Personhood and coma: A reversible approach
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Abstract
The theory of psychological persistence defines persons as beings capable of creating a concept of themselves through the continuity in time of their mental states. In debates about life and death of some humans who have lost their conscious faculties, it is discussed whether they are persons or not and, therefore, whether it would be lawful to terminate their lives. The coma is presented as a counterexample to theories of personhood, which justify the right to life on the basis of the psychological persistence of the individual. This right would be granted not in terms of persistence or mental continuity, but by the conditions that make possible its prompt recovery in the clinical framework of the disease.
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