10 Years of Vincent Lambert: Good Will and Benevolence for People with Disabilities

Abstract

This paper is mainly based on the interpretations of Allen Wood and Barbara Herman on the good will and benevolence in Kant’s moral theory. It aims at building a wide interpretation for serious cognitive or severe mental disabilities, such as respectively the cases of patients with Alzheimer in an advanced phase and those who are in a persistant vegetative coma. Other reflections, such as Michael Walzer’s and Alasdair MacIntyre’s communitarian theories, will be added in order to corroborate the intepretations of the authors above mentioned. In this framework, this paper will seek to answer the following questions: 1) Are such patients endowed with a will that is known by every person? 2) Are they able to direct their action according to a good will? 3) Do they have the duty to exercise good will towards other members of society, or is it the society that has this duty towards them? Is a relation of reciprocity to be applied here? 4) Does Kant’s moral philosophy, in fact, show a duty of benevolence toward those who are in a vulnerable condition, or is this just a contradiction revealed by a more detailed and accurate reading of the Groundwork? 5) How do the communitarian theories of Michael Walzer and Alasdair MacIntyre address the interests of people with serious cognitive or severe mental disabilities?