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Where are the carers in healthcare law and ethics?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Jonathan Herring
Jonathan Herring*
Affiliation:
Exeter College, Oxford
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Abstract

The work of carers is too often unvalued and unrecognised. This paper seeks to demonstrate some of the ways in which law and traditional medical ethics overlook the interests of carers and the importance of their work. It argues that this is, in part, due to the individualistic ethic that has come to dominate legal and ethical discourse about medicine. It recommends an approach based on an ethic of care that seeks to promote and protect just relationships of care, rather than an individualised model of rights.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , March 2007 , pp. 51 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 2007

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Footnotes

*

A version of this paper was given at a seminar arranged by the Royal Institute of Philosophy at the Centre for Professional Ethics, University of Keele. I am grateful to the participants for their comments and those of two anonymous referees and Sally Sheldon.

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