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Bodily Integrity and Conceptions of Subjectivity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Mervi Patosalmi
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Abstract

This paper examines two different ways of understanding the concept of bodily integrity and their political implications. In Drucilla Cornell's use of the concept, the body cannot be separated from the mind. Protecting bodily integrity means protecting possibilities of imagining the self as whole. Martha Nussbaum's theorizing is based on a liberal way of conceptualizing subjectivity, in which the mind and the body are separate, and bodily integrity is used to refer to physical inviolability.

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Type
Original Articles
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Hypatia , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , Spring 2009, pp. 125 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by Mervi Patosalmi

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