Means, Ends and Medical Care

Overview: Broad Considerations in the Relation of Means and Ends, Treating and Healing. 1. Cognitive Semantic Structures in Informal Means/Ends Reasoning. a. Formal as Opposed to Informal Approaches to Decision Making. b. Imaginative Structures Used in Informal Clinical Reasoning. c. The Embodied Basis of Valuation. d. Conclusion. 2. Health and Disease: Fluid Concepts Evolved Non-Literally. a. An Overview. b. Why and (Provisionally) How Disease Is a Radial Category. c. Central Members of the Disease Category. d. Non-Central Members of the Disease Category. e. Conclusion. 3. John Dewey’s Perspective on Means and Ends: the Setting which makes Informal Deliberation Necessary. a. Naturalism. b. Antifoundationalism. c. Qualities Unquantifiable. d. Qualities Fully Real. e. Values Interactional, Not Rigidly Compartmental. f. Broad View of Rationality. g. The Importance of Context. h. Conclusion.4. John Dewey’s View of Situations, Problems, Means and Ends. a. Situations. b. Tertiary Qualities. c. Settled and Unsettled Situations. d. Means and Ends. e. The Strengths of Dewey’s Theory, In Summary. f. Problems of Dewey’s Means and Ends Theory. 5. Preference, Utility and Value in Means and Ends Reasoning. a. Introduction. b. General Assumptions of Expected Utility Theory. c. The Axioms of Expected Utility Theory. d. Utility Is Not Fulfillment. Fulfillment Is Not Utility. e. Utility and the Past. f. Reasoning about Ends. g. Conclusion. 6. Full Spectrum Means and Ends Reasoning: its Place in Medicine. First Part: Informal Judgment and the Art of Medicine. a. Judgments. About the Setting. b. Defining the Problematic Situation. c. Judgments about the Problem.d. Judgments about Ends and Values. e. Judgments about Treatment. Second Part: Providing for the Art of Medicine. a. Medical Education and Health Care Education in General. b. The Course of Medical Care. c. The Integrity of the Health Care Profession. Third Part: General Conclusion.