On the 18th of June Dr Ian James Kidd presented a talk entitled ‘Pathophobia, Illness and Vices’.
Kidd noted that narrative accounts of the lived experience of somatic illness consistently describe a whole range of morally objectionable forms of treatment – coldness, rudeness, insensitive comments, intrusive questions, and acts of cruelty, neglect, and coldheartedness. All of these are instances of what he calls ‘pathophobia’, the oppressive mistreatment of somatically ill persons. After distinguishing this concept from sanism and ableism, he argued that the moral wrongs of pathophobia are best analysed using a framework of vice ethics. To that end he described five clusters of pathophobic vices and failing and ended with some ameliorative proposals.
Contact: Dr Ian James Kidd – Ian.Kidd@nottingham.ac.uk