Autonomy as integrity: Reflecting on living will|Autonomia come integrità: Una riflessione sulle direttive anticipate di trattamento

The aim of this article is to inquire about the possibilities and the limits of-fered by living will and explains the debate on which the Italian legislative branch is still examining and discussing. A special attention is given to the meaning of artificial nutrition and hydration. A regard is given to the capacity that the brainimaging technique has to realize a more exact prognosis of the cerebral recovery possibilities in order to reduce the di-agnostic mistakes and the cases of life- sustaining treatment interruptions of people only apparently lacking of mental capacity. With regard to the ethical decisions to put an end to life, the author proposes to re-vise the traditional ethical debate about the difference between killing or leaving to die by natural death, in the light of the new moral choices that the actual new acqui-sition techniques of fMRI made possible. Finally, it has been proposed to support the individual freedom in the choice to inter-rupt or not life- sustaining treatments, the Ronald Dworkin concept of individual freedom. This conception has been introduced as a central and unavoidable element of the individual identity and as an unavoidable condition for a human self-respect.