title: Normativity unbound: liminality in palliative care ethics.
abstract: This article applies the anthropological concept of liminality to reconceptualize palliative care ethics. Liminality possesses both spatial and temporal dimensions. Both these aspects are analyzed to provide insight into the intersubjective relationship between patient and caregiver in the context of palliative care. Aristotelian practical wisdom, or phronesis, is considered to be the appropriate model for palliative care ethics, provided it is able to account for liminality. Moreover, this article argues for the importance of liminality for providing an ethical structure that grounds the doctrine of double effect and overcomes the impasse of phronesis in the treatment of the terminally ill.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University, 3520 University Street, Montreal, QC, H3A 2A7, Canada. Hillel.Braude@mail.mcgill.ca
authors.forename: Hillel
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Braude
mesh_terms: D017028:Caregivers / Q000941:ethics*; D003210:Concept Formation; D016292:Procedural Sedation / Q000941:ethics; D034723:Double Effect Principle; D028663:Ethical Theory; D006801:Humans; D028681:Moral Obligations; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000941:ethics* / Q000379:methods; D013727:Terminal Care / Q000941:ethics* / Q000379:methods; D019452:Terminally Ill; D028722:Virtues