Saving People from the Harm of Death

• This is the first philosophical volume on the evaluation of deaths with implications for bioethics, population health, and health policy

• Tackles how to evaluate deaths in the contexts of global health and health priorities, and how to monitor sustainable development goals

• Challenges received notions on infant mortality, widening discussions to include stillbirths and newborn deaths

• Explores the difficult correlation between age and the "badness" of death

Death is something we mourn or fear as the worst thing that could happen—whether the deaths of close ones, the deaths of strangers in reported accidents or tragedies, or our own. And yet, being dead is something that no one can experience and live to describe. 

In this volume, leading philosophers, medical doctors, and economists discuss different views on how to evaluate death and its relevance for health policy. This includes theories about the harm of death and its connections to population-level bioethics. For example, one of the standard views in global health is that newborn deaths are among the worst types of death, yet stillbirths are neglected. This raises difficult questions about why birth is so significant, and several of the book's authors challenge this standard view.