Community As Healing Pragmatist Ethics in Medical Encounters

The brief history of twentieth-century bioethics has been dominated by discussions of principles and appeals to autonomy that divorce theory from practice and champion a notion of the individual as prior to and isolated from society. Pragmatism, on the other hand, has long sought to reconstruct ethical thought with the belief that distinctions between theory and practice, individual and society, are not a priori starting points but purposeful developments of inquiry. Using insights from the classic pragmatism of James, Dewey, and Mead, among others, Hester proposes reconstructive accounts of physician-patient relationships emphasizing the process of meaningful/significant living for all individuals involved in medical encounters. Hester's project illuminates the integration of the self with the community and encourages the development of new practices in medical encounters based on an attitude of Community As Healing. Book jacket.

D. Micah Hester is assistant professor of biomedical ethics and humanities at Mercer University's School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia.