Corporeality in the mode of pain, suffering and death: Bioethical perspective

Abstract

In the article, various modes of representation of a human body in a bioethical discourse (modes of norm, pain, suffering and death) are considered through the evolutional prism of "a medical look", philosophical conceptualization of the concept "body" and existing cultural and historical standards.

Each culture possesses the peculiar canon of corporality determining behavior of a subject of moral, its acts, its notions about the forbidden actions considered immoral. The feeling of own body is inseparable from the cultural and historical conventions which are carrying out moral canonization of a corporality.

There is a dualism in perception of a corporality, two-planned character of its understanding: as natural basis and as cultural object.

The fact that the moral is applicable only to the group of human beings, which possess certain corporal (biological) characteristics, is fundamental to modern bioethics. Therefore, the body of an embryo and a body of the capable person as two various types of a corporality assume different moral criteria.

The bioethical knowledge fixes a certain degree of independence of a corporality from the manipulations made by means of medical knowledge by the rule of the informed consent. However, this rule belongs to the normalized "full-fledged" subjects of moral, those who is capable to express their will, to be autonomous due to the existence of consciousness.

The corporeality can be considered in two main aspects: feelings and possession. These two foreshortenings reveal two models of understanding of the human personality. The identification of a human way of life with feeling assumes full merging of the person with his own corporality. In this case, а human existence can be considered as standing on one level with an animal.

Such ontological status may no longer cause the same moral attitude that causes a person carrying out full or relative control over his body. Special moral attitude to the human person may not apply to what is estimated to be just a human body. This argument becomes apparent in concrete bioethical situations. For example, supporters of abortion emphasize in the fetus only the presence of some human qualities, but not the human himself. Moreover, it testifies that actually before the birth human being is considered as the body endowed only with the natural status.

At the same time in the modern world, it makes no sense to speak about steady canons of a corporality as well as about uniform homogeneous morals.

The subject can adhere to any bodily canon, but he will have to face the problem of legitimacy of this choice, a tough and sometimes brutal manifestation of local legal standards, often forcing the subject to pay for his choice.