Khushf Handbook of Bioethics:

Taking Stock of the Field from a Philosophical Perspective
2004
ISBN: 978-1-4020-2127-5
Verlag: Springer Netherland
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 78, 580 Seiten, eBook

Reihe: Philosophy and Medicine

In general, the history of virtue theory is well-documented (Sherman, 1997; O’Neill, 1996). Its relationship to medicine is also recorded in our work and in that of others (Pellegrino and Thomasma, 1993b; 1996; Drane, 1994; Ellos, 1990). General publications stress the importance of training the young in virtuous practices. Still, the popularity of education in virtue is widely viewed as part of a conservative backlash to modern liberal society. Given the authorship of some of these works by professional conservatives like William Bennett (1993; 1995), this concern is authentic. One might correspondingly fear that greater adoption of virtue theory in medicine will be accompanied by a corresponding backward-looking social agenda. Worse yet, does reaffirmation of virtue theory lacquer over the many challenges of the postmodern world view as if these were not serious concerns? After all, recreating the past is the “retro” temptation of our times. Searching for greater certitude than we can now obtain preoccupies most thinkers today. One wishes for the old clarity and certitudes (Engelhardt, 1991). On the other hand, the same thinkers who yearn for the past, like Engelhardt sometimes seems to do, might stress the unyielding gulf between past and present that creates the postmodern reaction to all systems of Enlightenment thought (1996).

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Khushf, George

Khushf, G.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Taking Stock of Bioethics From a Philosophical Perspective.- Introduction: Taking Stock of Bioethics From a Philosophical Perspective.- The Emergence of Bioethics.- The History of Bioethics as a Discipline.- Bioethical Theory.- Principles and Principlism.- Casuistry.- Virtue Theory in Philosophy of Medicine.- Common Morality.- Feminist Approaches to Bioethics.- Four Narrative Approaches to Bioethics.- Philosophy of Medicine and Medical Ethics: A Phenomenological Perspective.- Core Concepts in Clinical Ethics.- The Logic of Health Concepts.- Physicians and Patients in Relation: Clinical Interpretation and Dialogues of Trust.- Informed Consent.- Philosophical Challenges to the Use of Advance Directives.- Ethics Committees and Case Consultation: Theory and Practice.- The Public Policy Context.- The Ethics of Controlled Clinical Trials.- Ethical Issues in the Use of Cost Effectiveness Analysis for the Prioritization of Health Resources.- Sic Et Non: Some Disputed Questions in Reproductive Ethics.- Testing Genes and Constructing Humans — Ethics and Genetics.- Foundations of the Health Professions.- Death, Dying, Euthanasia, and Palliative Care: Perspectives from Philosophy of Medicine and Ethics.- Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry.- Nursing Ethics.- Geroethics.- Ethics and Philosophy of Public Health.

Leseproben

THE LOGIC OF HEALTH CONCEPTS (p.205)

I. INTRODUCTION

It is often maintained that health is one of the major goals of medicine or even the goal of medicine. This idea has been eloquently formulated by the American philosophers of medicine Edmund Pellegrino and David Thomasma in their book A Philosophical Basis of Medical Practice (1981, p. 26):

Medicine is an activity whose essence lies in the clinical event, which demands that scientific and other knowledge be particularised in the lived reality of a particular human for the purpose of attaining health or curing illness through the direct manipulation of the body and in a value-laden decision matrix.

Although some other goals of medicine exist, such as saving lives and advancing quality of life, health is still taken to be the central goal of medicine and health care in general. However, the formidable task of interpreting the nature of health remains. What more specifically is health? To what more precise goal shall we direct our efforts in medicine and health care?

These questions are not simply academic. They are of great practical and thereby ethical concern. The consequences for health care diverge considerably, not least in economic but also in social and educational terms, if health is understood as people’s happiness with life, or their fitness and ability to work, or just the absence of obvious pathology in their bodies and minds. There are adherents of all these ideas in the modern theoretical discussion on health.

One of the major problems in this discussion is to establish the relation between the notion of disease and that of health. Are the two notions directly linked, so that health is the total absence of disease, or is there a much looser connection? Is health something over and above the absence of disease? Is health even compatible with the existence of disease? We seem to have varying intuitions in this regard. We seem also inclined to interpret health slightly differently in different contexts.

In this paper I will attempt to disentangle such issues by presenting, in some detail, two prominent theories of health (a biostatistical theory of health, BST, and a holistic theory of health, HTH) and try to assess these using two criteria for assessment, viz. their usefulness in medical practice and in public health contexts. My general conclusion will be that the holistic theory, HTH, is the more plausible theory of health.

II. TWO FUNDAMENTAL APPROACHES TO HEALTH CONCEPTS

Contemporary philosophy of health is very much focused on the problem of determining the nature of the concepts of health, illness and disease from a scientific point of view. Some theorists claim and argue that these concepts are value-free and descriptive in the same sense as the concepts of atom, metal and rain are value-free and descriptive.

Moreover, a disease in a human being can be discovered, according to this line of thought, through ordinary inspection and through the use of scientifically validated procedures without invoking any normative evaluations of the person’s body or mind. To say that a person has a certain disease or that he or she is unhealthy is thus to objectively describe this person.