H E R M E N E U T I C S A N D T H E P O L I T I C S O F I D E N T I T Y 239
Nor can we allow for both frameworks of interpretation. When we recognize the multiple ways in which we can understand Sense and Sensibility, we come to admire the novel all the more and to marvel at its countless interpretive meanings. When we recognize the different ways we can understand a dying child, we are caught in a relativist nightmare. Is the context for understanding the child that of health or religion? Which contextual interpretation of the identity of the child should be decisive: that of medicine within which the child is a diseased corporeal body or that of Christian Science within which the child is a soul alienated from God? Moreover, what is the proper context for understanding the potential death of the child? For Western medicine it is an avoidable event, looming only because of the parents’ irrationality. For Christian Scientists, ‘‘What appears to be an ending is merely a passing, ascending to a realm of higher understanding.’’23 Consequently, the focus of Western medicine on the body alone is misdirected. It may be that taking seriously the different interpretations of a text that stem from different contexts and different textual relations serves to deepen our understanding and appreciation of the text. Yet, texts do not require us to act, whereas deciding how to proceed in the context of medical care does. What, then, should doctors do when parents refuse to permit them to care for their children? Shapiro offers a possible way out of the problem. First, he distinguishes between a child’s basic interests which include his or her needs for food, shelter, education, and the like and the child’s best interests, which involve interests that the family thinks are important to his or her religious, ethical, or spiritual development, or to his or her particular talents and special needs.24 Second, like John Locke, Shapiro argues that responsibilities for children’s interests are fiduciary ones.
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Pam Robbins and Robley Whitson, ‘‘Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science,’’ in Christian Science: A Sourcebook of Contemporary Materials (Boston, MA: Christian Science Publishing Company, 1990), cited in Lederman, ‘‘When Religious Parents Decline Conventional Medical Treatment,’’ p. 918. Ian Shapiro, Democratic Justice (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 86.