E-Book Overview
The provocative contention of the postmodernist and feminist essays in Ethics of the Body is that conventional bioethics is out of touch, despite its growing profile. It is out of touch with an ongoing phenomenological sense of bodies themselves; with the impact of postmodernist theory as it problematizes the certainties of binary thinking; and with a postmodern culture in which bioscientific developments force us to question what is meant by the notion of the human self. The authors demonstrate that the conventional normative framework of bioethics is called into question by issues as wide ranging as genetic manipulation, disability, high-tech prosthetics, and intersexuality. The essays show how both the theory and practice of bioethics can benefit from postmodernism's characteristic fluidity and multiplicity, as well as from the insights of a reconceived feminist bioethics. They address issues in philosophy, law, bioscientific research, psychiatry, cultural studies, and feminism from a "postconventional" perspective that looks beyond the familiar ideas of the body, proposing not a bioethics about the body but a radical ethics of the body. After exploring notions of difference in both feminist and postmodernist terms, the book considers specific issues—including HIV, addiction, borderline personality disorder, and cancer—that challenge the principles of conventional bioethics. The focus then turns to questions raised by biotechnology: one essay rethinks the traditional feminist ethics of care in the context of new reproductive technology, while others tackle genetic and genomic issues. Finally, the book looks at embodiment and some specifically anomalous forms of being-in-the-body, including a consideration of intersex infants and children that draws on feminist, postructuralist, and queer theory.
E-Book Content
ETHICS OF THE BODY Postconventional Challenges
edited by
Margrit Shildrick and Roxanne Mykitiuk
Ethics of the Body
Basic Bioethics Glenn McGee and Arthur Caplan, editors Pricing Life: Why It’s Time for Health Care Rationing, Peter A. Ubel Bioethics: Ancient Themes in Contemporary Issues, edited by Mark G. Kuczewski and Ronald Polansky The Human Embryonic Stem Cell Debate: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy, edited by Suzanne Holland, Karen Lebacqz, and Laurie Zoloth Engendering International Health: The Challenge of Equity, edited by Gita Sen, Asha George, and Piroska Östlin Self-Trust and Reproductive Autonomy, Carolyn McLeod What Genes Can’t Do, Lenny Moss In the Wake of Terror: Medicine and Morality in a Time of Crisis, edited by Jonathan D. Moreno Pragmatic Bioethics, 2d edition, edited by Glenn McGee Case Studies in Biomedical Research Ethics, Timothy F. Murphy Genetics and Life Insurance: Medical Underwriting and Social Policy, edited by Mark A. Rothstein Ethics and the Metaphysics of Medicine: Reflections on Health and Beneficence, Kenneth A. Richman DNA and the Criminal Justice System: The Technology of Justice, edited by David Lazer Is Human Nature Obsolete? Genetics, Bioengineering, and the Future of the Human Condition, edited by Harold W. Baillie and Timothy K. Casey End of Life Decision-Making: A Cross-National Study, edited by Robert H. Blank and Janna C. Merrick Deciding for the Profoundly Mentally Disabled, by Norman L. Cantor Ethics of the Body: Postconventional Challenges, edited by Margrit Shildrick and Roxanne Mykitiuk
Ethics of the Body Postconventional Challenges
edited by Margrit Shildrick and Roxanne Mykitiuk
The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England
©2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the pu