Matters of life and/or death. Reflections on health care experience: questions of life or cases of death?

The article presents some ethical reflections on medicine and the problems raised by medical practice, with specific reference to the treatment of chronically and terminally-ill patients. With reference to several items in the contemporary philosophical debate an analysis is made of the meaning of the terms “person” and “life”, which are deemed to be the most authentic viewpoints from which to tackle the issues of sickness and treatment. The human condition, in its essential aspects (vulnerability, suffering, dependence) is thus highlighted within the framework of a reflection on the significance of medicine as an intrinsically ethical practice. The anthropological and ethical conception envisaged in these terms is used as a source from which, at a problematic level, to draw a number of implications of a legal-political, epistemological and philosophical nature.