Vulnerability has become a popular though controversial topic in bioethics, notably since 2000. As a result, a common body of knowledge has emerged distinguishing between different types of vulnerability, criticizing the categorization of populations as vulnerable, and questioning the practical implications. It is argued that two perspectives on vulnerability, i.e., the philosophical and political, pose challenges to contemporary bioethics discourse: they re-examine the significance of human agency, the primacy of the individual person, and the negativity of vulnerability. As a phenomenon (...) of globalization, vulnerability can only be properly addressed in a global bioethics that takes the social dimension of human existence seriously. (shrink)

In this article I reconsider Ricoeur’s early philosophical anthropology in Fallible Man by probing its force in a current discussion on anthropology in the ethics of care. This discussion shows similarities with the intentions behind Ricoeur’s project. They are both dissatisfied with existing philosophical conceptions of human beings, in particular with their objectifying and fixing character. However, the ethics of care is a practice oriented approach while Ricoeur’s is an abstract philosophical one. In this article I will examine whether Ricoeur’s (...) philosophical approach may be of value for such a practical approach. For this purpose I analyse three aspects of Ricoeur’s approach that seem to be akin to the ethics of care: his ‘passion for the possible’ that inspires a critique of objectification; his methodological reflections that highlight the relation between philosophy and the pre-philosophical; and fragility as central anthropological category. Taking into account these aspects will give rise to the critical question of whether the anthropology in the ‘weak’ sense in which it is present in the ethics of care is able to account for the risk of objectification. Discovering the importance of this criticism reveals the relevance and topical interest of Ricoeur’s approach also for current practice-oriented philosophical reflection. (shrink)

Abstract“Patient-centred care” is the recent response to the malaise produced in the field of health care from the point of view both of a technical mentality and the paternalistic model. The interest in the story-telling approach shown by both the humanities and the social sciences has favoured a “narrative turn” in medicine too, where the new ethics of therapeutic relationship consider the hermeneutic method a means by which to integrate evidence and subjectivity, scientific data and patient experience. The aim of (...) this paper is to show how Ricoeur’s theory of “threefold mimesis” makes a conceptual contribution to the use of narrative interviews in nursing and also be successfully transferred into and applied in the field of healthcare in general. First, the paper examines how this narrative approach might open up new possibilities for the acquisition of in-depth knowledge of patients’ life experiences, a condition indispensable for the improvement of the quality of care. Secondly, it highlights how this Ricoeurian method seems capable of provide an opportunity for healthcare professionals to review their own understanding of the caregiver-patient therapeutic relationship, beginning with their confrontation with the patient’s world as revealed by the narrative they provide. (shrink)

The article presents possible applications of Paul Ricoeur’s theory in interpretation of legal texts and legally relevant human action. One should notice that Paul Ricoeur developed a comprehensive interpretation theory of two seemingly distant phenomena: literary texts and human action. When interrelating these issues, it becomes possible, on the basis of Ricoeur’s work, to construct a unified theory of the interpretation of legal texts and of legally relevant human action. What is provided by this theory for jurisprudence is the possibility (...) of formulating a comprehensive theory of application of law, well established in the ontology of the recipient of the legal text. It should be emphasised that the resulting benefits, outlined in the article become particularly noticeable when set against the background of the methodological weaknesses of legal positivism, concerning both the interpretation of law and a syllogistic model of its application. (shrink)

This article explores the concept of human dignity in the work of French philosopher Gabriel Marcel. It demonstrates how this lesser-known aspect of his philosophical thinking is organic to his work and draws attention to the current relevance of the way he resolves the question of human dignity for philosophy and ethics. The first part of the article looks at the basic ideas behind Marcel’s understanding of man as a being on the road, as unfinished, temporal, in the process of (...) becoming, and creatively open on the road of transcendence to the mystery of being. This is followed by an explanation of Marcel’s criticism of the traditional understanding of human dignity, which has degenerated into the formalism. Criticizing this rationalist conception of dignity as a particular kind of power, Gabriel Marcel produces an original conception of existential dignity as weakness—the fragile vulnerable finitude of the human individual. But it is an active weakness/finitude that lies in the ability of the individual to creatively resist attempts to humiliate him and in his effort to recognize his unique human values. Part of this finitude, on the inter-subjective level, is an encounter with the neighbour in love, which is a service to others in defence of man’s weakness. The author draws attention to the fact that Marcel’s conception of human dignity has been partially accepted in philosophy, ethics and bioethics. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to bring to social theorists’ attention the growing visibility of the notion of dignity within human rights legislation, bioethics and public discourse generally, as well as to evaluate this term’s potential to enhance our capacities to respond to old and new challenges. The article starts with a short presentation of the career of the concept and discussion of the various impasses and conceptual tensions connected with the notion of human dignity. It is followed by (...) an exploration of how the idea of human dignity has become one of the main achievements of modern times. The question of how respect for human dignity has turned out to be the fundamental feature of democratic society is addressed with help from both Waldron’s perspective on human dignity as the ground of human rights and Habermas’s approach that stresses the moral content of human rights. The final part of the article examines the value of the notion of dignity for social theorizing by looking at ways the employment of the concept may contribute to sociological thought and enquiry. (shrink)

In this paper, using Ambedkar’s pioneering vision for engaged Buddhism, we developed the notion of radical interdependence, which consists of four interrelated processes: dialogical recognition; negating invisibilities; dignity as an embodied praxis; ordinary cosmopolitanism. Our research primarily focused on women janitors’ lives in a Mumbai Mall using this conception. Our participants experienced four different kinds of dignity injuries. They used various strategies to preserve personal, intersubjective, and processual dignities. We also found horizontal and vertical ordinary cosmopolitanism strategies to bridge social (...) boundaries between colleagues and mall customers. We further discuss the implications of radical interdependence for organizational research. (shrink)

The article concerns civic experiences beyond or prior to civic action. Approaching questions of civic culture and democracy by way of the rather broad notion of civic experience, the author suggests that democratic values and processes involving citizens’ participation should be understood as deeply anchored in the lifeworld. The article establishes a view in which civic culture is understood from a holistic perspective as an experience. At the same time, the author is interested in the ways in which media are (...) involved in that process, without assuming their predominance in fostering civic engagement and public connection. Drawing mainly on 20 solicited, open-ended online diaries with young adults from Narva, Tartu, and Tallinn in Estonia and the European Social Survey Round 5, the article proposes civic experience as a helpful notion to overcome the generic divide between utopian and dystopian views on the relationship between media and civic culture. (shrink)

In most socialised health systems there are formal processes that manage resource scarcity and determine the allocation of funds to health services in accordance with their priority. In this analysis, part of a larger qualitative study examining the ethical issues entailed in doctors’ participation as technical experts in priority setting, we describe the values and ethical commitments of doctors who engage in priority setting and make an empirically derived contribution towards the identification of an ethical framework for doctors’ macroallocation work. (...) We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 doctors, each of whom participated in macroallocation at one or more levels of the Australian health system. Our sampling, data-collection, and analysis strategies were closely modelled on grounded moral analysis, an iterative empirical bioethics methodology that employs contemporaneous interchange between the ethical and empirical to support normative claims grounded in practice. The values held in common by the doctors in our sample related to the domains of personal ethics, justice, and practices of argumentation. Applying the principles of grounded moral analysis, we identified that our participants’ ideas of the good in macroallocation and their normative insights into the practice were strongly aligned with the three levels of Paul Ricoeur’s ‘little ethics’: ‘aiming at the “good life” lived with and for others in just institutions’. Our findings suggest new ways of understanding how doctors’ values might have procedural and substantive impacts on macroallocation, and challenge the prevailing assumption that doctors in this milieu are motivated primarily by deontological considerations. Our empirical bioethics approach enabled us to identify an ethical framework for medical work in macroallocation that was grounded in the values and ethical intuitions of doctors engaged in actions of distributive justice. The concordance between Ricoeur’s ‘little ethics’ and macroallocation practitioners’ experiences, and its embrace of mutuality, suggest that it has the potential to guide practice, support ethical reflection, and harmonise deliberative practices amongst actors in macroallocation generally. (shrink)

We argue that Paul Ricoeur’s work on narrative and alienation provides a largely untapped, though potentially fruitful way of re-thinking the question of political agency within the context of globalization. We argue that the political agency of many around the world has been placed in an exceedingly fragile position due to the rapid pace of globalization, the movement of multi-national corporations from their previous national headquarters, etc. We use Ricoeur’s work to argue that the alienation of globalization is not something (...) that can be simply overcome either in a unified world-state or a retreat to protectionist nationalism, because institutional mediation—and consequently alienation—is in some sense constitutive of all politics: the world of political representation operates by its own set of rules, which are at least partially disconnected from the represented world. Using the work of Mouffe, a radical democratic theorist, we then flesh out an ideal of agonistic citizenship (which recognizes both the need for and the inevitability of discursive struggle in politics) in a number of overlapping communities of interest, rather than tying political participation solely to the sovereign government of my state. The state will remain important, but because globalization has disenfranchised so many from their participation in “local” modes of self-governance (tied to the state in which they live), we have a responsibility to re-envision what political participation means outside the traditional context of the state. Rather than merely citizens of a particular state, we need to begin thinking of ourselves politically—and then acting—as “citizens” of Green Peace, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, or whatever other supra-local concrete universals or communities of interest to which we belong, investing the time and energy there that we might previously have invested solely in our state’s government. (By implication, we must also ensure that these organizations work in transparent democratic ways themselves.) We believe that by re-plotting our narratives of political engagement in this way, we can positively respond to the alienation created by globalization, while avoiding both the extremes of “McWorld” (hyperglobalism) and “Jihad” (complete skepticism towards, or war against globalization) that Benjamin Barber and David Held have recently described. (shrink)

Fiction television series are one of the few cultural expressions in which men’s infertility experiences are represented. Through a content analysis of twenty fiction series, this article describes and analyzes such representations. By drawing on Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity and Ricoeur’s understanding of paradoxical power structuring, four character types of infertile men are identified: (1) the virile in/fertile man, (2) the secretly non-/vasectomized man, (3) the intellectual eunuch, (4) the enslaving post-apocalyptic man. While these various dramatis persona outline different (...) ways of how infertile men relate to normative hegemonic masculinity, they all represent infertile men as diverging from shared masculine norms. This non-normativity initially excludes many represented men from hegemonic positions. Eventually, however, these men generally aspire to and succeed in reaffirming their hegemonic masculinity through coercive force towards women and other men, through instigating the precondition for any power structure – the shared will to live together as a community –, and/or by seeking and finding explicit recognition for their normativity and dominance. At the end of this paper, I will reflect on the potential harmful effect of these outlined representations of infertile men and make a plea for diversifying representations of infertile men in our culture. (shrink)