| Description |
1 online resource (viii, 205 pages) |
| Contents |
Introduction: Toward an ethics of aging / Joseph E. Davis -- Part I. Our deficit model of aging -- Devalued status of old age / Joseph E. Davis -- Structural-ethical source of the matter: The medical-industrial complex / Sharon R. Kaufman -- Beyond avoidance and autonomy / Paul Scherz -- Part II. LIving old age well -- Epiphanies, small and large / Wilfred M. McClay -- Contraction of time and existential awakening: A phenomenology of authentic aging / Kevin Aho -- End of the story: A narrativist view of life's finale / Charles Guignon -- Happiness and aging: an unlikely combination? / Bryan S. Turner -- Part III. Old age that goes well -- Friendship, citizenship, and abandonment: older adults with dementia and without family caregivers / Janelle S. Taylor-- Priority of social and physical function: older adults in the CAPABLE program / Sarah L. Scanton and Janiece Taylor -- From diagnosis to person-focused prognosis: Toward a healthy political economy of Aging in America / Justin Mutter |
| Summary |
Although philosophy, religion, and civic cultures used to help people prepare for aging and dying well, this is no longer the case. Today, aging is frequently seen as a problem to be solved and death as a harsh reality to be masked. In part, our cultural confusion is rooted in an inadequate conception of the human person, which is based on a notion of absolute individual autonomy that cannot but fail in the face of the dependency that comes with aging and decline at the end of life. To help correct the ethical impoverishment at the root of our contemporary social confusion, The Evening of Life provides an interdisciplinary examination of the challenges of aging and dying well. It calls for a re-envisioning of cultural concepts, practices, and virtues that embraces decline, dependency, and finitude rather than stigmatizes them. Bringing together the work of sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, theologians, and medical practitioners, this collection of essays develops an interrelated set of conceptual tools to discuss the current challenges posed to aging and dying well, such as flourishing, temporality, narrative, and friendship. Above all, it proposes a positive understanding of thriving in old age that is rooted in our shared vulnerability as human beings. It also suggests how some of these tools and concepts can be deployed to create a medical system that better responds to our contemporary needs. The Evening of Life will interest bioethicists, medical practitioners, clinicians, and others involved in the care of the aging and dying--from back cover |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Aging.
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Death.
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Quality of life.
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deaths.
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quality of life.
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SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Death & Dying.
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Quality of life
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Aging
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Death
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| Author |
Davis, Joseph E., editor
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Scherz, Paul J., editor
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| ISBN |
9780268108045 |
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0268108048 |
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9780268108038 |
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026810803X |
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