A Philosophical Disease: Bioethics, Culture, and Identity (Reflective Bioethics) Review

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A Philosophical Disease: Bioethics, Culture, and Identity (Reflective Bioethics) ReviewThe funny thing about the mid-20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is that it's nigh on impossible to understand what he means if one just readd his Philosophical Investigations (PI)... yet when Elliott applies Wittgenstein's PI to issues in medicine, it becomes possible to see why Wittgenstein is considered such a revolutionary figure.
One of the excellent things about this work is that Elliott, himself, is so clearly fascinated by the subjects he delves into that his enthusiasm is infectious. The book is thus quite engaging. It helps that Elliott uses familiar references. For example, in Chapter 2, "You Are What You Are Afflicted By", Elliott deals with how it is that the way we label ourselves (particularly when we have been diagnosed with a disease) constructs our identities. One of his epigraphs at the beginning of the chapter is a quote from Casablanca... Major Strasser: What is your nationality; Rick: I'm a drunkard. Elliott then proceeds to apply Maggie Little, Art Frank, Wittgenstein, and anthropologist Clifford Geertz to the matter of identity and disease, with particular reference to deafness and intersex (children who are born neither clearly male nor clearly female).
This sort of connection between the mundane/real and elegant philosophy persists throughout. Who can fault an author who uses the Talking Heads to introduce a chapter that tackles the philosophically tricky issue of how the use of Prozac affects our very sense of self, and our relation to social problems?A Philosophical Disease: Bioethics, Culture, and Identity (Reflective Bioethics) OverviewDrawing on the work of writers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Walker Percy, Paul Auster and Graham Greene, this text brings to the bioethical discussion larger philosophical questions about the sense and significance of human life. Carl Elliott explores the relationship of illness to identity, and of mental illness to spiritual illness. He also examines the treatment of children born with ambiguous genitalia, the claims of deaf culture, and the morality of self-sacrifice. This book focuses on a different sensibility in bioethics - how we use concepts, and how they relate to our own particular social institutions.

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