Annemarie Mol’s Work Examined Through Mereology and Bioethics

This article critically examines the fundamental problems of medical ethics raised by Dutch philosopher and anthropologist Annemarie Mol in The Body Multiple (2002). The logical and mathematical concepts of transitivity and intransitivity chosen by the researcher offer a fresh perspective on traditional bioethical issues: doctor– patient relationship models (engineering, collegial, paternalistic), the status of human and human being (including embryos or corpses), genome editing (fetal or somatic gene therapy), organ transplantation (according to principles of routine organ procurement, presumed consent, or informed consent), as well as the conflict between individual and collective interests during epidemics. This problem is especially relevant today, as the coronavirus pandemic has returned humanity to discussions about the relationship between individual and collective values. What is more important — personal freedoms or collective biosecurity? Is it acceptable to sacrifice the health or lives of several individuals for the benefit of the entire population? How should medications, PPE, and vaccines be distributed under resource constraints? These questions currently face medical professionals, philosophers, bioethicists, and politicians. The key points Mol relies on are the concepts of intransitivity between patients and their organs, the status of the body itself, the relationship between whole and parts, and the concept of inclusion as a relationship incorporating the multiple body. In analyzing these concepts, the author references works by Russian and foreign philosophers such as Ivan Ilyin, Nicolas de Condorcet, Peter Simons, and examines contemporary bioethical problems through the lens of questions posed by Mol from the unusual perspective of mereology — the philosophical study of wholes, their parts, and the relationships between them, whose three main axioms (irreflexivity, asymmetry, and transitivity) define part–whole relationships

Bioethics · Distancing · Health care · Humanity · Medical ethics · Mereology · Organ donation · Ethics in medical practice · Mental Health and Psychiatry · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations