Bioethics Bioethics Art Center College of Design Category="Bioethics"Category="ISBN needed"Bioethics is the Ethics of biological Science and Medicine.

Definition and scope

Bioethics concerns the ethical questions that arise in the relationships between Biology, Medicine, Cybernetics, 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. Other bioethicists 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.

Bioethics involves many public policy questions that are often politicized— used to mobilize political constituencies. 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, regardless of the true intent. Transhumanist biologists in particular can be inclined to this line of thought, as they see their work as inherently ethical, and attacks on it as misguided.

Issues

Bioethics issues include:

Bioethicists focus on using Philosophy to help analyze said concerns, though bioethics is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary.

Religious bioethicists have developed rules and guidelines on how to deal with these issues from within the viewpoint of their respective faiths. Some 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 study of ethics is usually found), biology or medicine.

Most religious bioethicists are Jewish or Christian scholars. However a small number of religious scholars from other religions have recently become involved in this field as well. Islamic clerics have begun to write on this topic. Muslim bioethicists include Abdulaziz Sachedina, at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. There has been some criticism by Liberal Muslims that only the more religiously conservative voices in Islam are being heard on this issue. Buddhist bioethicists have focused much of their concern on organ transplantation.

See also

Subjects Bioethicists

References (general)

Muslim Bioethics

Jewish Bioethics

Christian Bioethics

External links

Stem Cell Research Controversy in the United States

Fertility Law Controversy in Italy

GNR Politics

Note: GNR technologies are Genetics, Nanotechnology, and robotics