Inside Duke Medicine
9
Humanities in Medicine Lecture series - ‘Is he conscious? Does he want to be?’
December 9th, 201112 - 1 p.m., Friday, Dec. 9, Duke Hospital 2003 Lecture Hall -- Recently-developed techniques using fMRI detect consciousness in brain-damaged patients who had been previously diagnosed as being in persistent vegetative states. These new methods enable us to ask some patients whether they want to die. Every answer they give raises ethical questions for us.
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Ph.D., is the Chauncey Stillman Professor of Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. He has published widely on ethics, empirical moral psychology and neuroscience, philosophy of law, philosophy of religion, and other areas. Most recently, he is the author of "Morality Without God?" and "Moral Skepticisms."
Lunch provided at noon.
Talk begins at 12:15 p.m.