An unusually thoughtful New York Times Magazine article explores the three philosophical themes of the title. Excerpts:
The tangled, sometimes contradictory nature of Brooke’s feelings has led to subtle shifts in Peggy’s scholarly thinking. She still believes that, whenever possible, people have the right to choose when and how to die. But she now better understands how vast and terrifying that choice really is. “What has changed,” she told me, “is my sense of how extremely complex, how extremely textured, any particular case is.” This realization is infinitely more fraught when you’re inextricably invested in the outcome and when the signals your loved one sends are not only hard to read but also are constantly in flux....
Peggy worries that sometimes Brooke is saying he wants to keep fighting and stay alive not because that’s what he wants, but because he thinks that’s what she wants him to want. And to further complicate things, it’s not even clear what Peggy really wants him to want. Her own desires seem to shift from day to day. One thing that doesn’t change, though: She is deeply afraid of misunderstanding Brooke’s wishes in a way that can’t be undone. The worst outcome, to her, would be to think that this time he really does want to die and then to feel as if she might have been wrong....
What Peggy has become more aware of now is the possibility of the opposite, more subtle, kind of coercion — not the influence of a greedy relative or a cost-conscious state that wants you to die, but pressure from a much-loved spouse or partner who wants you to live. The very presence of these loved ones undercuts the notion of true autonomy. We are social beings, and only the unluckiest of us live in a vacuum; for most, there are always at least a few people who count on us, adore us and have a stake in what we decide. Everyone’s autonomy abuts someone else’s.
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