6.3 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bioethics | 1/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioethics | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T16:33:10.462736+00:00 | kb-cron |
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, medicine, and technologies. It proposes the discussion about moral discernment in society (what decisions are "good" or "bad" and why) and it is often related to medical policy and practice, but also to broader questions as environment, well-being and public health. Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, theology and philosophy. It includes the study of values relating to primary care, other branches of medicine ("the ethics of the ordinary"), ethical education in science, animal, and environmental ethics, and public health.
== Etymology == The term bioethics (Greek bios, "life"; ethos, "moral nature, behavior") was coined in 1927 by Fritz Jahr in an article about a "bioethical imperative" regarding the use of animals and plants in scientific research. In 1970, the American biochemist and oncologist Van Rensselaer Potter used the term to describe the relationship between the biosphere and a growing human population. Potter's work laid the foundation for global ethics, a discipline centered around the link between biology, ecology, medicine, and human values. Sargent Shriver, the spouse of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, claimed that he had invented the term "bioethics" in the living room of his home in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1970. He stated that he thought of the word after returning from a discussion earlier that evening at Georgetown University, where he discussed with others a possible Kennedy family sponsorship of an institute focused around the "application of moral philosophy to concrete medical dilemmas".
== Purpose and scope == The discipline of bioethics has addressed a wide swathe of human inquiry; ranging from debates over the boundaries of lifestyles (e.g. abortion, euthanasia), surrogacy, the allocation of scarce health care resources (e.g. organ donation, health care rationing), to the right to refuse medical care for religious or cultural reasons. Bioethicists disagree among themselves over the precise limits of their discipline, debating whether the field should concern itself with the ethical evaluation of all questions involving biology and medicine, or only a subset of these questions. Some bioethicists would narrow ethical evaluation only to the morality of medical treatments or technological innovations, and the timing of medical treatment of humans. Others would increase the scope of moral assessment to encompass the morality of all moves that would possibly assist or damage organisms successful of feeling fear. The scope of bioethics has evolved past mere biotechnology to include topics such as cloning, gene therapy, life extension, human genetic engineering, astroethics and life in space, and manipulation of basic biology through altered DNA, XNA and proteins. These (and other) developments may affect future evolution and require new principles that address life at its core, such as biotic ethics that values life itself at its basic biological processes and structures, and seeks their propagation. Moving beyond the biological, issues raised in public health such as vaccination and resource allocation have also encouraged the development of novel ethics frameworks to address such challenges. A study published in 2022 based on the corpus of full papers from eight main bioethics journals demonstrated the heterogeneity of this field by distinguishing 91 topics that have been discussed in these journals over the past half a century.
== Principles ==
One of the first areas addressed by modern bioethicists was human experimentation. According to the Declaration of Helsinki (1964) published by the World Medical Association, the essential principles in medical research involving human subjects are autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. The autonomy of individuals to make decisions while assuming responsibility for them and respecting the autonomy of others ought to be respected. For people unable to exercise their autonomy, special measures ought to be taken to protect their rights and interests. In US, the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research was initially established in 1974 to identify the basic ethical principles that should underlie the conduct of biomedical and behavioral research involving human subjects. However, the fundamental principles announced in the Belmont Report (1979)—namely, respect for persons, beneficence and justice—have influenced the thinking of bioethicists across a wide range of issues. Others have added non-maleficence, human dignity, and the sanctity of life to this list of cardinal values. Overall, the Belmont Report has guided lookup in a course centered on defending prone topics as properly as pushing for transparency between the researcher and the subject. Research has flourished within the past 40 years and due to the advance in technology, it is thought that human subjects have outgrown the Belmont Report, and the need for revision is desired. Another essential precept of bioethics is its placement of cost on dialogue and presentation. Numerous dialogue based bioethics organizations exist in universities throughout the United States to champion precisely such goals. Examples include the Ohio State Bioethics Society and the Bioethics Society of Cornell. Professional level versions of these organizations also exist. Many bioethicists, in particular scientific scholars, accord the easiest precedence to autonomy. They trust that every affected person ought to decide which direction of motion they think about most in line with their beliefs. In other words, the patient should always have the freedom to choose their own treatment.
== Medical ethics == Medical ethics is a utilized department of ethics that analyzes the exercise of clinical medicinal drug and associated scientific research. Medical ethics is based on a set of values. These values consist of the appreciation for autonomy, beneficence, and justice.