AUTONOMY AND THE END OF LIFE FROM ILLUSORY INDEPENDENCE TO THE NEED FOR CONNECTION

Abstract

To be interested in the question of autonomy at the end of life is first of all to try to define together what the end of life is and perhaps in what way there could be a singularity of the manifestations of autonomy in this situation. It also means identifying autonomy as a fundamental value of modern societies, but one that is fragile and can be shaken by life events such as illness or ageing. The end of life thus constitutes the place of fragility of the manifestations of this autonomy which will often have to be questioned, sought sometimes in its most discrete manifestations. We can make the hypothesis here that, more than in any other situation, the autonomy of the patient at the end of life, in order to be exercised, needs the mediation of a third party… If autonomy has thus been able to be constituted, in the course of existence, as a dream of an illusory independence, the end of life tends to be the one that brings it back, on the contrary, to the comprehension of the essential and vital link that binds us to another person…