Abstract: Death with dignity respects the autonomous right of terminally ill individuals to make choices about their own lives. It entails rejecting meaningless, traumatic medical interventions, alleviating the suffering of the dying, and preserving their dignity of life. When confronted with the dilemma of “technologized existence” imposed on individuals at the end of life by advances in medical technology, death with dignity can derive its ethical foundation from the “vulnerability of life”, a condition inherent to human existence. On this basis, death with dignity provides a rational interpretation of the boundaries of technological intervention at the end of life and reorients ethical reflection toward an authentic awareness of embodied existence. While medical technology attempts to conquer death, death with dignity–premised on acknowledging human vulnerability and guided by the ethical principle of the “vulnerability of life”–reconsiders the subjective meaning of the dying population and redefines the value goals of end-of-life technological intervention. It facilitates a paradigm shift in end-of-life technological intervention, achieving a transformation from “conquering death” to “acknowledging vulnerability”. This shift reconstructs the integrity, autonomy, and sociality of life under conditions of technological intervention.

Key Words: Death with dignity; Vulnerability of life; Ethical foundation; Boundaries of intervention; Axiological rationality