ABSTRACT
Advance directives for health care for times of future incompetence face numerous challenges to their moral authority. One of the most direct occurs when a person has a change of mind, but sometimes it is difficult to determine whether that has occurred. After a person becomes incompetent, what behavior and expression might still constitute a change of mind sufficient to alter a directive’s authority? Refining our understanding of relevant change of mind will be pursued through three cases. They point to this conclusion: when the judgments and desires involved in the reasons that people had for their directive have changed, then even though they have lost the capacity to understand and revise their directive, the change is sufficient to call its moral authority into question.
