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Defining Personhood
Sarah Bishop Merrill
其他書名
Toward the Ethics of Quality in Clinical Care
出版
Rodopi
, 1998
主題
Business & Economics / Business Ethics
Medical / Clinical Medicine
Medical / History
Philosophy / General
Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy
Science / Philosophy & Social Aspects
ISBN
9789042005716
9042005718
URL
http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=Pj2kZzOihiYC&hl=&source=gbs_api
EBook
SAMPLE
註釋
Many debates in biomedical ethics today involve inconsistencies in defining the key term, person. Both sides of the abortion debate, for instance, beg the question about what constitutes personhood. This book explores the arguments concerning definitions of personhood in the history of modern philosophy, and then constructs a superior model, defined in terms of distinctive features (a theoretical concept borrowed from linguistics). This model is shown to have distinct advantages over the necessary and sufficient condition models of personhood launched by essentialists. Philosophers historically have been correct about what some of the pivotal distinctive features of personhood are,
e.q.
, rationality, communications and self-consciousness, but they have been wrong about the
methods
of recognizing and asserting personhood, and about the relative importance of feelings. In clinical care, complaints often surface that care is not personal. This book aims to improve care through providing a method of attending to patients as people. Charts in the Appendices show that where physicians attended to personal features important to their patients, sometimes the patients rated the care even higher than the physician did. The book will be useful to health-care providers whose goals include improving quality of care, listening to patients, and preventing malpractice.