A Virtue Ethical Approach to Interpretation of the Suffering Other

In this article my aim is to take up a thread from an article by Svend Brinkmann, wherein he is anxious to show that mental suffering cannot exclusively be explained within the narrow vocabulary of medical diagnosis systems, but can, an should be, be articulated through a large range of ‘interpretive vocabularies’ (Brinkmann 2014). In line with Brinkmann’s emphasis on the large range of possible interpretive vocabularies, I will engage the moral philosopher Iris Murdoch to show how the exploration of different possible interpretations of a particular client’s situation is in fact an ethical task, which requires the practitioner’s personal development of virtue in terms of selfless, loving attention as the precondition for a realistic interpretation of the client’s situation.

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Murdoch, Iris (1919–99)

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy ◽

10.4324/9780415249126-l136-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Thomas Norgaard

Keyword(s):

Moral Theory ◽

Magnetic Force ◽

Strong Sense ◽

Moral Experience ◽

Iris Murdoch ◽

Moral Significance ◽

Moral Philosopher

Iris Murdoch was an Oxford moral philosopher and a prolific novelist. Her philosophy was marked by a strong sense of the moral significance of our inner lives: the quality of our seeing, feeling and imagining is significant, both in itself and as a background for our active lives. Moral effort, Murdoch believed, consists mainly in the struggle against our natural egoism. She thought ethics should discuss the techniques of this struggle and took a particular interest in the role art might play in such a context. Insisting on the irreducible plurality of the moral ‘field of force’, Murdoch did not develop a moral theory; yet she also believed that moral experience is haunted by a sense of unity. Her thought revolved around this tension. Inspired by Plato, she referred to this unity as ‘Good’ and understood it as a distant perfect reality present in imperfect human lives as a baffling but magnetic force. The phenomena and problems that had Murdoch’s philosophical interest were also explored in her fiction, despite her insistence that she was not a philosophical novelist.

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On art, morals and religion: Some reflections on the work of Iris Murdoch

Religious Studies ◽

10.1017/s0034412500000834 ◽

1978 ◽

Vol 14 (4) ◽

pp. 515-524 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Scott Dunbar

Keyword(s):

Moral Philosophy ◽

The Other ◽

Iris Murdoch ◽

Moral Philosopher ◽

Other Hand ◽

The One

Among contemporary novelists Iris Murdoch is unique. On the one hand she is a novelist and a philosopher and yet does not write philosophical novels, and, on the other hand, her work as a moral philosopher is uninfluenced by current moral philosophy.

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Clinical Holistic Medicine: Treatment of Physical Health Problems Without a Known Cause, Exemplified by Hypertension and Tinnitus

The Scientific World JOURNAL ◽

10.1100/tsw.2004.129 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

pp. 716-724 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Søren Ventegodt ◽

Mohammed Morad ◽

Isack Kandel ◽

Joav Merrick

Keyword(s):

Medical Diagnosis ◽

Personal Development ◽

Health Problems ◽

Holistic Medicine ◽

Medical Clinic ◽

Individual Character ◽

Physical Health Problems ◽

Will Force ◽

The Individual

In the medical clinic, we often face health problems that have no known cause, even after a thorough examination. Biomedicine is often unable to find a cure in these situations, leaving the problem unsolved or leaving the patient on a palliative pharmaceutical cure, which is often for a lifetime. In this case, consciousness-based, holistic medicine could be an alternative. Using the theories and tools of holistic medicine wisely, the physician can often provide treatment for the patient. The toolbox of holistic medicine makes it possible to work on everybody because there is always something related to the patients quality of life that can be improved: his love, his purpose of life, and the way he uses his talents, his mind, his feelings, his body, and his sexuality. For treatment in holistic medicine, it really does not matter as much that you cannot give the patient a precise medical diagnosis, because you can always work on the patient with the intention of healing his or her whole life and existence. It is quite a paradox that many of these diseases can be understood on the level of the individual patient at the same moment that the patient is cured; many of these diseases seem to be clearly related to the repression of the individual character, as stressed already by Hippocrates. So if you simply start working with the patient to help him confront old existential pain and coach him in his personal development of his life by intensifying its meaning and purpose, the symptoms very often simply disappear. The toolbox of holistic medicine also seems relevant to even difficult, neurotic, psychosomatic, and hypochondriac patients. Believing in the treatment and not giving up on your patient, and moving forward in the treatment with the patient himself is the ultimate goal, even when you yourself do not understand the mechanism fully. This will force you to develop your own competence and is, in essence, what makes an outstanding holistic physician.

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Small Computer System for Micrograph Analysis

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100097879 ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 39 ◽

pp. 270-271

Author(s):

J. F. Hainfeld ◽

J. S. Wall

Keyword(s):

Large Range ◽

Small Computer ◽

Black And White ◽

Contour Maps ◽

Points Of Interest ◽

Computer Aided Analysis ◽

Specialized Hardware ◽

Additional Memory ◽

Selection Of ◽

Publication Quality

Cost reduction and availability of specialized hardware for image processing have made it reasonable to purchase a stand-alone interactive work station for computer aided analysis of micrographs. Some features of such a system are: 1) Ease of selection of points of interest on the micrograph. A cursor can be quickly positioned and coordinates entered with a switch. 2) The image can be nondestructively zoomed to a higher magnification for closer examination and roaming (panning) can be done around the picture. 3) Contrast and brightness of the picture can be varied over a very large range by changing the display look-up tables. 4) Marking items of interest can be done by drawing circles, vectors or alphanumerics on an additional memory plane so that the picture data remains intact. 5) Color pictures can easily be produced. Since the human eye can detect many more colors than gray levels, often a color encoded micrograph reveals many features not readily apparent with a black and white display. Colors can be used to construct contour maps of objects of interest. 6) Publication quality prints can easily be produced by taking pictures with a standard camera of the T.V. monitor screen.

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Spherulite Structures in a Melt Spun Fe-Ni Austenitic Steel

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100117339 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 43 ◽

pp. 52-53

Author(s):

G. M. Michal ◽

T. K. Glasgow ◽

T. J. Moore

Keyword(s):

Austenitic Steel ◽

Room Temperature ◽

Elevated Temperatures ◽

Large Range ◽

Amorphous Structure ◽

Nucleation And Growth ◽

Ni Alloys ◽

Melt Spun ◽

Crystal Fibers ◽

Rapidly Solidified

Large additions of B to Fe-Ni alloys can lead to the formation of an amorphous structure, if the alloy is rapidly cooled from the liquid state to room temperature. Isothermal aging of such structures at elevated temperatures causes crystallization to occur. Commonly such crystallization pro ceeds by the nucleation and growth of spherulites which are spherical crystalline bodies of radiating crystal fibers. Spherulite features were found in the present study in a rapidly solidified alloy that was fully crysstalline as-cast. This alloy was part of a program to develop an austenitic steel for elevated temperature applications by strengthening it with TiB2. The alloy contained a relatively large percentage of B, not to induce an amorphous structure, but only as a consequence of trying to obtain a large volume fracture of TiB2 in the completely processed alloy. The observation of spherulitic features in this alloy is described herein. Utilization of the large range of useful magnifications obtainable in a modern TEM, when a suitably thinned foil is available, was a key element in this analysis.

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