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The particularity of dignity: relational engagement in care at the end of life

This paper articulates dignity as relational engagement in concrete care situations. Dignity is often understood as an abstract principle that represents inherent worth of all human beings. In actual care practices, this principle has to be substantiated in order to gain meaning and inform care acti...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Pols, Jeannette, Pasveer, Bernike, Willems, Dick
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5814535/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28752416
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11019-017-9787-9
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author Pols, Jeannette
Pasveer, Bernike
Willems, Dick
author_facet Pols, Jeannette
Pasveer, Bernike
Willems, Dick
author_sort Pols, Jeannette
collection PubMed
description This paper articulates dignity as relational engagement in concrete care situations. Dignity is often understood as an abstract principle that represents inherent worth of all human beings. In actual care practices, this principle has to be substantiated in order to gain meaning and inform care activities. We describe three exemplary substantiations of the principle of dignity in care: as a state or characteristic of a situation; as a way to differentiate between socio-cultural positions; or as personal meaning. We continue our analysis by presenting cases on dignity in care related to us in focus groups with medical professionals. Our empirical ethical lens is in this paper is to analyse, not the meaning of dignity, but the way in which it emerges in practices where it is pursued, within relationships between people, technologies, places, regulations, and the values cherished by or embedded in them. We show that professional caregivers recognize in the dignity of the person they care for their own dignity; giving up on the one implies no less than giving up on the other. This ‘mirrored experience’ of dignity expresses itself in professional’s engagement with the situation. The value of this engagement, we argue, lies not primarily in realizing the particular content of the values at stake. We point to the importance of engagement itself, even if the values engaged with cannot be realized to the full, and even if competing versions of dignity are at stake simultaneously. In this way the caregivers provide us with interesting examples of moral actorship in situations of conflicting values.
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spelling pubmed-58145352018-02-26 The particularity of dignity: relational engagement in care at the end of life Pols, Jeannette Pasveer, Bernike Willems, Dick Med Health Care Philos Scientifc Contribution This paper articulates dignity as relational engagement in concrete care situations. Dignity is often understood as an abstract principle that represents inherent worth of all human beings. In actual care practices, this principle has to be substantiated in order to gain meaning and inform care activities. We describe three exemplary substantiations of the principle of dignity in care: as a state or characteristic of a situation; as a way to differentiate between socio-cultural positions; or as personal meaning. We continue our analysis by presenting cases on dignity in care related to us in focus groups with medical professionals. Our empirical ethical lens is in this paper is to analyse, not the meaning of dignity, but the way in which it emerges in practices where it is pursued, within relationships between people, technologies, places, regulations, and the values cherished by or embedded in them. We show that professional caregivers recognize in the dignity of the person they care for their own dignity; giving up on the one implies no less than giving up on the other. This ‘mirrored experience’ of dignity expresses itself in professional’s engagement with the situation. The value of this engagement, we argue, lies not primarily in realizing the particular content of the values at stake. We point to the importance of engagement itself, even if the values engaged with cannot be realized to the full, and even if competing versions of dignity are at stake simultaneously. In this way the caregivers provide us with interesting examples of moral actorship in situations of conflicting values. Springer Netherlands 2017-07-27 2018 /pmc/articles/PMC5814535/ /pubmed/28752416 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11019-017-9787-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Scientifc Contribution
Pols, Jeannette
Pasveer, Bernike
Willems, Dick
The particularity of dignity: relational engagement in care at the end of life
title The particularity of dignity: relational engagement in care at the end of life
title_full The particularity of dignity: relational engagement in care at the end of life
title_fullStr The particularity of dignity: relational engagement in care at the end of life
title_full_unstemmed The particularity of dignity: relational engagement in care at the end of life
title_short The particularity of dignity: relational engagement in care at the end of life
title_sort particularity of dignity: relational engagement in care at the end of life
topic Scientifc Contribution
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5814535/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28752416
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11019-017-9787-9
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