Mapping Suffering: Pain, Illness, and Happiness in the Christian Tradition

Abstract

Respect for autonomy is the foundation of modern bioethics, even (or especially) where bioethics is attentive to the problem of suffering caused by the practice of medicine itself. It provides guidance in the midst of therapeutic and moral uncertainty, justification for morally problematic enterprises, and the promise of protection against self-serving or predatory medical personnel. Yet bioethical arguments that appeal to the injustice or the horror of suffering depend on an instinctual and uncomplicated association of suffering, especially imposed suffering, with evil. This uncomplicated association, this flattening of the complexities of the moral landscape, must lead to a diminished capacity to navigate the very difficulties that define the field of bioethics. This dissertation explores the relationship, particularly, of autonomy, suffering, and happiness in modern bioethics, as represented by three key theorists (James Childress, Tom Beauchamp, and H. Tristram Engelhardt). It then contrasts these findings with resources from the Christian tradition: Luke-Acts, the letters of Paul, and the theologians Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Genoa, and Margaret Ebner. Their accounts of the meaning and experience of suffering within well-lived lives makes for a more robust account of the moral life, one in which suffering plays a formative part.