One of the central aims of MH Blog is to explore the relationship between bioethics and the medical humanities. The relationship is complex, and in many ways MH Blog itself is on ongoing dialogue on the matter. On the one hand, there are persistent, vocal, and, to my mind, persuasive criticisms of some of the dominant traditions of bioethics practice and scholarship coming from the medical humanities (and from other places, of course). On the other hand, if the medical humanist is not at least somewhat interested in ethics related to health, illness, medicine, and health care, it is hard to see the purpose of the medical humanities. I am using the term "ethics" here in its most expansive sense, a sense that two great questions help explicate:
What is the good?
How shall I live?
These two questions, among several others, are to me at the core of a rich notion of ethics, and they are, several milennia after they were uttered, as pressing as ever they were, especially when issues of life, death, and human suffering are concerned.
So, while I am frequently critical of bioethics discourse and scholarship here on MH Blog, there is no doubt in my mind that ethics in this broad sense can barely be overemphasized in terms of its importance. There are, of course, better and worse ways of doing and thinking about ethics, and I suppose this latter concern is even more common a subject here on MH Blog.
Readers of MH Blog are no doubt aware of my belief that thinking about the ethics of health and illness requires significant attention and resources to the role social and economic conditions play in determining health. This issue has not always received such attention within professional bioethics, so I am particularly pleased to note that the February 2009 issue of Bioethics is a theme issue on the social determinants of health.
Fascinating articles on a variety of subjects, including one authored by Sir Michael Marmot, and another important article by Andrew Courtwright on the way in which stigma mediates the effect of the SDOH. Especially given my observation here, echoing Stuart Rennie, that some of the work on the SDOH is undertheorized from an ethical standpoint, this issue is an especially welcome addition.
It also reminds me of Leigh Turner's recent admonition that there exist an increasing diversity of voices and approaches in bioethics, and that, while dominant traditions still exert the most influence, the range of alternatives and complements is waxing.
Thoughts?
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