Man and Death. The Ethical and Philosophical Aspects of Death and Dying.

Aims of the Conference:

Death is an integral and inevitable part of all lives. Not only man has to die, s/he also – at least after gaining self-awareness – realises this necessity and has to take an approach toward it, which is experienced, reflected and shaped by daily life, myths, art, religion, philosophy, science and other forms of culture. The unprecedented technological, economic and demographic developments of industrialised civilisation have pushed out this topic from modern men´s thoughts. However, the consequences of these developments brought the issue back to relevance within the last 50 years, especially in medicine and healthcare. After the initial marginalisation, a renaissance of reflection upon issues of death and dying in philosophy, ethics, theology, and sciences, has resulted in the rise of thanatology and interdisciplinary character of this discourse. Within the research project VEGA no. 1/0521/17, Critique of Theoretical and Methodological Foundations of Contemporary Bioethical Discussions on Death and Dying, the conference would like to follow up on the discussion involving issues which were kept aside. The aim of the conference is to create a platform for creative exchange of opinions on the issue of death and dying from the perspective of contemporary bioethics, as well as from the more complex point of view, encompassing all of its forms and in its current and past forms.

Scope of Topics:

• An explication and critical analysis of understanding of death, mortality, and dying in the contemporary and past philosophical and ethical conceptions;
• The picture of death in sciences, art, myths, and religion with its ethical context;
• Death as a social, cultural, and historical phenomenon. The ethical aspects of the issue of suicide, murder, capital punishment, etc.;
• Theoretical and methodological issues on definition of concepts relevant for reflections on death and dying in philosophy, ethics, bioethics, and their ethical context (death, life, dying, human being, person, suffering, autonomy, dignity, also immortality, eternity etc.);
• The ethical aspects of the issue of death and dying in healthcare. Palliative care of terminally ill and dying patients, the issue of euthanasia/assisted suicide, the issue of abortion and the moral status of human embryos, the ethical context of biomedical research;
• Global issues of the humanity: the ethical aspects of wars, terrorism, famine, and catastrophes;
• Death in the nature and the death of nature: death as seen through the prism of the animal ethics and environmental ethics.

The papers are to be published in the conference proceedings. The high quality of our conferences and published conference proceedings is guaranteed by the fact that Thomson Reuters has already included three of our previous conference proceedings into the Web of Science database. The conference proceedings from the upcoming conference is also planned to be submitted for evaluation by the Web of Science database.