Abstract
Fischer and Truog make a valuable contribution to clinical ethics and practice by highlighting the inherent problem of giving ethical import to uncertain determinations of consciousness. Rather than making clinical care more complex, we argue that their proposal to base decisions on observable features and patient values observes a proper human ontology and metaphysical humility that can only benefit the patient–physician relationship. The growing neuroscientific understanding in disorders of consciousness has clinical value, particularly in determining prognosis, which is critical to ethical deliberation in these cases. This practical conclusion happens to reinforce the understanding of human patient as human and not the competing view that values the human in proportion to perceived level of cognition.