The Anticipatory Corpse

Jeffrey P. Bishop

Description

In this original and compelling book, Jeffrey P. Bishop, a philosopher, ethicist, and physician, argues that something has gone sadly amiss in the care of the dying by contemporary medicine and in our social and political views of death, as shaped by our scientific successes and ongoing debates about euthanasia and the “right to die”—or to live. The Anticipatory Corpse: Medicine, Power, and the Care of the Dying, informed by Foucault’s genealogy of medicine and power as well as by a thorough grasp of current medical practices and medical ethics, argues that a view of people as machines in motion—people as, in effect, temporarily animated corpses with interchangeable parts—has become epistemologically normative for medicine. The dead body is subtly anticipated in our practices of exercising control over the suffering person, whether through technological mastery in the intensive care unit or through the impersonal, quasi-scientific assessments of psychological and spiritual “medicine.” The result is a kind of nihilistic attitude toward the dying, and troubling contradictions and absurdities in our practices. Wide-ranging in its examples, from organ donation rules in the United States, to ICU medicine, to “spiritual surveys,” to presidential bioethics commissions attempting to define death, and to high-profile cases such as Terri Schiavo’s, The Anticipatory Corpse explores the historical, political, and philosophical underpinnings of our care of the dying and, finally, the possibilities of change. This book is a ground-breaking work in bioethics. It will provoke thought and argument for all those engaged in medicine, philosophy, theology, and health policy.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Éthique et morale
• Christian Theology
• historical
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Terri Schiavo case
• Ethics
• Religion
• Terri Schiavo
• Foucault

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 19 septembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268075859
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

NOTRE DAME STUDIES IN MEDICAL ETHICS
David Solomon, series editor
The purpose of the Notre Dame Studies in Medical Ethics series, sponsored by the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, is to publish works that specifically address contemporary issues in the field of medicine. The aim is to foster a systematic and rational discussion of medical ethical problems grounded in Catholic intellectual tradition and moral vision.
JEFFREY P. BISHOP
The Anticipatory Corpse
MEDICINE, POWER, AND THE CARE OF THE DYING
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
NOTRE DAME, INDIANA
Copyright © 2011 by University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
All Rights Reserved Manufactured in the United States of America --> Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data --> Bishop, Jeffrey Paul. --> The anticipatory corpse : medicine, power, and the care of the dying / Jeffrey P. Bishop. --> p. ; cm. — (Notre Dame studies in medical ethics) --> Includes bibliographical references and index. --> ISBN-13: 978-0-268-02227-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) --> ISBN-10: 0-268-02227-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) --> I. Title. II. Series: Notre Dame studies in medical ethics. --> [DNLM: 1. Ethics, Clinical—United States. 2. Terminal Care—ethics—United States. 3. Attitude to Death—United States. 4. Thanatology—United States. WB 60] --> LC-classification not assigned --> 174.2—dc23 --> 2011025673 --> ∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. -->
E-ISBN 978-0-268-07585-9
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
For Nancy

Quid enim est quod volo dicere, domine, nisi quia nescio unde venerim huc, in istam dico vitam mortalem an mortem vitalem? Nescio. [What have I to say to thee God save that I know not where I came from when I came into the life-in-death; or should I call it death-in-life? I do not know.]
—St. Augustine of Hippo
Watermelon
Ed Madden
Summers on the family farm,
watermelons mark off the days
with sweet irregularity, a coda
to the lush heat of the afternoon,
left bobbing in the cold swirl
of the rice field’s well pool,
or frosting green in the icebox—
the flower fallen in on itself,
the node on the vine grown
thick and round, grown heavy
with the gravity of sweetness.
This summer like any other—
insects fizzing under lights
at evening, and the crickets
silent at midday. We are
the nephews, we don’t
have to speak or cry,
or watch the preacher.
We only have to grasp
the rail that flanks the coffin,
lift it, gently, carry it, slowly,
from the front of the church
to the hearse humming outside.
The funeral has been well planned—
the hymns she chose last spring,
the shovels Uncle Henry has waiting
in a pickup near the grave.
What is not planned
is the watermelon.
The watermelon Henry wants,
retrieved from the nearby shop,
and the pale blue cooler of cokes—
my brother and I return
to the shed blazers and the vivid wilt
of silk dresses, return,
our arms full of grace:
the chunks of pink sugar,
the sweet juice, wet seeds
and rinds like green jewels
on the cemetery lawn.
Used with the author’s permission
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prelude
CHAPTER 1. Birthing the Clinic
CHAPTER 2. Maturing the Clinic
Transition One
CHAPTER 3. The Machinations of Life
CHAPTER 4. Embracing Death
CHAPTER 5. Commissioning Death: From Living Cadavers to Dead Brains
CHAPTER 6. The Exact Location of Death: From Brain to Sovereign
CHAPTER 7. The Sovereign Subject and Death
Transition Two
CHAPTER 8. The Discursive Turn
CHAPTER 9. The Palliating Gaze
Recapitulation
CHAPTER 10. Anticipating Life
Notes
Bibliography Index 393 -->
Acknowledgments
Hard questions are best engaged among friends. It is the task of philosophy to engage hard questions. Indeed, the ancients believed that the only way to engage hard questions, that is to say, the only way to do philosophy, is to engage the questions among friends. What follows is offered in friendship to medicine. Yet some of the things that I say could easily sound malicious, as offered by an enemy. They are not. I am a practicing physician who must say these things, but they are said in friendship. So I hope what follows will be read in the spirit of friendship, as if we were enjoying good food and wine in the comfort of a home.
Medicine is best learned in community and among friends. One spends hours with one’s teachers, getting to know them, learning from them, and learning to care for them, even as one cares for patients. As early as the Hippocratic writings and even in the Oath itself, respect for one’s teachers achieves very high billing. One spends hours with patients who are suffering. One learns from them, whether student or teacher, for every patient is particular, so particular that no two will be exactly alike. One never ceases to be a student learning medicine at the feet of masters or at the feet of patients. Jean Wilson, one of the editors of the fourteenth edition of Harrison’s Textbook of Medicine and one of my professors, signed my copy of the Textbook. He wrote: “From one student of medicine to another.” Jean is, of course, a consummate scientist, a leading figure in endocrinology for several decades now. He taught me a lot, and he would be horrified to know that what I learned most from him was not the science of medicine. I hope he would be relieved to hear that what I learned best was the art.
A student is dependent upon his or her teachers more for their skill than for their knowledge. One has to learn to listen and look, but not to gaze too long. One has to learn how to talk to people, what to say, when to say it. Mostly you have to learn to listen to people; to stand or sit when appropriate. Mostly one has to learn to be with people, especially in the moments of discomfort that one must inflict with penetrating instruments or gazes. One learns best by watching others, the masters, practicing these skills. We are always students, all of us, every time we walk into a patient’s room. I cannot begin to list all of my patients, or even all of my professors in medicine. Yet I would be remiss not to give a special thank-you to Jean Wilson and Daniel Foster. These men are key figures in the field of medical science, but they are giants as men of care. If I retain 15 percent of what they have taught me, then I am in good stead for the rest of my life.
A Hippocratic aphorism is apropos here: “Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experiment dangerous, judgment difficult.” It is as fitting for philosophy as it is for medicine. Philosophy, like medicine, begins in community, one that butts up against questions that are seemingly insoluble. It began for me in an emergency room in 1994. I asked my patient what she did, and she said she was a professor of literature at the University of Dallas. We hit it off immediately, and the next thing I knew I was enrolling for night courses there. Her name was Louise Cowan, and I am not the only student whose life has been transformed by her. There are many other teachers that I must thank at the university: Robert Wood, Lance Simmons, Fr. David Balas, Mark Lowery, and John Norris.
Of course, the conversations with one’s dissertation director are indispensable. The kindness and willingness of Philipp Rosemann to assist me went well beyond that of a teacher. The quality of this project was substantially improved by his mentorship, and I am the better for his friendship. Our conversations began over beer, or margaritas, or wine, or over meals at some of Oakcliff’s finest restaurants. Philipp opened a world to me that has transformed how I think about medicine and politics, and indeed life. His is a philosophical life; he is devoted to the life of the mind, and any life of the mind is also a life of concrete living. I also know that he engages those who are downtrodden, those put at the margins of society, in ways that only saints do. His goodness goes unnoticed by many. My thinking about everything from poverty to academic life has been influenced by Philipp. Philosophy is surely best done with friends such as Philipp.
Occasionally one happens upon someone whom one would have never known except for grace. I have never worked with him; I was never his student. We have no reason to have met each other, except by grace and the common heritage and ethnicity that we share, that of being Texan. At a meeting of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities in 1998, I was standing alone, not knowing anyone, when the booming voice of H. Tristram Engelhardt startled me. “Sir,” he said, “you look like you could use a drink.” All philosophical friendships should begin thus; indeed all friendships should begin thus. Tris has nurtured my career, concerned himself with my soul, and obsessed over my health, requiring numerous publications, conversion to the Orthodox faith, and plenty of gin and tonic for the prevention of scurvy and malaria and for the improvement of my constitution. All friendships, perhaps even all philosophical friendships, should begin thus.
I must also thank my colleagues at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, especially James Wagner and Gary Reed, for allowing me to teach ethics at the medical school. I extend a hearty thanks to John Sadler, Frederick Grinell, and Tom Mayo, whose friendship and encouragement kept me from losing heart. I also thank my colleagues in Britain, John Bligh, Sam Regan de Bere, Lynn Monrouxe, Charlotte Rees, and Tracy Collett, for allowing me to bounce ideas round with them. I am especially thankful to Professor Alan Bleakley for our discussions about contemporary philosophy and for his insights into Foucault. I have never met a colleague s