Diversity of vulnerabilities and ageing

Session 5

End-of-life, a public health issue: ethical dimensions of a political question

Marie GAILLE is director of research in philosophy at the Science, Philosophy, History laboratory (SPHERE - UMR7219 CNRS - Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne) and deputy scientific director at INSHS. Her research focuses on the history and meaning of the relationship between medicine, anthropology and philosophy.

She will explore the ethical dimension of the end of life and illuminate its significance for public health policies. This exploration will be based on a contextualized philosophical approach, here in the French context. It will begin by resituating how the end of life first became an object of public discussion, and then of legislation. She will then look at how ethical issues are emerging in clinical research and in the humanities and social sciences, particularly in relation to vulnerable population groups and "difficult" medical decisions. Thirdly, she will continue the analysis by examining the ethically and legally key notion of "accompaniment", in order to shed light on the debates behind the apparent consensus on the subject. Finally, the ethics of care or ofcare will invite us to question the current limits of public health policies concerning the end of life, particularly with regard to the means granted and the articulation operated between care private and public action.

Extreme longevity

Jean Marie ROBINE is director of research emeritus at the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (Inserm) and at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE). He is currently scientific advisor to the management of the Institut national d'études démographiques (Ined).

His research focuses on the limits and characteristics of human longevity, with the aim of understanding the relationships between health and longevity. In particular, they aim to measure the impact of increasing adult lifespan on the functional health status of older people, nonagenarians and centenarians

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