The Twin Crises of Principles and Stories.
Perspect Biol Med
; 65(4): 529-534, 2022.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2308502
ABSTRACT
This symposium contribution argues that politicized responses to the COVID-19 pandemic mark the fracturing of the consensus that bioethics has been built upon. This consensus involved the mutual dependence of principles and stories principles need stories to become applicable in clinical action, and stories need to reflect principles if they are to make generalized claims. Two mid-20th-century theorists, Erving Goffman and Walter Benjamin, each predicted the thinness of appeals to principles and to stories, respectively; their skepticism describes our moment. Anti-public health responses to COVID restrictions show that principles now have radically different meanings within different factional groups, so appealing to them perpetuates divisions. Complementary to that, stories are told more as displays of group membership than as testimony of individual experience. The predictable future is that bioethics controversies will become more fraught.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Bioethics
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Perspect Biol Med
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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