|
Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
|
Health:, Vol. 1, No. 2,
131-148 (1997)
DOI: 10.1177/136345939700100201
Illness as moral occasion: restoring agency to ill people
Arthur W. Frank
University of Calgary, Canada
While both medical sociology and clinical ethics have tended to ignore the moral dimensions of illness, some ethicists have called attention to how serious illness creates a moral imperative for the ill person to rise to the occasion. First-person narratives of illness experience delimit the potential consciousness of illness as a moral occasion. Narratives by Tim Brookes, Anatole Broyard, Kat Duff and Terry Tempest Williams present different dimensions of the attempt to be what Brookes calls successfully ill. The conclusion considers the difficulty that biomedicine has recognizing the moral life of ill persons.
Key Words: bioethics illness experience narrative narrative ethics

CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us Digg Reddit Technorati What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:

|
 |

|
 |
 
N. Kittikorn, A. F. Street, and J. Blackford
Managing shame and stigma: case studies of female carers of people with AIDS in southern Thailand.
Qual Health Res,
November 1, 2006;
16(9):
1286 - 1301.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
|
 |
|

|
 |

|
 |
 
A. Radley, J. Cheek, and C. Ritter
The making of health:: a reflection on the first 10 years in the life of a journal.
Health (London) ,
October 1, 2006;
10(4):
389 - 400.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
|
 |
|

|
 |

|
 |
 
J. K. Montez and T. X. Karner
Understanding the Diabetic Body-Self
Qual Health Res,
October 1, 2005;
15(8):
1086 - 1104.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
|
 |
|

|
 |

|
 |
 
M. Horton-Salway
Bio-Psycho-Social Reasoning in GPs' Case Narratives: The Discursive Construction of ME Patients' Identities
Health (London) ,
October 1, 2002;
6(4):
401 - 421.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
|
 |
|

|
 |

|
 |
 
M. Greco
Inconspicuous Anomalies: Alexithymia and Ethical Relations to the Self
Health (London) ,
October 1, 2001;
5(4):
471 - 492.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
|
 |
|

|
 |

|
 |
 
S. J. Williams
Health as moral performance: ritual, transgression and taboo
Health (London) ,
October 1, 1998;
2(4):
435 - 457.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
|
 |
|

|
 |

|
 |
 
A. W. Frank
Stories of illness as care of the self: a Foucauldian dialogue
Health (London) ,
July 1, 1998;
2(3):
329 - 348.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
|
 |
|
|