Bioethics are the ethics of biological science and medicine. Ethics (from the Ancient Greek Ä“thikos, the adjective of Ä“thos custom, habit), a major branch of philosophy, including genetics is the study of values and customs of a person or group. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... medicines, see medication and pharmacology. ...

Definition and scope

Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, philosophy, and theology. Disagreement exists about the proper scope for the application of ethical evaluation to questions involving biology. 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 broaden the scope of ethical evaluation to include the morality of all actions that might help or harm organisms capable of feeling fear and pain. Thus bioethics has a comprehensive scope, including human health, human life, animal and vegetable life; in other words, all issues related to life. Biology studies the variety of life (clockwise from top-left) E. coli, tree fern, gazelle, Goliath beetle Biology is the science of life (from the Greek words bios = life and logos = word). ... The structure of insulin Biotechnology is technology based on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine. ... medicines, see medication and pharmacology. ... Politics is the process by which groups make decisions. ... Lady Justice or Justitia is a personification of the moral force that underlies the legal system (particularly in Western art). ... The philosopher Socrates about to take poison hemlock as ordered by the court. ... Theology (Greek θεος, theos, God, + λογια, logia, words, sayings, or discourse) is reasoned discourse concerning religion, spirituality and God or the gods. ... Bioethics are the ethics of biological science and medicine. ... By the mid 20th century humans had achieved a mastery of technology sufficient to leave the surface of the Earth for the first time and explore space. ...

Bioethics involve many public policy questions that are sometimes politicized and used to mobilize political constituencies, hence the emergence of biopolitics and its techno-progressive/bioconservative political axis.^[1] For this reason, some biologists and others involved in the development of technology have come to see any mention of "bioethics" as an attempt to derail their work and react to it as such. Some biologists can be inclined to this line of thought, as they see their work as inherently ethical, and attacks on it as misguided. Public policy is a course of action or inaction chosen by public authorities to address a problem. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A neologism invented by Michel Foucault, the term Biopolitics or Biopolitical can refer to several different yet not incompatible concepts: In the work of Michel Foucault, the style of government that regulates populations through biopower. ... Techno-progressivism, technoprogressivism, or tech-progressivism, is a stance of active support for technological development in general and for human practices of genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive modification in particular. ... Techno-progressivism, technoprogressivism, or tech-progressivism, is a stance of active support for technological development in general and for human practices of genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive modification in particular. ...

Bioethics are collectively a growing academic area of inquiry, and within a thirty year history as an academic discipline, more than one dozen English language journals have emerged. In addition, many academic medical centers and some schools of law, engineering and the liberal arts offer degree programs with a specialization in bioethics, with the varying aims of training physicians and nurses, attorneys, philosopher/theologian "ethicists", health services researchers and even bench scientists in the analysis of ethical issues in bioethics. The development of bioethics as the subject of a concerted area of institutionalized inquiry was greatly aided in 1989 by major dedication of funds by the U.S. Human Genome Project, today known as the NHGRI, referred to by Arthur Caplan as the "full employment act" for bioethicists. With those funds, in the 1990s a group of social scientists created what has today become the predominant academic mode of discourse for bioethicists: research concerning ethical issues as they are encountered and resolved in society, culminating in data that is subject to the same rigors of peer review as other social science. // The Human Genome Project (HGP) is a project to de-code (i. ... The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) is a division of the National Institutes of Health, located in Bethesda, Maryland. ... Arthur L. Caplan is Emanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. ... Terms like SOSE (Studies of Society & the Environment) not only refer to social sciences but also studies of the environment. ...

The questions begged by the idea of bioethics as a distinct area of academic inquiry (why must it exist apart from philosophy? isn't everyone an 'ethicist'?) are largely answered by the needs of institutions. Bioethicists today are not hired or engaged in conversation (and thus "named") because of their opinions or because they have special skills of reasoning, but because they know and can put to work the enormous body of research and history of discussions about bioethics in a fair, honest and intelligent way. The training programs in bioethics differ in skill sets of faculty and size of program, but they do across the US, with few exceptions, seem to share a commitment to that goal.

As a result, bioethics have been distintively created, by institutions, specifically the multi-million dollar commitment of major and minor medical centers to the study of medical ethics as part of the development of curriculum and research efforts. Today it is all but impossible to create a major medical research effort without ethicists to assist in not only the regulatory review of research (the responsibility of the IRB), which can be staffed by those not trained in ethics in any rigorous way, but also by those who can think in advance of the onset of research about its social, ethical and economic implications. A shrinking number of those who would say that they "work in bioethics" are actually employed in other academic disciplines, because so many such disciplines reject as credible or important the work of bioethics in journals that are outside the methods of the traditional discipline within which such a person would work. A publication in JAMA would be meaningless to a tenure committee in most philosophy departments. A publication in the Journal of Philosophy would be meaningless to the same committee in a medical school. Seven articles would be sufficient for promotion in many philosophy departments, where 37 might be closer to the typical number of peer-reviewed publications for bioethicists, but of much shorter length, and philosophers would contest the possibility of rigor at that level of productivity. A book is a primary credential in the liberal arts and law. A book is virtually meaningless in medicine. So, as institutions employing bioethics change, the jobs change, and thus the training changes. IRB is a TLA for International Rugby Board Irish Republican Brotherhood Institutional Review Board This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Nonetheless, many claim to work in bioethics, and indeed can feel free to do so, in just the same way that self-help book authors claim to work in philosophy. However, those not working in and trained in bioethics in the now fairly well established range of ways typical of bioethicists, demonstrated by, e.g., publishing in AJOB, Hastings Center Report, Journal of Medical Ethics, etc., will be understood as amateurs by those in the field per se, again for the same reason that while Einstein did fabulous work as a patent clerk, he would not have been properly considered a physicist (and was not) until he joined the academic community, because without such standards universities and their growth in terms of new disciplines would spiral out of control.

Ideology and methodology

Bioethicists often focus on using philosophy to help analyze issues, and philosophical ethicists such as Peter Singer tend to treat the field as a branch of moral or ethical philosophy. However, this approach is sometimes challenged, and bioethics is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. Many bioethicists come from backgrounds outside of academic philosophy, and some even claim that the methods of analytic philosophy have had a negative effect on the field's development. The percentage of bioethicists with professional backgrounds in health care, especially physicians, has been steadily increasing over time. In fact, the last two Presidents of the primary academic society for bioethicists in the U.S. (the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities) have been physicians. Some bioethicists, especially those who perform ethics consultation in clinical settings, emphasize the practical aspects of bioethics, and view the field as more closely related to clinical practice or public health than philosophy. The philosopher Socrates about to take poison hemlock as ordered by the court. ... Look up Issue in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other persons named Peter Singer, see Peter Singer (disambiguation). ... Ethics (from the Ancient Greek Ä“thikos, the adjective of Ä“thos custom, habit), a major branch of philosophy, including genetics is the study of values and customs of a person or group. ... Interdisciplinary work is that which integrates concepts across different disciplines. ...

Religious bioethicists have developed rules and guidelines on how to deal with these issues from within the viewpoint of their respective faiths. Some Western secular bioethicists are critical of the fact that these are usually religious scholars without an academic degree or training in disciplines that pertain to the issues, such as philosophy (wherein the formal study of ethics is usually found), biology or medicine. Although there are a number of eminently qualified philosophers who approach bioethics from a religious perspective. A moral is a one sentence remark made at the end of many childrens stories that expresses the intended meaning, or the moral message, of the tale. ... A medical guideline (also called a clinical guideline and clinical protocol) is a document with the aim of guiding decisions and criteria in specific areas of healthcare, as defined by an authoritative examination of current evidence (evidence-based medicine). ... Perspective in theory of cognition is the choice of a context or a reference (or the result of this choice) from which to sense, categorize, measure or codify experience, cohesively forming a coherent belief, typically for comparing with another. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A B.A. issused as a certificate A degree is any of a wide range of status levels conferred by institutions of higher education, such as universities, normally as the result of successfully completing a program of study. ...

Many religious bioethicists are Jewish, and Christian scholars. Since the Indian traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism considers the sanctity of all life, there is much literature related to the philosophy and ethics related to life in each of these traditions. A growing number of religious scholars from Islam have also become involved in this field. There has been some criticism by liberal Muslims that only the more religiously conservative voices in Islam are being heard on this issue. For other uses, see Jew (disambiguation). ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Christianity. ... This article discusses the adherents of Hinduism. ... Buddhism is a dharmic, non-theistic religion and a philosophy. ... JAIN is an activity within the Java Community Process, developing APIs for the creation of telephony (voice and data) services. ... Islam (Arabic:  ) is a monotheistic religion based upon the teachings of Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure. ... Liberalism is an ideology, philosophical view, and political tradition which holds that liberty is the primary political value. ...

In the case of most non-Western cultures a strict separation of religion from philosophy does not exist. In many Asian cultures, there is a lively (and often less dogmatic, but more pragmatic) discussion on bioethical issues. The discussion often refers to common demographic policies which are criticised, as in the case of China. Buddhist bioethics, in general, is characterised by a naturalistic outlook that leads to a rationalistic, pragmatic approach. Buddhist bioethicists include Damien Keown. In India, Vandana Shiva is the leading bioethicist whose speaks from the Hindu tradition. In Africa, and partly also in Latin America, the debate on bioethics frequently focus on its practical relevance in the context of underdevelopment and (national or global) power relations. A replica of an ancient statue found among the ruins of a temple at Sarnath Buddhism is a philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, a prince of the Shakyas, whose lifetime is traditionally given as 566 to 486 BCE. It had subsequently been accepted by... Vandana Shiva (b. ... This article discusses the adherents of Hinduism. ...

Issues

Areas of health sciences that are the subject of published, peer-reviewed bioethical analysis include: Image File history File links Information_icon. ...

A civet, or sea fox, photographed in the Zigong Peoples Zoo, Sichuan, 2001. ... Artificial insemination (AI) is when sperm is placed into a females uterus (intrauterine), or cervix (intracervical) using artificial means rather than by natural copulation. ... Artificial Life, (commonly Alife or alife) is a field of study and art form that examines systems related to life, its processes and its evolution through simulations using computer models, robotics, and biochemistry [1] (called soft, hard, and wet approaches respectively[2]). Artificial life complements traditional Biology by trying to... In the field of ectogenesis, an artificial womb is used to grow an embryo outside the body of a female. ... Euthanasia (Greek, good death) is the practice of killing a person or animal, in a painless or minimally painful way, for merciful reasons, usually to end their suffering. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Bioprospecting. ... Human blood smear: a - erythrocytes; b - neutrophil; c - eosinophil; d - lymphocyte. ... Blood plasma is the liquid component of blood, in which the blood cells are suspended. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... // A brain-computer interface (BCI), sometimes called a direct neural interface or a brain-machine interface, is a direct communication pathway between a human or animal brain (or brain cell culture) and an external device. ... In zoology, a chimera is an animal that has two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originated in different zygotes; if the different cells emerged from the same zygote, it is called a mosaicism. ... This article is about male circumcision. ... Cloning is the process of creating an identical copy of something. ... Confidentiality has been defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as ensuring that information is accessible only to those authorized to have access and is one of the cornerstones of Information security. ... Medical records refer to records, either in paper or electronic form, of the results of medical tests, diagnoses and treatments for individuals. ... Consent (as a term of jurisprudence) is a possible justification against civil or criminal liability. ... Cryonics (often mistakenly called cryogenics) is the practice of cryopreserving humans and pets that can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine until resuscitation may be possible in the future. ... Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution: Logo from the Second International Congress of Eugenics, 1921, depicting it as a tree which unites a variety of different fields. ... Euthanasia (from Greek: ευθανασία -ευ, eu, good, θάνατος, thanatos, death) is the practice of terminating the life of a person or animal in a presumably painless or minimally painful way. ... A feeding tube is a medical device used to provide nutrition to patients who cannot or refuse to (cf. ... Gene therapy is the insertion of genes into an individuals cells and tissues to treat a disease, and hereditary diseases in particular. ... Genetically Modified (GM) foods are produced from genetically modified organisms (GMO) which have had their genome altered through genetic engineering techniques. ... Genomics is the study of an organisms entire genome. ... The logo of The Great Ape Project, which aims to expand moral equality to great apes, and to foster greater understanding of them by humans. ... Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of an existing, or previously existing, human being or clone tissue from that individual. ... Human enhancement describes any attempt, whether temporary or permanent, to overcome the current limitations of human cognitive and physical abilities, whether through natural or artificial means. ... Human genetic engineering refers to the controlled modification of the human genome. ... Ancient Greek painting in a vase, showing a physician (iatros) bleeding a patient. ... Infertility is the inability to naturally conceive a child or to carry a pregnancy to full term. ... Life extension refers to an increase in maximum or average lifespan, especially in humans, by slowing down or reversing the processes of aging. ... Life support, in the medical field, refers to a set of therapies for preserving a patients life when essential body systems are not functioning sufficiently to sustain life unaided. ... A human brain that has undergone lobotomy. ... Medical research (or experimental medicine) is basic research and applied research conducted to aid the body of knowledge in the field of medicine. ... Medical torture describes the involvement and sometimes active participation of medical professionals in acts of torture, to either to judge what victims can endure, to apply treatments which will enhance torture, or as torturers in their own right. ... The term moral obligation has a number of meanings in moral philosophy, in religion, and in laymans terms. ... Nanomedicine is the medical application of nanotechnology. ... Organ donation is the removal of specific tissues of the human body from a person who has recently died, or from a living donor, for the purpose of transplanting or grafting them into other persons. ... Pain management (also called pain medicine) is the discipline concerned with the relief of pain. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Asexual reproduction. ... President Bush meets with House leaders to discuss Patients Bill of Rights legislation The Patients Bill of Rights Consumer Bill of Rights and Responsibilities The following was adopted by the US Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry in 1998. ... “Placebo effect” redirects here. ... Population control is the practice of limiting population increase, usually by reducing the birth rate. ... A prescription drug is a medication that is regulated by legislation to require a prescription before it can be obtained. ... Prescription drug prices in the United States are significantly higher than in Canada and other countries, many of which have price controls. ... Procreative beneficence is a term refering to the moral obligation of parents to have the healthiest children. ... Procreative liberty is a term refering to the freedom to decide whether or not to have children as well as the freedom to control ones reproductive capacity. ... Psychosurgery is a term for surgeries of the brain involving procedures that modulate the performance of the brain, and thus effect changes in cognition, with the intent to treat or alleviate severe mental illness. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Reproductive rights (also Procreative liberty) refers to human rights in areas of sexual reproduction, including the rights to reproduce (such as opposition to forced sterilization) as well as rights not to reproduce (such as support for access to birth control and abortion), the right to privacy, medical coverage, right to... Reprogenetics is a term referring to the merging of reproductive and genetic technologies expected to happen in the near future as techniques like preimplantation genetic diagnosis become more available and more powerful. ... A spermatozoon or spermatozoan ( spermatozoa), from the ancient Greek σπέρμα (seed) and (living being) and more commonly known as a sperm cell, is the haploid cell that is the male gamete. ... A human ovum Sperm cells attempting to fertilize an ovum An ovum (plural ova) is a haploid female reproductive cell or gamete. ... This entry covers entheogens in the strict sense of the word (i. ... Mouse embryonic stem cells. ... It has been suggested that Suicide method be merged into this article or section. ... Surrogacy refers to an arrangement whereby a woman agrees to become pregnant for the purpose of gestating and giving birth to a child for others to raise. ... A transsexual (sometimes transexual) person establishes a permanent identity with the opposite gender to their assigned (usually at birth) sex. ... Organ donation is the removal of specific tissues of the human body from a person who has recently died, or from a living donor, for the purpose of transplanting them into other persons. ...

List of notable bioethicists

Arthur L. Caplan is Emanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. ... James Franklin Childress (born 4 October 1940) is a philosopher and theologian mainly concerned with ethics, particularly biomedical ethics. ... Hugo Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. ... Ruth R. Faden, M.P.H., Ph. ... Martha Farah has been trying to understand the mechanisms of vision, memory, and executive function in the human brain. ... Dr. Joseph Jack Fins (b. ... Joseph Fletcher (1905-1991) founded the theory of situational ethics in the 1960s, and was a pioneer in the field of bioethics. ... Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Halperin is a doctor, scientist, and author currently residing in Israel. ... James Hughes Ph. ... Albert R. Jonsen, Ph. ... Leon Kass Leon Kass is the Addie Clark Harding Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago (currently on leave). ... Sir Ian McColl Kennedy (born 14 September 1941) is a British academic lawyer who has specialised in the law and ethics of health. ... Glenn McGee, Ph. ... Tom Murray was a Scottish curler. ... Bernard Nathanson is a Catholic doctor and pro-life activist from New York. ... Onora Sylvia ONeill, Baroness ONeill of Bengarve (born 23 August 1941) is a cross-bench member of the House of Lords. ... Stephen G. Post is Professor and Associate Director for Educational Programs, Department of Bioethics, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, as well as Senior Research Scholar in the Becket Institute at St Hughs College, Oxford. ... James Rachels (1941-2003) was one of the leading philosophers of the 20th century. ... John A. Robertson holds the Vinson and Elkins Chair at the University of Texas School of Law at Austin. ... Hans-Martin Sass (born December 1935), is a bioethicist of the first generation, Professor of Philosophy at Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany, and Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA, holds academic positions as well at Peoples University of China and Peking Union... Julian Savulescu is Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. ... Harold Shapiro (born June 8, 1935) is a former president of Princeton University and the University of Michigan. ... For other persons named Peter Singer, see Peter Singer (disambiguation). ... The references in this article would be clearer with a different and/or consistent style of citation, footnoting or external linking. ... Professor Etienne Vermeersch (Sint-Michiels- Brugge, 2 May 1934) is a renown Belgium (moral) philosopher, skeptic, opinion maker and debater. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... Matthew K. Wynia, MPH, MD is an American medical ethicist who performs research at the Institute for Ethics at the American Medical Association (AMA), where he is the director. ...

References

2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini (common) era. ... January 28 is the 28th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Bioethics at the Open Directory Project (suggest site)
• (Spanish) Bioethics for Latin America and Colombia
• Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights
• International Declaration on Human Genetic Data
• Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights