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Tytuł:
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Normative force of appeals to personhood in dementia care: A critical examination of Kitwood's account of personhood.
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Autorzy:
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Soofi H; Macquarie University-Clinical Medicine, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
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Źródło:
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Bioethics [Bioethics] 2021 Nov; Vol. 35 (9), pp. 884-890. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Aug 20.
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Typ publikacji:
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Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
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Język:
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English
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Imprint Name(s):
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Publication: Oxford : Wiley-Blackwell
Original Publication: Oxford ; New York : Basil Blackwell, c1987-
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MeSH Terms:
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Dementia*/therapy
Personhood*
Humans
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Contributed Indexing:
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Keywords: Kitwood; dementia; ethics; malignant social psychology; personhood
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Entry Date(s):
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Date Created: 20210820 Date Completed: 20220110 Latest Revision: 20220110
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Update Code:
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20240104
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DOI:
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10.1111/bioe.12942
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PMID:
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34416033
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In this paper, I critically examine Kitwood's account of personhood for people with dementia. His account has been influential in supporting appeals to personhood in both clinical and bioethical literature on dementia care. I demonstrate that Kitwood's account does not run into common objections against invoking personhood as a normative notion, namely, the objection of exclusionary implications and the objection of redundancy. I argue, however, that Kitwood's account suffers from two other major conceptual issues. These include (a) unreasonable social contingency, and thus, precariousness, of his notion of personhood for people with dementia; and (b) insufficient theoretical connection between his account of personhood and his proposed list of indicators of well-being for people with dementia. Despite these issues, I do not agree with the following view: that, in the context of dementia care, scholars should refrain from appealing to personhood considerations. Instead, I defend the view that while Kitwood fails to offer a compelling theoretical account of personhood of people with dementia, his empirically driven list of indicators of well-being and his notion of malignant social phycology seem to be sensitive to key ethical considerations relevant to dementia care. I propose that we pursue alternative ways of explaining what is morally (un) desirable about them without (explicit) appeal to personhood.
(© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)