A theory of meta-narrative-ethics: Michel Foucault and the Canadian debate on reproductive and genetic technologies

This thesis develops a theory of meta-narrative-ethics. Building on an elaboration in the domain of literature-and-medicine, my theory explores the relationship between narrative and subjectivity in the Canadian debate on reproductive technologies during the 1990s. The purpose is to illuminate ontological narrativity, a concept I develop referring to that aspect of a narrative that suggests a relationship that the subject ought to have with itself. Ethics is reinterpreted with a lens fashioned from the philosophy of Michel Foucault and I present an ethical analysis of the debate on reproductive technologies in terms of how the contemporary subject is led to rethink itself as a reproducing being.;My project begins with a comparison of two literary narratives, each of which stake out different positions in the debate on reproductive technologies. A feminist-poet and a surgeon-writer show that there is a wide gulf between participates in the debate, but the reason that I begin here is not to decide who is right or wrong but to suggest that different points of view show different rapport à soi.;The first part of this dissertation sets the context. It addresses first the domain of modern ethical thinking and presents a sketch of the essentials of modern ethics as well as two important critiques. I then move to narrative to show how widely it has come to be used, and I present the concept in terms of ethics, epistemology, and ontology. It is here that I set the groundwork for ontological narrativity.;Chapters 4, 5 and 6 form the next part of my thesis, which focuses on methodological development. A presentation of Foucault's thought takes place, which helps develop a theoretical basis for my theory of meta-narrative-ethics. I begin with a foucauldian interpretation of bioethics to show how foucauldian concepts give a different perspective, and then turn, in chapter 5, to a detailed presentation of foucauldian theorizing. In chapter 6, I present my theory of meta-narrative-ethics. This theory is based on a combination of Foucault's first period, called archaeology, and his third period, which was concerned with subjectivity. This method establishes an important connection between l'énoncé and rapport à soi, the statement and the relationship that the self has with itself. Both are essential to idea of ontological narrativity.;The third and forth parts present the meta-narrative-ethical analysis of the debate on reproductive technologies. It extracts statements from the participants in the debate and it discerns the relationships that are suggested by the ontological narrativity of each voice. Chapters 7, 8 and 9 present the political voice, the professional voice, and the voice of the media respectively. Chapter 10 concerns rapport à soi and the specific conception of the Canadian self found in the debate. I conclude that while there was potential in the debate for an understanding of ethics to go beyond what is found in typically modern analyses, what the debate does present in terms of subjectivity is ultimately rooted in the modern tradition. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).