TY - JOUR
T1 - What we talk about when we talk about pediatric suffering
AU - Tate, Tyler
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2020/8
Y1 - 2020/8
N2 - In this paper I aim to show why pediatric suffering must be understood as a judgment or evaluation, rather than a mental state. To accomplish this task, first I analyze the various ways that the label of suffering is used in pediatric practice. Out of this analysis emerge what I call the twin poles of pediatric suffering. At one pole sits the belief that infants and children with severe cognitive impairment cannot suffer because they are nonverbal or lack subjective life experience. At the other pole exists the idea that once child suffering reaches some threshold it is ethical to eliminate the sufferer. Concerningly, at both poles, any particular child vanishes from view. Second, in an attempt to identify a theory of suffering inclusive of children, I examine two prominent so-called experiential accounts of suffering. I find them both wanting on account of their absurd entailments and their flawed assumptions regarding the subjective experiences of people who cannot communicate expressively. Finally, I extend arguments found in Alastair MacIntyre’s Dependent Rational Animals to argue that child suffering can be understood only as a set of absences—absences of conditions such as love, warmth, and freedom from pain. An evaluation of these absences reveals the exquisite dependency of children. It also discloses why pediatric suffering is necessarily a social and political event. Unlike adults, children will never be either the authors or the mitigators of their own suffering. Rather, children must rely wholly on others in order to resist suffering, grow, and flourish.
AB - In this paper I aim to show why pediatric suffering must be understood as a judgment or evaluation, rather than a mental state. To accomplish this task, first I analyze the various ways that the label of suffering is used in pediatric practice. Out of this analysis emerge what I call the twin poles of pediatric suffering. At one pole sits the belief that infants and children with severe cognitive impairment cannot suffer because they are nonverbal or lack subjective life experience. At the other pole exists the idea that once child suffering reaches some threshold it is ethical to eliminate the sufferer. Concerningly, at both poles, any particular child vanishes from view. Second, in an attempt to identify a theory of suffering inclusive of children, I examine two prominent so-called experiential accounts of suffering. I find them both wanting on account of their absurd entailments and their flawed assumptions regarding the subjective experiences of people who cannot communicate expressively. Finally, I extend arguments found in Alastair MacIntyre’s Dependent Rational Animals to argue that child suffering can be understood only as a set of absences—absences of conditions such as love, warmth, and freedom from pain. An evaluation of these absences reveals the exquisite dependency of children. It also discloses why pediatric suffering is necessarily a social and political event. Unlike adults, children will never be either the authors or the mitigators of their own suffering. Rather, children must rely wholly on others in order to resist suffering, grow, and flourish.
KW - Disability
KW - Pediatric ethics
KW - Quality of life
KW - Suffering
KW - Withholding/withdrawing treatment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097216203&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1007/s11017-020-09535-8
DO - 10.1007/s11017-020-09535-8
M3 - Article
C2 - 33400057
AN - SCOPUS:85097216203
SN - 1386-7415
VL - 41
SP - 143
EP - 163
JO - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics
JF - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics
IS - 4
ER -