Richard M. Zaner Papers

Richard Morris Zaner (1933-) is a philosopher and medical ethicist whose scholarly interests were concerned with developing the phenomenological approach to human life. He worked in the fields of philosophy, sociology, history, religious studies, and medicine. His interest in ethical issues largely concerned medicine and technology, including genetics, infertility treatment, neonatal intensive care, organ transplants, and death and dying.

Zaner was born on 20 September 1933 in Duncan, Arizona. He received a BS from the University of Houston (1957), and MA (1959) and PhD degrees in philosophy (1961) from the New School of Social Research. Zaner was a student of Dorion Cairns, Aron Gurwitsch, Hans Jonas, Maurice Natanson, and Alfred Schutz. In the 1960s, Zaner held academic appointments in the departments of philosophy at Lamar State University, Trinity University, and the University of Texas at Austin and emerged as a leading phenomenologist in the field of traditional academic philosophy.

In the early 1970s, at the invitation of Edmund Pellegrino, Zaner began exploring issues in what was then the new field of bioethics. Zaner pioneered phenomenologically-based methods and practices for clinical ethics consultation. His work examined the doctor-patient relationship, the nature and requirements of clinical judgment, the social structure and power dynamics of clinical encounters, and the multiple forms of uncertainty and responsibility in decision-making. He also explored the use of narrative and storytelling as a means for understanding the clinical encounter.

Starting in 1971, Zaner served as the first Director of the Division of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Health Sciences Center of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. From 1973-1981, he was Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Southern Methodist University. In 1981, Zaner became the Ann Geddes Stahlman Professor of Medical Ethics in the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University. He was founder and director (1982-2000) of the Vanderbilt Center for Clinical and Research Ethics. Zaner retired in 2001.