Being Beheld: On the Liturgical Consummation of Clinical Ethics Consultation

Being Beheld examines the techniques we use to approach ethical decisions in healthcare, arguing that ethical decision making in healthcare ought to be a work of conscience searching for a patient’s good, rather than merely the deployment of correct techniques or methods. Offering a fresh analysis of both practical ethics and its methodology, with sustained attention on today’s most popular clinical ethics methods, the book alternates from on-the-ground problems to theory and back again. The central claim is that a good ethics technique should mirror the eucharistic liturgy, which facilitates encounter, reciprocity, and humility. The book is a work in practical ethics, offering students a complete reorientation of ethics from either powerless or power-grab to participation in the good of the other. In short, the search for a patient’s good should be an inherent aspect of every clinical encounter.

Offering case studies and lucid discussions of the current state of health care, Being Beheld is instructive to anyone who teaches, studies, or works in the areas of clinical ethics and health care.