Monolithic moral frameworks: how are the ethics of palliative sedation discussed in the clinical literature?

A variety of moral frameworks can assist clinicians in making ethical decisions. In examining articles on palliative sedation and terminal extubation, we were struck that bioethical discussions uniformly appealed to principlism and especially to the rule of double effect. Other moral frameworks were rarely invoked, an observation consistent with Daniel Callahan's assertion that principlism has a “blocking effect” on broader ethical deliberation. We review here the principle of double effect as it applies to clinical acts that may hasten death, and present one radically different ethical formulation developed by Dan Brock. We then offer brief examples of how clinicians might use other moral frameworks to assess the ethics of preemptive sedation for terminal extubation. We argue for greater moral pluralism in approaching end-of-life decisions.