Testimonial Choices in Healthcare
(Sponsored by The Mind Association)
On September 14th, we (Katherine Puddifoot and Anneli Jefferson) will be hosting a one-day workshop on the topic of testimonial choices in healthcare at the University of Durham.
The workshop focuses on the testimonial choices—choices about how to present information to other people—made by medical professionals. Special attention will be given to difficult choices that are faced by those medical professionals who convey information about the mind/brain or convey information that could have a serious negative impact on the psychology of those receiving the information. This workshop brings together philosophers working on diverse issues relating to testimonial choice, with the aim of opening up new conversations about this important topic.
In addition to the invited speakers, the organisers invite the submission of abstracts by researchers interested in moral and epistemic questions surrounding the information provided by clinicians and the way it is framed. We particularly encourage researchers early in their career and/or those who do not yet have a permanent post and will be able to cover accommodation and some travel costs for UK travel for researchers whose abstracts are accepted.
Invited speakers:
Jan-Hendrik Heinrichs (Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany): Framing Health Issues as Age – Turning Age into a Disease
Anneli Jefferson (University of Cardiff): Shaping self and other perception through the use of brain disorder language in psychiatry
Katherine Puddifoot (Durham University): Anxiety in Somatic Illness: On the (im)possibility of avoiding epistemic paternalism and epistemic injustice
Aness Webster (Durham University): Shame, Racism and Communicative Injustice
Possible topics might be:
Is there a role for benevolent paternalism in testimonial choices? If so, what kind(s)?
To what extent can clinicians foresee and/or control the effect of the way they present information?
To what extent should clinicians be expected to foresee or control this?
Do moral and epistemic goals ever conflict in testimonial choices?
Are there issues surrounding testimonial choices in the psychiatric context that are different from those in somatic medicine?
Please send 1000 word abstract to jeffersona1@cardiff.ac.uk by May 23rd 2023. Successful applicants will be notified by June 20th 2023.