Chapter 11 Blog Post

This chapter on Health Care Communication Ethics while good in theory does not give any practical knowledge (much like the rest of the book).  However in this case I find that the theory is especially not very useful.  For most of the book the theories and concepts have made sense.  But the care section of this theory is almost incomprehensible.  For example, "What drives the communication ethics of health care is the word 'care.' Health care communication ethics seeks to protect and promote care-care is the communicative action or practice that links to the good of responsiveness to the Other" (p. 199).  I have read this sentence a few times, yet I still do not know with certainty what they are trying to communicate.  In their theory, care is the driving force behind responsiveness, but responsiveness is care.

The chapter states,  "Responsiveness is the responsibility for doing the task of health care communication ethics" (p. 196). Therefore responsiveness is responsibility for doing a task and care is the driving force that links the two, where is the action of Health Care Ethics?  Every other chapter the basic for the theory is a communicative action, in this theory it seems to be simply the linking of communicative actions.  This theory seems to simply pass the buck so to speak from one action or category to another in order to have a sort of ethic.  Because of this I think that the theory is just a sort of branch off of our existing theories and has no true basis or core concept since it relies on other theories in order to exist and function.