Between Resignation and Optimization – The Temporal Structure of the Good Life in the Context of Healthcare for Old Age

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This subproject is dedicated to the relations between modern medicine and the temporal conditions of the good life with regard to ageing and old age. It analyses the interplay between medicine and healthcare for older people and different conceptions of the good life at old age. The main focus is on general practice as well as on geriatric medicine and eldercare. In addition, aspects from the contexts of cardiology and reproductive medicine will also be considered. Thus, the subproject aims to complement theoretical considerations on ageing and old age in philosophical ethics by medical ethical analyses of empirical-hermeneutical social research and cultural studies. In the context of the FOR, it complements the subprojects focusing on young and middle adulthood by a research perspective systematically dedicated to ageing and old age. In doing so, subproject 7 will take up philosophical analyses from subproject 1 (Philosophy) and concretize them from an empirically informed medical ethical perspective on this particular stage of life. At the same time, relevant findings from socio-empirical research and cultural studies regarding everyday life narratives of ageing and old age in subprojects 2 (Film/Television), 3 (Psychocardiology), 4 (Sociology/Social Psychology) and especially 6 (General Practice) will be analysed from the point of view of medical ethics and thus discussed in a theoretical ethical frame of reference. This way, a-temporal understandings of happiness, meaning, and wellbeing will be enriched by an empirically informed ethical perspective that considers the significance of the temporal extension and structure of the good life in the context of medicine and healthcare.