Ethics of the Body – Postconventional Challenges (Basic Bioethics)

The provocative contention of the postmodernist and feminist essays in Ethics of theBody is that conventional bioethics is out of touch, despite its growing profile. It is out of touchwith an ongoing phenomenological sense of bodies themselves; with the impact of postmodernist theoryas it problematizes the certainties of binary thinking; and with a postmodern culture in whichbioscientific developments force us to question what is meant by the notion of the human self. Theauthors demonstrate that the conventional normative framework of bioethics is called into questionby issues as wide ranging as genetic manipulation, disability, high-tech prosthetics, andintersexuality. The essays show how both the theory and practice of bioethics can benefit frompostmodernism's characteristic fluidity and multiplicity, as well as from the insights of areconceived feminist bioethics. They address issues in philosophy, law, bioscientific research,psychiatry, cultural studies, and feminism from a "postconventional" perspective that looks beyondthe familiar ideas of the body, proposing not a bioethics about the body but a radical ethics of thebody.After exploring notions of difference in both feminist and postmodernist terms, the bookconsiders specific issues -- including HIV, addiction, borderline personality disorder, and cancer-- that challenge the principles of conventional bioethics. The focus then turns to questions raisedby biotechnology: one essay rethinks the traditional feminist ethics of care in the context of newreproductive technology, while others tackle genetic and genomic issues. Finally, the book looks atembodiment and some specifically anomalous forms of being-in-the-body, including a consideration ofintersex infants and children that draws on feminist, postructuralist, and queer theory.

Roxanne Mykitiuk is Associate Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, Toronto.