In a compelling and provocative paper, ‘Solving the Self-Illness Ambiguity: The Case for Construction Over Discovery,’ Sofia M.I. Jeppsson distinguishes two ways of addressing the self-illness ambiguty problem. The first is the Realist Solution, which postulates a pre-existing border between the self and the illness and frames the goal of treatment in psychiatry as helping the patient ‘discover’ this boundary. Addressing the shortcomings of the Realist Solution, both in terms of its feasibility and possible outcomes, Jeppsson proposes and defends the (...) Constructivist Solution, according to which the patient, through self-reflection and deliberation with others, including the clinicians, decides, which parts of her experiences they identify with themselves and which parts they attribute to their illness. This paper critically evaluates Jeppson’s arguments and addresses some of the shortcomings of Jeppsson’s positive argument, i.e. the Constructivist Solution. (shrink)

The philosophy of medicine is an area that has experienced significant growth and change in the last decade or so. While usually thought to be distinct from bioethics, the philosophy of medicine addresses a wide range of questions having to do with epistemology, metaphysics, and values. In this survey, I use the concept of the reference class to draw connections between a number of questions of longstanding and of more recent concern in the philosophy of medicine. By focusing on the (...) way in which the reference class plays a role in questions and approaches that sometimes seem to be at odds with one another, I hope to illustrate the ways in which these oppositions are less complete than they might at first appear, and to show how the connections between different problems are being redrawn. (shrink)

This paper attempts to make more explicit the relationship between narrativity and feminist care ethics. The central concern is the way in which narrativity carries the semantic load that some accounts of feminist care ethics imply but leave hanging. In so doing, some feminist theorists of care-based ethics then undervalue the major contribution that narrativity provides to care ethics: it carries the semantic load that is essential to the best care. In this article, I defend the narrative as the central (...) medium though which we make sense of and communicate our lives and their attendant hopes and cares. More than just working with the narrative of the cared-for, caring is about investing in the narrative of the cared-for in order to meet the needs of this cared-for and how this narrative might turn out. I will further demonstrate how the attitude of caring or investing in a narrative would amount to what Gabriel Marcel has described as the attitude of disponibilité. (shrink)

Scholarly debate over faux-snuff’s content has predominantly focused on realism and affect. This paper seeks to offer an alternative interpretation, examining what faux-snuff’s form reveals about self. Faux-snuff is typically presented from a first-person perspective, and as such is foundationally invested in the killer’s experiences as they record their murder spree. First then, I propose that the simulated-snuff form reifies self-experience in numerous ways. Faux-snuff’s characteristic formal attributes capture the self’s limited, fractured qualities, for example. Second, I contend that the (...) faux-snuff film’s singular focus lays bare the killer-self. The killer’s identity is principally constituted by the murders they commit. Resultantly, faux-snuff’s victims necessarily affirm the killer qua killer in the moment of murder. However, homicide eradicates the victim. Victims thus vanish in the moment they become the killer’s counter-identity. Consequently, the mock-snuff film centralises not only killing, but also the killer’s self-abnegation. Simulated-snuff’s repeated murders are a compulsive process of becoming in which the killer-self is both reified and erased. Despite presenting events through the killer’s eyes then, the simulated-snuff film can never provide access to the killer. The killer is an absent-presence that also acts as a constant reminder that the viewer is profoundly distanced from the action depicted, despite its apparent immediacy. In sum, faux-snuff commonly combines first-person form with relentless violent content. That melding leads me to scrutinize the apparently absolute binary oppositions at the heart of self-conception. By nature of their approach, these films routinely expose the tipping points between victim/killer, self/other, and life/death. In doing so, simulated-snuff catalyses questions about the self in general, and about our own selves in particular. (shrink)

Scholarly debate over faux-snuff’s content has predominantly focused on realism and affect. This paper seeks to offer an alternative interpretation, examining what faux-snuff’s form reveals about self. Faux-snuff is typically presented from a first-person perspective (killer-cam), and as such is foundationally invested in the killer’s experiences as they record their murder spree. First then, I propose that the simulated-snuff form reifies self-experience in numerous ways. Faux-snuff’s characteristic formal attributes capture the self’s limited, fractured qualities, for example. Second, I contend that (...) the faux-snuff film’s singular focus lays bare the killer-self. The killer’s identity is principally constituted by the murders they commit. Resultantly, faux-snuff’s victims necessarily affirm the killer qua killer in the moment of murder. However, homicide eradicates the victim. Victims thus vanish in the moment they become the killer’s counter-identity. Consequently, the mock-snuff film centralises not only killing, but also the killer’s self-abnegation. Simulated-snuff’s repeated murders are a compulsive process of becoming in which the killer-self is both reified and erased. Despite presenting events through the killer’s eyes then, the simulated-snuff film can never provide access to the killer. The killer is an absent-presence that also acts as a constant reminder that the viewer is profoundly distanced from the action depicted, despite its apparent immediacy. In sum, faux-snuff commonly combines first-person form with relentless violent content. That melding leads me to scrutinize the apparently absolute binary oppositions at the heart of self-conception. By nature of their approach, these films routinely expose the tipping points between victim/killer, self/other, and life/death. In doing so, simulated-snuff catalyses questions about the self in general, and about our own selves in particular,. (shrink)