The Role of Moral Imagination in Patients' Decision-Making

Author： Rommetveit Kjetil Scully Jackie Leach Porz Rouven

ISSN： 0360-5310

Source： The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, Vol.38, Iss.2, 2013-04, pp. : 160-172

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Abstract

This article reviews recent developments within a number of academic disciplines pointing toward an increasing importance of imagination for understanding morality and cognition. Using elements from hermeneutics and metaphor theory, it works toward a framework for a more context-sensitive understanding of human agency, especially focusing on moral deliberation and change. The analytic framework is used to analyze the story of a patient making tough decisions in the context of prenatal diagnosis. We show how a relatively stable outlook on the world, here called the “baseline of choice, is challenged by unexpected events and how imaginative processes enter into the active creation of a new moral order. The ensuing interpretation is then placed within a broader philosophical landscape. John Dewey's notion of “dramatic rehearsal is put forward as one particularly promising way of understanding moral imagination, deliberation, and decision-making.