Ethics of the Body: Postconventional Challenges

In her introduction to this dynamic volume, co-editor Margrit Shildrick argues that mainstream bioethics is fundamentally 'out of touch' (p. 1). As bioethicists cling to outmoded modernist views of the self, while relying on and reproducing essentialist binaries, bioethics remains disconnected from actual bodies and the impact of postmodern culture and theory. Within this highly technological 'era of postmodernity' (p. 3), the book contends, such modernist conceptions are untenable. The collection's contributors argue that postconventionalist approaches, which include postmodernist, poststructuralist, phenomenological and other deconstructive methodologies, offer the means for a 'radical reconfiguration of bioethical thought'