Nursing & Healthcare

Biography

Prof. Congiunti is Directress of International Society of St. Thomas Aquinas (SITA), Corresponding Academician of Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas and Member of Scientific Committee of Vatican Foundation STOQ “Science, Theology and the Ontological Quest”. Since 2007, she has thaught “Introduction to Ethics” in John Carroll University at Vatican City.

Research Interest

There are some philosophical notions connected to nursing and healthcare, such as compassion, vulnerability and happiness. Compassion isn’t only a feeling, but it is a moral virtue, and vulnerability isn’t only an accident but it is a weakness of ontic character. For a clearer analysis of compassion and vulnerability we need a clear philosophical anthropology. Materialistic monism and spiritualist dualism try to explain the essence of human beings, but only an ontologically based Personalism is capable of an explanation: human beings are a unified whole of body and soul. Humanity consists not only in being-human but also in becoming human, making one-self human, drawing ever closer and better to what we are. We are human beings: this is a fact. We are imperfect: this is a fact. So our being-human is bit simply a fact, but it is a task. Our end is to realize the potential implicit in our humanity, by developing ourselves in the direction indicated by our humanity. Finally, happiness consists in this task of “humanization.”