ABSTRACT
Death sets limits on life. Death serves as a nexus of concerns about what counts as meaningful and about what makes life not just liveable but good. Death involves not just the dying but also those others who, in many different ways are, or become, part of the process. At one level there is a whole cohort of others (medical and pharmaceutical researchers, politicians, generals, etc.) who are concerned with preventing death, defending the need for the sacrifice of death and/or ameliorating the impact of death on wider society. At another, more intimate level, are to be found the individual’s family, friends and professional caregivers. It is within this latter group that an individual’s involvement with the dying process and the death of an other can give rise to moral distress, despair and ethical conflict.
