Medicine and the Ethics of Care

A sensitive and sensible exploration of important new directions in bioethics from several highly respected voices... Their essays grip one's attention and expand one's horizons. -- Lisa Cahill, Boston College Curious about what feminism, narrative, and the ethics of care mean for bioethics? Medicine and the Ethics of Care is an excellent place to begin satisfying that curiosity. Some of the voices are familiar and distinguished; some are new and exciting. All are worth reading. -- Thomas H. Murray, president, The Hastings Center

Draws insights from both religious and feminist scholarship in order to propose fresh approaches to the ethics of medical care. This title embraces an "ethics of care", which regards emotional engagement in the lives of others as basic to discerning what we ought to do on their behalf.In these essays, a diverse group of ethicists draw insights from both religious and feminist scholarship in order to propose creative new approaches to the ethics of medical care. While traditional ethics emphasizes rules, justice, and fairness, the contributors to this volume embrace an "ethics of care", which regards emotional engagement in the lives of others as basic to discerning what we ought to do on their behalf. The essays reflect on the three related themes: community, narrative, and emotion. They argue for the need to understand patients and caregivers alike as moral agents who are embedded in multiple communities, who seek to attain or promote healing partly through the medium of storytelling, and who do so by cultivating good emotional habits. A thought-provoking contribution to a field that has long been dominated by an ethics of principle, "Medicine and the Ethics of Care" will appeal to scholars and students who want to move beyond the constraints of that traditional approach.