In health care settings, the care of bodies is carried out by health care professionals whose practices are subject to norms that set limits to the invasion of privacy and integrity. The aim of this axis will be to elucidate the content of social norms that come into play in two phases of human life that concentrate the greatest density of ethical and normative problems: the beginning and the end. The research will focus on the processes of recomposition of norms around bodies made vulnerable by pathology, disability, aging, and the end of life.
This approach will consist in analyzing situations of doctor-patient-third party interactions at the extreme ages of life. The beginning and the end of life are governed by legal norms and moral expectations which are sources of a high density of ethical questions. In order to increase the knowledge available in health law and in human and social sciences on these two periods of vulnerability, the team will mobilize the knowledge of normative texts, the methodological tools of biomedical ethics and the methods of qualitative investigations.