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12 - A phenomenological approach to bioethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2009

By
George Agich
Edited by
Richard Ashcroft ,
Anneke Lucassen ,
Michael Parker ,
Marian Verkerk  and
Guy Widdershoven
George Agich
Affiliation:
Professor, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine
Richard Ashcroft
Affiliation:
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London
Anneke Lucassen
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
Michael Parker
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Marian Verkerk
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
Guy Widdershoven
Affiliation:
Universiteit Maastricht, Netherlands
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Summary

Phenomenology is a diverse and complex philosophical movement encompassing a broad range of philosophical concerns that are linked to a common method and orientation (Spiegelberg 1982). The so-called phenomenological method involves a commitment to focus philosophical analysis and discourse on the things themselves, as they are experienced in consciousness. The phenomenological method is applicable to various specialised fields including psychological aspects of consciousness such as perception, memory, imagination or cognition, as well as everyday experience. For present purposes, I shall not discuss the complex theory of consciousness and method that divides the phenomenological movement into different branches (Spiegelberg 1982). Instead, I shall show how the phenomenological method can be useful in analysing the case of Jane and Phyllis described in Chapter 1. In order to do so, I shall discuss three related topics: the phenomenological view of experience and method; the structure of typifications or taken-for-granted background meanings that structure bioethical analysis and discourse; and elements of the case example chosen to illustrate a phenomenological approach.

Experience and method

The locus of our everyday experience is the life world of the natural attitude (Husserl 1967), which involves the taken-for-granted set of meanings that define the common-sense world of everyday life (Schutz and Luckman 1973). The world of the natural attitude is shaped socially.

Experience of the world and its objects is always structured by meanings that are themselves correlated (in intentionality) with acts of consciousness. All experience is permeated with meaning.

Type
Chapter
Information
Case Analysis in Clinical Ethics , pp. 187 - 200
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

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References

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