How binding is a deathbed promise?

Several years ago, the head of a large not-for-profit organization told me that when his mother was dying, she asked him and his brother to agree not to have a wake for her, but instead to honor her wishes to be cremated. He agreed, but after she died, several other relatives made it clear it would be unacceptable if she were cremated and there were no wake.

I fully expected he would tell me how painful it was to honor his mother's wishes knowing he would face the wrath of his relatives. Instead, he told me he and his brother followed the wishes of the relatives who wanted his mother to be waked, thus breaking their promise to their dying mother.

I was reminded of his story when I received an e-mail from a reader, asking: "What's your ethical take on deathbed promises - promises made to someone who is dying - once the person has died?"

Before his father died two years ago, my reader and his siblings made promises about the care of their disabled mother who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. "We have kept those promises as best we could for as long as we could," my reader writes, "but a day is coming when we will no longer be able to do so.

"On the one hand," he continues, "a deathbed promise seems like the most binding promise that someone can make to someone at an extreme moment when they are absolutely dependent on those around them. On the other hand, a deathwatch is not the ideal time to rationally consider commitments before making them, and sometimes people promise things that, under different circumstances, they would never undertake. The dead never know (setting aside theological speculation) whether or not the promise was kept."

My reader wants to know if a promise to someone who will not be around to see it kept "is more binding than one to someone who will be, less binding, or pretty much the same?"

A promise is a promise.

If you make one, the right thing is to make every effort to honor it, whether the person is on a deathbed or still living. There are, however, times when circumstances prevent you from honoring a deathbed promise as you wish you could or, obviously, discussing the issue with the deceased.

In the case of the head of the not-for-profit, he could have honored his promise to his dying mother if he had been willing to take criticism from his living relatives. If he knew he couldn't, he would have been wise to reconsider the promise he made.

In the case of my reader, if he promised his father that he and his siblings would care for their mother in her own home and not place her in a residence with round-the-clock medical care, the challenge of that promise is greater. In honoring the letter of the promise, does my reader at some point risk causing greater harm to his mother, something that clearly goes against the spirit of his promise to his father? Or is there a better way to honor the spirit of that promise?

We should keep our promises to those living or dead. But when the health and life of someone who is at the center of that promise is at stake, the right thing is to do whatever is within your power to care for that someone. In my reader's case, that could be the best possible way to honor the spirit of his father's request.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.

(c) 2010 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.