Abstract

A welcome addition to the “Facing Death Series” makes an important contribution to palliative care ethics. The contributors, from seven European countries, debate the tension created between viewing ethics as a way of giving answers to end of life issues and the practice and philosophy of palliative care contributing to the development of medical ethics—that is, ethics “in” and “of” palliative care.Philosophical discussion requires an historical perspective; the early part of the book addresses this by describing the work of the “Pallium” project. This European collaboration of ethicists, clinicians, philosophers, and social scientists, explored and analysed conceptual and ethical and ethical issues in palliative care.The study describes the differing way in which palliative care …