Justice and the Living Human Web

This chapter focuses on justice. Part one begins with a discussion of how justice is articulated in Principles of Biomedical Ethics. This is followed by two classic cases concerning justice: the Seattle Dialysis Committee and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The former deals primarily with clinical ethics, and the latter with research ethics. Together they illustrate how justice is often understood in bioethics. Part two focuses on Bonnie Miller-McLemore’s pastoral image of the living human web. The essential features of this image include the following claims: (i) human suffering needs to be understood in context; (ii) psychology, while valuable and necessary, cannot by itself make sense of the whole of individual human experience; and (iii) other perspectives and disciplines, therefore, are needed, such as sociology, anthropology, philosophy, economics, and more. Part three correlates justice and the living human web.

Pastoral Hermeneutics and the Challenge of a Global Economy: Care to the Living Human Web

The author discusses the relationship between a pastoral hermeneutics and the current social context as determined by international communication and globalization. He explores the influence of telecommunications on the human quest for meaning and the implication of this for pastoral care and counseling. A paradigm shift is proposed in terms of care to the living human web. A pastoral assessment which interprets the undergirding philosophy and belief system of globalization and its influence on human dignity is suggested; and a pastoral ministry which takes up its prophetic task and voices the needs of people in terms of a “globalization from below” is explicated.