Morality and health /

The authors of this edited work explore secular, rather than just religious, morality and the significance of the complex relationship between morality and health. Essays provide an overview of the meaning of disease, looking particularly at the continuum of moral positions ranging from personal and institutional responsibility for development of disease on the one hand, and risk for disease aside from personal choices on the other. Relationships between morality (behaviors and beliefs) and health are seen in historical and cultural contexts. Emphasis on lifestyles and practices such as cleanliness, smoking, alcohol, drugs, suicide, meat avoidance, and sexual activity are viewed from chronological and religious perspectives and from ethnic and cultural considerations. The meaning of disease and suffering and chronic disease are addressed from multiple moral positions. Though medicine and morals are often seen as incompatible, the essays in this book suggest they are deeply entangled. General readers; undergraduates through professionals. P. J. Broten University of Michigan