Bioethics Around the Globe

by Myser, Catherine

• ISBN13: 9780195386097
• ISBN10: 0195386094
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780199749829
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-06-10
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Contemporary bioethics, now roughly 40 years old as a discipline, originated in the United States with a primarily Anglo-American cultural ethos. It continues to be professionalized and institutionalized as a maturing discipline at the intersections of philosophy, medicine, law, social sciences, and humanities. Increasingly bioethics - along with its foundational values, concepts and principals - has been exported to other countries, not only in the developed West, but also in developing and/or Eastern countries. Bioethics thus continues to undergo intriguing transformations as it is globalized and adapted to local cultures. These processes have occurred rapidly in the last two decades, with relatively little reflection and examination. This volume brings together contributors from a wide variety of disciplines to take a critical, empirical look at bioethics around the globe, examining how it is being transformed - at both local and global levels - in this process of cross-cultural exporting and importing. One concern is to identify sociocultural forces and consequences which may positively or negatively affect ethics and social justice goals. This book thereby offers the first comparative anthropology and sociology of globalizing bioethics in the field, exploring the global dissemination, local adaptations, cultural meanings and social functions of bioethics theories, practices and institutions and comparing developed and developing countries. The volume considers a full range of countries on every inhabited continent, including: Africa, Asia, Australia, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Topics include government agendas such as nationalism and nation building; agendas of powerful, associated professions (e.g., medicine, law); theological and political agendas such as 'culture wars'; agendas of entrepreneurial economies of profit; and other cultural and ideological agendas consciously or unconsciously advanced or contested by bioethics work in particular countries based on their unique history, politics and culture. This cross-cultural exploration of globalizing bioethics will be of great interest to a field that is increasingly introspective about its underlying sociocultural assumptions and biases.

Author Biography

Catherine Myser, Ph.D., has dual professional training in Philosophy/Bioethics and Anthropology, and has served on faculty at medical schools and hospitals in six countries. Her research specialties are clinical, cross-cultural, and international bioethics, and global health, with special focus on engaging marginalized communities and reducing health disparities in the USA and overseas. She has received multiple Fulbright scholarships and other funding to conduct bioethics and clinical ethics fieldwork in Sweden, India, South Africa, Australia, Turkey, and the USA. Her publications have appeared in, e.g.: American Journal of Bioethics; Anthropology News; Journal of Clinical Ethics; Journal of Law and Medicine; Journal of Medical Ethics, Literature and Medicine; Medical Education; Medical Journal of Australia ; Seminars in Perinatology; A Companion to Bioethics; and The Ethics of Bioethics.

Table of Contents

Introduction: "First Steps Toward a Comparative Anthropology and Sociology of Globalizing Bioethics: Reflecting on the Cultural Meanings and Social Functions of Bioethics" (Catherine Myser)

Section One - Globalizing Western Bioethics: Some Perils & Pitfalls of "Missionary Bioethics" and Ethics "Capacity Building" in the Developing World & "Eastern" World
1."Bioethics as Missionary Work: The Export of Western Ethics to Developing Countries" (Raymond De Vries & Leslie Rott)
2. "Facing Up to the Hard Problems: Western Bioethics in the Eastern Land of India" (Subrata Chattopadhyay)
3. "Capacity Building in Developing World Bioethics: Perspectives on Biomedicine and Biomedical Ethics in Contemporary Sri Lanka" (Robert Simpson)

Section Two - A Robust Range of Sociocultural Interests and Forces Shaping Bioethics Around the Globe
1. "French Bioethics: The Rhetoric of Universality and the Ethics of Medical Responsibility" (Kristina Orfali)
2. "The Social Forms and Functions of Bioethics in the United Kingdom" (Richard E. Ashcroft & Mary Dixon-Woods)
3. "Bioethics Between Two Worlds: The Politics of Ethics in Central Europe" (Bruce Jennings)
4. "Bioethics in Chile and the Need for Latin American Bioethics" (Miguel Kottow & Moises Russo)
5. "Bioethics in Costa Rica: Origins and Challenges" (Fred Gifford & Ana Rodriguez)
6. "The Social Functions of Bioethics in South Africa" (Anton Van Niekerk & Solomon Benatar)
7. "Toward an African Ubuntu/Umunthu Bioethics in Malawi in the Context of Globalization" (Joseph Mfutso-Bengo & Francis Masiye)
8. "Reflections on Bioethics in China: Interactions Between Bioethics and Society" (Qiu Ren Zong)


Section Three - Bioethics as a Means for Negotiating Social, Regional, and/or National Identity and Bioethics as Nation-Building
12. "The Dominion of Bioethics: Nationalism and Canadian Bioethics"
(Andrea Frolic & Michael D. Coughlin & Bernard Keating)
13. "Negotiating Islamic Identity in Egypt through Bioethics: Contesting
'the West' and Saudi Arabia" (Thomas Eich & Bjorn Bentlage)



Section Four - Bioethics as a Battleground for Religious and Political "Culture Wars": The Politics of Bioethics
14. Bioethics in Australia: On Politics, Power and the Rise of the Christian Right" (Rob Irvine & Ian Kerridge & Paul Komesaroff)
15. "Bioethics in the United States: Contested Terrain for Competing Visions of American Liberalism" (Bruce Jennings & Jonathan Moreno)