A Philosophical Disease (Reflective Bioethics)

Drawing on the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and novelists such as Walker Percy, Paul Auster and Graham Greene, A Philosophical Disease brings to the bioethical discussion larger philosophical questions about the sense and significance of human life.
Carl Elliott moves beyond the standard menu of bioethical issues to explore 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.

Reviews

“Slow Cures and Bad Philosophers breaks new ground, contributing to a fresh understanding of familiar questions in and about bioethics. This is a high quality, useful work.”—Martin Benjamin, author of Splitting the Difference: Compromise and Integrity in Ethics and Politics

“A startlingly original and very important collection of essays. Wittgenstein’s insights should help the field move away from fruitless battles and back to what its business really is: deepening our shared understanding of what would count as better health care and policy.”—Judith André, Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences at Michigan State University

“Carl Elliott always writes intriguing essays at the intersection between ethics, medicine, and general philosophy, so it is a real pleasure to have a new installment in his continuing reflections on the fascinating problems that arise in this territory. Aside from anything else, he writes well for the general reader, who can enjoy and learn from his work.”—Stephen Toulmin, University of Southern California