Health care in context: The sociality of the body and civic identity (Karl Rahner, Luce Irigaray)

This dissertation asserts that a social interpretation of the body offers a significant foundation for ethical analyses in health care institutions. An individualistic interpretation adequately conceptualizes neither the sociality of our embodiment nor the social body. This project develops a moral anthropology based on a social understanding of the body. It further specifies 'the social' by envisioning ethical civic relations that incorporate embodied difference. Embodied difference informs the defining and organizing of goods delivered by health care institutions. A social interpretation of the body within the civic unit contributes much both to the theoretical component of institution shaping and to the way society understands the role of health care institutions.; The project begins by analyzing key medical ethics texts to show how an individualistic emphasis inadequately frames social goods. It then builds on the work of Karl Rahner and Luce Irigaray to construct an interpretive framework for analyzing the goals of health care institutions. The project confines the discussion to their phenomenological analyses, in which their approaches to the body sustain and complement one another. Rahner focuses on the body within symbolic exchange, while Irigaray addresses how gender informs and gives ethical vision to civic identities.; Finally, the project applies this moral anthropology to the issue of abortion and public policy. It asserts that goods that emerge from the sociality of the body---full participation, material well-being, and respect for difference---advance civic flourishing.