. When not doing philosophy, Stan plays bass guitar in a jam band.

"This is a book of considerable substance and one which those who are serious in promulgating positions either for or against the rise of what might be described as ‘scientific’ ethics should read. … there is a great deal of well-informed and well-considered discussion of relevance to healthcare practice … and it is a text that would not be out of place on the shelves of any self-respecting nurse philosopher." - in: Nursing Philosophy 8 (2007)"Stan van Hooft has provided us with a rich resource on some of the most important questions confronting ethics and philosophy, drawing on a wide variety of scholarly perspective. … ideal as a reference for undergraduate or postgraduate students in philosophy and health care courses touching on bioethics, and for people seeking to explore further what are ‘life, death and subjectivity…’." - in: Nursing Ethics 12(5) (2005)

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionONE SubjectivityTWO The Moral Significance of PersonsTHREE Reconciling Caring and JusticeFOUR Respect for LifeFIVE Life as a Moral SourceSIX Living SubjectivitySEVEN What is Death?EIGHT Accepting DeathNotesBibliographyAbout the AuthorIndex