Husserl's Account of Intersubjectivity as an Approach to the Other in Modern Medical Ethics

Abstract

This work considers the problem of otherness in modern medical ethics through the prism of Husserl’s phenomenology. The main goal of this investigation is to apply Husserl’s notion of phenomenological intersubjectivity to the ethical relations between physicians and patients. To achieve this, the phenomenological method is used which takes the experience of the subject as a starting point. This provides an opportunity to overcome the purely scientific approach to medicine which alienates the participants in the clinical situation from each other. The phenomenological approach allows the Other to exist in the subject’s world not only as a physical object but also as living body. This shift from a purely naturalistic approach to medicine to using the phenomenological method enhances the importance of the patient’s experience of his own illness but also his social responsibility to the physician since they both belong to a world of common values and ideas.

Keywords: phenomenology, medical ethics, intersubjectivity, otherness, Husserl