Health and Human Flourishing: Religion, Medicine, and Moral Anthropology / Edition 2

by Carol R. Taylor, Roberto Dell'Oro, Alisa L. Carse, William Desmond

Overview

What, exactly, does it mean to be human? It is an age-old question, one for which theology, philosophy, science, and medicine have all provided different answers. But though a unified response to the question can no longer be taken for granted, how we answer it frames the wide range of different norms, principles, values, and intuitions that characterize today's bioethical discussions. If we don't know what it means to be human, how can we judge whether biomedical sciences threaten or enhance our humanity?

This fundamental question, however, receives little attention in the study of bioethics. In a field consumed with the promises and perils of new medical discoveries, emerging technologies, and unprecedented social change, current conversations about bioethics focus primarily on questions of harm and benefit, patient autonomy, and equality of health care distribution. Prevailing models of medical ethics emphasize human capacity for self-control and self-determination, rarely considering such inescapable dimensions of the human condition as disability, loss, and suffering, community and dignity, all of which make it difficult for us to be truly independent.

In Health and Human Flourishing, contributors from a wide range of disciplines mine the intersection of the secular and the religious, the medical and the moral, to unearth the ethical and clinical implications of these facets of human existence. Their aim is a richer bioethics, one that takes into account the roles of vulnerability, dignity, integrity, and relationality in human affliction as well as human thriving. Including an examination of how a theological anthropology—a theological understanding of what it means to be a human being—can help us better understand health care, social policy, and science, this thought-provoking anthology will inspire much-needed conversation among philosophers, theologians, and health care professionals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781589010796
Publisher:	Georgetown University Press
Publication date:	06/20/2006
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Carol R. Taylor is director of the Center for Clinical Bioethics, a senior research scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, and an assistant professor of nursing at Georgetown University.

Roberto Dell’Oro is assistant professor in The Bioethics Institute and the graduate director of the Master of Arts Program in Bioethics at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

Foreword Introduction: Roberto Dell'Oro

Part 1: QUESTIONING AT THE BOUNDARY

1: Theological Anthropology and BioethicsRoberto Dell'Oro

2: Vulnerability, Agency, and Human FlourishingAlisa L. Carse

3: Pluralism, Truthfulness and the Patience of BeingWilliam Desmond

Part 2: DIGNITY AND INTEGRITY

4: Dignity and the Human as a Natural KindDaniel P. Sulmasy, OFM

5: On Being True to FormMargaret E. Mohrmann

6: The Integrity Conundrum Suzanne Holland

Part 3: VULNERABILITY

7: Vulnerability and the Meaning of Illness: Reflections on Lived Experience S. Kay Toombs

8: A Meditation on Vulnerability and PowerRichard M. Zaner

9: Vulnerability within the Body of Christ: Anointing of the Sick and Theological AnthropologyM. Therese Lysaught

Part 4: RELATIONALITY

10: Gender and Human RelationalityChristine E. Gudorf

11: Bioethics, Relationships, and Participation in the Common GoodLisa Sowle Cahill

Part 5: THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND PRAXIS 12: Health Care and a Theological AnthropologyCarol Taylor, CSFN

13: Health Policy and a Theological AnthropologyRon Hamel

14: Science and a Theological AnthropologyKevin T. FitzGerald, SJ

Toward a Richer Bioethics: A ConclusionEdmund D. Pellegrino

ContributorsIndex

What People are Saying About This

Allen Verhey

Those who have lamented the moral minimalism of much conventional bioethics should celebrate this splendid volume. Those who have called for 'a richer bioethics' should delight in it. Its attention to the nature of human nature and of human flourishing provides an antidote to the reduction of morality to universal and minimal principles. Its thoughtful consideration of human vulnerability, integrity, and relationality displays the poverty of an ethic focused on autonomy and points toward a bioethics richer than an emphasis on individual choice can provide. Nurturing a conversation among philosophers, theologians, and health care professionals, the book rejects both 'the view from nowhere' and ideological relativism. Some essays retrieve religious traditions concerning what is at stake in our being sick or in caring for those who are (indeed, more than one attends to scripture!), and others display the public intelligibility of such a richer account using the tools of phenomenology or analysis. The book is enough to give one hope for the future of bioethics.

From the Publisher

"Those who have lamented the moral minimalism of much conventional bioethics should celebrate this splendid volume. Those who have called for 'a richer bioethics' should delight in it. Its attention to the nature of human nature and of human flourishing provides an antidote to the reduction of morality to universal and minimal principles. Its thoughtful consideration of human vulnerability, integrity, and relationality displays the poverty of an ethic focused on autonomy and points toward a bioethics richer than an emphasis on individual choice can provide. Nurturing a conversation among philosophers, theologians, and health care professionals, the book rejects both 'the view from nowhere' and ideological relativism. Some essays retrieve religious traditions concerning what is at stake in our being sick or in caring for those who are (indeed, more than one attends to scripture!), and others display the public intelligibility of such a richer account using the tools of phenomenology or analysis. The book is enough to give one hope for the future of bioethics."—Allen Verhey, professor of theological ethics, Duke Divinity School

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Jessica R Attwood, BA, MA (Children's Hospital of Minnesota)
Description: This is a deeply introspective look at how religion, culture, and history influence everyday bioethics, examining how these topics are frequently omitted from discussions and advances in bioethics.
Purpose: The purpose is to "promote serious ethical reflections and discourse in pursuit of a just society and health care that affirms the dignity and social nature of all persons." The book meets this worthy objective.
Audience: The author does not specify an audience, but it would be interesting for a variety of readers, including students, medical professionals, and people of faith. This book is a compilation of contributions from a number of authors, each of whom seems to be a credible authority.
Features: The book covers subjects such as anthropology, theology, human dignity, and advanced medicine, examining how each of these can better our understanding of science, sociology, and healthcare. What is best about this book is the range of topics covered. There is no sense of redundancy, as the book is a compilation of essays, each of which is unique in both writing style and content.
Assessment: This is a fair and thorough assessment of multiple ways of approaching issues in medicine and healthcare. Although the book is dense (which makes it a slow read), it is also pertinent and necessary to modern day medical ethics. Until reading this book, I had yet to come across something that examines the implications of moral anthropology on modern day bioethics. For this reason, this book is an invaluable addition to the fields of bioethics, religion, anthropology, and medicine.

Doody's Review Service

Undoubtably relevant beyond the US Catholic milieu. The collection will be helpful, not only to those engaged in medicine or bioethics, but to anyone reflecting on the meaning of human vulnerability, integrity, relationality and flourishing in the light of experiences of illness and healing.

The Way

The contributors' ability to see the healing professions not only in terms of positive outcomes, but also in the context of our interdependence and mutual frailty suggests that the field of medical ethics is indeed reaching into its full human maturity.

America

The contributors' ability to see the healing professions not only in terms of positive outcomes, but also in the context of our interdependence and mutual frailty suggests that the field of medical ethics is indeed reaching into its full human maturity.

America

Those who have lamented the moral minimalism of much conventional bioethics should celebrate this splendid volume. Those who have called for 'a richer bioethics' should delight in it. Its attention to the nature of human nature and of human flourishing provides an antidote to the reduction of morality to universal and minimal principles. Its thoughtful consideration of human vulnerability, integrity, and relationality displays the poverty of an ethic focused on autonomy and points toward a bioethics richer than an emphasis on individual choice can provide. Nurturing a conversation among philosophers, theologians, and health care professionals, the book rejects both 'the view from nowhere' and ideological relativism. Some essays retrieve religious traditions concerning what is at stake in our being sick or in caring for those who are (indeed, more than one attends to scripture!), and others display the public intelligibility of such a richer account using the tools of phenomenology or analysis. The book is enough to give one hope for the future of bioethics.

Allen Verhey

This book is to be praised and indeed read and discussed for its daring attempt to address the anthropological quandry, thereby moving the bioethical debate beyond its usual focus on rights, decision making, and (meta-)ethical theories.

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics

Health and Human Flourishing represents a positive contribution towards validating voices of faith expressed through rational argumentation in the sphere of bioethics.

Health Progress