Neurological disorders, affective bioethics, and the nervous system

Reconsidering the Schiavo case from a materialist perspective

Bibliographic Data

ID12692008
AuthorsMatthew Wolf‐meyer (0000-0001-7249-9726, Anthropology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY 13902, USA, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume46
Issue3
Pages166-175
Publication date2019-04-06
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedical Humanities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1468-215X • E-ISSN: 1473-4265
PublisherBMJ (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1136/medhum-2018-011568
PMID30954935
OpenAlexW2935555519
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited32

This article proposes a novel approach to bioethics, referred to as "affective bioethics", which draws on traditions in anthropology, science and technology studies, disability studies, and Spinozist materialism. By focusing on the case of Michael and Terri Schiavo, in which Terri's personhood and subjectivity are challenged by dominant forms of neurological reductivism in the USA, this article suggests that approaching her condition as a set of relations with the people in her life and her socio-technical environment may have helped to develop new ways to conceptualise personhood and subjectivity moving beyond the view of her as a non-person. Drawing on Michael Schiavo's memoir of his legal battles, and Terri's diagnosis and care, this article shows how Terri's connections to the world disrupt American ideas about the isolatable individual as the basis for personhood and subjectivity. Attending to these interpersonal and socio-technical connections focuses bioethical attention on the worlds that individuals inhabit, and how those worlds might be designed to make more kinds of life livable and new forms of personhood and subjectivity possible

Bioethics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Materialism · Memoir · Personhood · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Subjectivity · Law · Mental Health and Psychiatry · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Philosophy · Psychology · Race, Genetics, and Society

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