Overview

Many debates in biomedical ethics today involve inconsistencies in defining the key term, person. Both sides of the abortion debate, for instance, beg the question about what constitutes personhood. This book explores the arguments concerning definitions of personhood in the history of modern philosophy, and then constructs a superior model, defined in terms of distinctive features (a theoretical concept borrowed from linguistics). This model is shown to have distinct advantages over the necessary and sufficient condition models of personhood launched by essentialists. Philosophers historically have been correct about what some of the pivotal distinctive features of personhood are, e.q., rationality, communications and self-consciousness, but they have been wrong about the methods of recognizing and asserting personhood, and about the relative importance of feelings. In clinical care, complaints often surface that care is not personal. This book aims to improve care through providing a method of attending to patients as people. Charts in the Appendices show that where physicians attended to personal features important to their patients, sometimes the patients rated the care even higher than the physician did. The book will be useful to health-care providers whose goals include improving quality of care, listening to patients, and preventing malpractice.

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Sarah Bishop Merrill has served as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, and as Associate Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University Calumet, Hammond, Indiana. She has also taught in the Graduate and Continuing Studies Division of Union College, Schenectady, New York; at Russell Sage College, Troy, New York; and at Mount Saint Mary College, Newburgh, New York. In 1986, she was selected as a Fellow of the Center for Women in Government, and served as the first Agency Fellow in the New York State Department of Social Services, Commissioner’s Office, assisting the Legislative Liaison in the Office of Intergovernmental Relations. Her first book, Abeunt Studia in Mores: A Festschrift for Helga Doblin, considered central philosophical issues in teaching and learning. Her current work concerns moral psychology and applied ethics, especially environmental ethics and issues related to the profession of “constructor” in the built environment. Her next book, Muddy Boots, will consider ethical challenges in construction contracting and engineering. She received her M.S. in Linguistics from Georgetown University, and her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the State University of New York at Albany, with additional graduate work in Health Systems Management at Union University’s Institute of Administration and Management. She is the mother of two grown sons.

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