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HOLDING ONE ANOTHER (WELL, WRONGLY, CLUMSILY) IN A TIME OF DEMENTIA
Author(s) -
LINDEMANN HILDE
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
metaphilosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1467-9973
pISSN - 0026-1068
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9973.2009.01592.x
Subject(s) - identity (music) , dementia , bioethics , sociology , psychology , epistemology , law , philosophy , aesthetics , political science , medicine , disease , pathology
This essay takes a close look at a species of care that is particularly needed by people with progressive dementias but that has not been much discussed in the bioethics literature: the activity of holding the person in her or his identity. It presses the claim that close family members have a special responsibility to hold on to the demented person's identity for her or him, and offers some criteria for doing this morally well or badly. Finally, it considers how even those with dementia can hold others in their identities, and suggests that this kind of holding too can have great moral worth.