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.
"At last-an unabashedly sociological and anthropological look at
the globalization of bioethics, a really fresh approach to a
maturing discipline. The chapters speak from the perspective of
sophisticated Western-developed exporters of the bioethical
paradigm and equally sophisticated] Eastern-developing and
third-world and interdisciplinary critics suspicious of the
canonical view. Trained in the dominant school of American,
mainstream philosophy, Myser draws on her long-standing commitment
to a social and cultural approach to bioethics to take a fresh look
at bioethics globally. She grasps the globalization of bioethics
and the skepticism about analytical philosophy's Americanized
consensus. The book sets the stage for a new era in bioethics
theory and practice {debating] whether a universal common morality
underlies the rich variation in national and cultural bioethics
traditions."
- Robert Veatch, Georgetown University
"This path-breaking volume is the first to explore the global
export of Western bioethics to a variety of non-Western settings.
Explicitly critical, the book also points to the liberating
potential of bioethics to achieve social justice and improve the
lives of patients around the world. The book is a must-read for all
medical anthropologists interested in bioethics." - Marcia Inhorn,
Yale University
"Bioethics Around the Globe should change the way bioethics is
conceived and practiced in the U.S. and elsewhere. Its rich and
wide-ranging comparative examination opens new possibilities for
bioethical reflection. I enthusiastically recommend this wonderful
book." - James F. Childress, University of Virginia
"The past 40 years have seen a remarkable spread of bioethics to
every part of the world. Dr. Myser's collection is a wonderful and
rich exploration of its international impact, revealing important
similarities and differences from country to country. It will have
an important impact." - Daniel Callahan, The Hastings Center
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