Illness is a breathtakingly intense experience. It unsettles, and sometimes shatters, the most fundamental values and beliefs we hold. It is physically and emotionally draining. It can be physically and psychologically debilitating. Illness requires serious effort and continuous work to adapt practically to its limitations and to adjust psychologically to the pain, restricted horizons and frustration it brings. It forces the ill person and those around her to confront mortality in its most direct manifestation. In all of these ways illness requires labour, attention, and a conscious and sustained effort.

But, as I argue in my latest book, Phenomenology of Illness (OUP 2016), illness is also existentially and intellectually demanding – and potentially rewarding – in ways hitherto unexplored. Illness can challenge our most fundamental beliefs, expectations and values and this accords it a distinct and important philosophical role. For example, the belief that a longer life is better than a shorter life is one such belief that comes under intense scrutiny when one is given a poor prognosis. Perhaps a shorter but more meaningful life is equally valuable, or even better than a longer life? In what ways does the value of life depend on its duration? These are some of the questions that may arise in response to illness.