Morality and Health

Ranging across academic disciplines and historical time periods, the essays inMorality and Healthoffer a compelling assessment of the powerful role of moral systems for judging the complex questions of risk and responsibility for disease, the experience of illness, and social and cultural responses to those who are sick. Contributors focus on the history of attitudes and values about particular disease-related behaviors such as drinking, smoking and diet, as well as social, psychological and cultural perspectives on the process by which morality shapes our understanding of who gets sick and why. Contributors include Keith Thomas, Charles Rosenberg, Richard Shweder, Arthur Kleinman, David Mechanic, Nancy Tomes and Linda Gordon.