A ground-breaking volume of all new essays covering the conjunction of two topics--feminism and families--that, for all their centrality in our culture, have not been adequately examined in light of one another. While the family has suffered feminist neglect, most women are in fact members of families, living their lives within the social context of families, even at a time when the concept of "family" has become bewilderingly unstable. The intersection of families and feminism is thus one in need of philosophical reflection, as a basis both for good public policy and for the ethical...

Narratives have always played a prominent role in both bioethics and medicine; the fields have attracted much storytelling, ranging from great literature to humbler stories of sickness and personal histories. All bioethicists work with cases - from court cases that shape policy matters to case studies that chronicle sickness. But how useful are these various narratives for sorting out moral matters? What kind of ethical work can stories do and what are the limits to this work? The essays in this volume offer reflections on the relationship between narratives and ethics.

The question of how societies respond to our bodies' ills is one which has had tremendous hold on contemporary imaginations. This reader includes selections by the best thinkers in the ethics of health care, bioethics and philosophy of health care. Unlike the majority of collections that serve undergraduate and graduate courses in bioethics, this book stresses a wider range of questions and invites enquiry that should broaden the range of discourse.

In the words of Catharine MacKinnon, 'a woman is not yet a name for a way of being human.' In other words, women are still excluded, as authors and agents, from identifying what it is to be human and what therefore violates the dignity and integrity of humans. Recognition, Responsibility, and Rights is written in response to that failure. This collection of essays by prominent feminist thinkers advances the positive feminist project of remapping the moral landscape by developing theory that acknowledges the diversity of women. This book is the first volume in a new series of edited...

Hilde Lindemann Nelson focuses on the stories of groups of people including Gypsies, mothers, nurses, and transsexuals whose identities have been defined by those with the power to speak for them and to constrain the scope of their actions. By placing their stories side by side with narratives about the groups in question, Nelson arrives at some important insights regarding the nature of identity. She regards personal identity as consisting not only of how people view themselves but also of how others view them. These perceptions combine to shape the person's field of action. If a dominant...

The Patient in the Family diagnoses the ways in which the worlds of home and hospital misunderstand each other. The authors explore how medicine, through its new reproductive technologies, is altering the structure of families, how families can participate more fully in medical decision-making, and how to understand the impact on families when medical advances extend life but not vitality.