ABSTRACT
This book explores Kierkegaard’s significance for bioethics and discusses how Kierkegaard’s existential thinking can enrich and advance current bioethical debates.
A bioethics inspired by Kierkegaard is not focused primarily on ethical codes, principles, or cases, but on the existential 'how' of our medical situation. Such a perspective focuses on the formative ethical experiences that an individual can have in relation to oneself and others when dealing with medical decisions, interventions, and information. The chapters in this volume explore questions like: What happens when medicine and bioethics meet Kierkegaard? How might Kierkegaard’s writings and thoughts contribute to contemporary issues in medicine? Do we need an existential turn in bioethics? They offer theoretical reflections on how Kierkegaard’s existential thinking might contribute to bioethics and apply Kierkegaardian concepts to debates on health and disease, predictive medicine and enhancement, mental illness and trauma, COVID-19, and gender identity.
Kierkegaard and Bioethics will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Kierkegaard, bioethics, moral philosophy, existential ethics, religious ethics, and the medical humanities.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|33 pages
Existential Framing of Bioethics
chapter 2|15 pages
Anxiety, Hope, and the Life Sciences
part 2|38 pages
Concepts of Health, Disease, and Disability
part 3|34 pages
Today's Medical Developments
part 4|34 pages
Psychiatry and Trauma Studies
chapter 8|17 pages
Becoming through Rupture
part 5|34 pages
Current Debates in Bioethics