Everyday bioethics: reflections on bioethical choices in daily life
Baywood - Amityville
2003
164 p.
ethics ; human rights ; human study ; science ; technological change ; philosophical aspect
Medicine - Toxicology - Health
English
Bibliogr.
0-89503-231-7
15-42460
"Everyday Bioethics suggests a new perspective on the relationships between science, ethics and society. It is based upon the distinction and integration of two fields: the frontier bioethics, which examines the new development of biomedicine; and the bioethics of everyday life, which concerns all people around the world. Indeed, moral reflection on birth, human bodies, jobs, the gender and class relations, diseases and the treatment of the sick, death, the interdependence of human beings and other living creatures, has a long history, as long as that of mankind itself. The ideas and values that daily permeate the minds and behaviors of all human beings in these fields deserve the greatest attention, and are increasingly influenced by the progress of science and technology.
History, science, philosophy and politics are connected in this book, in order to explain the development of these ideas and of the incongruities between the possibilities offered by scientific discoveries, power relations and the growing level of inequities in the world. This volume works through the contradictions concerning procreation and birth, population policies,
work and health, the evaluation of the human body as a commodity (from slavery to the biomarket), to conclude with an historical and up-to-date analysis of international health perspectives, suggesting why and how "global health" should become one of the main targets of a globalized world. Human liberty, rights and dignity, equity and access to the progresses of science, respect for individuals and promotion of community interests are the keys for an approach to everyday bioethics. "
(Publisher's presentation)
Paper
The ETUI is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the ETUI.