Bioethics Around the Globe

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 ofglobalizing 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 orunconsciously 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 assumptionsand biases.

"Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers." -- A. P. Schwab, Indiana University-- Purdue University Fort Wayne"The introduction of 16 pages by the editor is riveting and ties the whole volume together, under the title "First Steps Toward a Comparative Anthropology and Sociology of Globalizing Bioethics: Reflecting on the Cultural Meanings and Social Functions of Bioethics" ... it has significant utility in the evolution of bioethics training courses that still are being established with 20th-century (actually 18th-century!) colonist ideology, and this would be on my required reading list for graduates in bioethics in any country, and for anyone involved in bioethics education globally." -- Darryl R. J. Macer, UNESCO, The American Journal of Bioethics"In this book, studies from high-, low- and middle-income countries are presented by 27 authors, 12 are trained bioethicists/philosophers, 10 social scientists and 5 physicians... The book is well written and includes a detailed index. All in all, a worthwhile and important contribution to self-reflection by all concerned in global public health thinking." -- European Journal of Public Health

Catherine Myser, Ph.D.Director of Bioethics, Clinical Ethics, and Global Health ProgramsAssociate Professor of Clinical Biomedical ScienceDepartment of Integrated Medical ScienceCharles E. Schmidt College of MedicineFlorida Atlantic University