TY - JOUR AU - Covaleski, Nicholas PY - 2021/11/29 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Dementia and the Boundaries of Secular Personhood JF - Philosophy of Medicine JA - philmed VL - 2 IS - 2 SE - Perspectives DO - 10.5195/pom.2021.65 UR - https://philmed.pitt.edu/philmed/article/view/65 SP - AB - <div><p class="AbstractParagraphs"><span lang="EN-US">For many, dementia disrupts basic ideas about what it means to be human, raising profound philosophical and theological questions on the nature of personhood. In this article I ask what dementia might reveal about personhood in a “secular age.” I suggest that the ill-fitting relationship between Western bioethics, with its emphasis on autonomy, and dementia throws into relief the boundaries of a secular self, and I tease out the ethical implications of the limits of those boundaries by highlighting a biopolitics of secularism. Lastly, I offer a theological account of dementia that situates dependence as a central feature of the human condition, and enriches a secular biomedical understanding of this neurocognitive disorder.</span></p></div> ER -