To Fix or to Heal

Joseph E. Davis is Research Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Research at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He is the Publisher of The Hedgehog Review and is the author or editor of three books, including Accounts of Innocence: Sexual Abuse, Trauma, and the Self.Ana Marta González is Associate Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Navarra, Spain, where she is the Director of the Emotional Culture and Identity project at the Institute for Culture and Society. She is also the Academic Director of the Social Trends Institute. Her publications include Care Professions and Globalization: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives.

"An important and provocative contribution to a growing debate over the nature and social impact of what the authors describe as a dysfunctionally reductionist medical enterprise. This book questions the boundaries and moral implications of what many of us have come to accept as a necessarily medicalized world, a world of fixable individual bodies. It deserves a broad readership." - Charles Rosenberg, author of Our Present Complaint: American Medicine, Then and Now "Just when you thought nothing new could be said about reductionism and holism in biomedicine, To Fix or To Heal appears and proves otherwise. Balanced and non-polemical, this collection shows how many recent biomedical developments, however much they seem to marginalize questions of value, morality, and social responsibility, often end up evoking them and making their consideration more urgent than ever." - Robert Aronowitz, author of Unnatural History: Breast Cancer and American Society "I thoroughly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in competing models in contemporary medicine." (Sociology of Health & Illness) "[To Fix or To Heal] may help to enlighten those interested in policy to appreciate the historical dimensions of contemporary debates. Conversely, it could be useful reading for historians who want to think about how their research could play a role in ongoing discussions about tensions between reductionism and holism for health and health care." (Bulletin of the History of Medicine) "To Fix or to Heal is an exciting and interestingly eclectic volume and a valuable contribution to the scholarship on ethics, public health, and justice." (New Genetics and Society)