Abstract

This dissertation is an attempt at a plausible response to the following questions. When are we justified in treating a patient as the same person at two different times? When can we judge a person to be competent to make her own health care decisions? When are we justified in assuming an individual is a person? Who should make life-and-death health care decisions for an individual? An examination of three actual medical cases of questionable persistence through time is followed by a discussion of both the criteria for judging an individual to be a person and those for judging a person to be competent, as well as a critical examination of criteria for judging identity through time. ;In the end, I offer a four-step procedure for determining how health care decision-making in general should proceed along with conclusions regarding the fate of the three patients from the cases in question