Spirituality in Health Care

Paley, John ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9187-5221 (2025) Spirituality in Health Care. In: Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 585-613. ISBN 978-94-024-2252-8

Abstract

The discourse of spirituality in health care (SIHC) exhibits a number of features not always present in the academic literature. One founding principle is that extravagant metaphysical claims can be made without having to be defended, and in the expectation that they will not be challenged. These claims include the universality premise: everybody is spiritual. Very roughly, SIHC discourse can be divided into two: an inflationary version centered on the USA, and a deflationary version centered on the UK and Europe. Correspondingly, there are two distinctions between spirituality and religion: inner/outer and broad/narrow, respectively. For the former, spirituality is just a privatized form of religion. For the latter, religion is one spirituality option among many others. Both forms of SIHC discourse constitute a classification project, permitting a discursive space to be created for religious sensibilities in health care. The classification project is a broadly theological one.

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