Cross Cultural Principles for Bioethics

Ethics in relation to the practice of medicine had continuity from the time of Hippocrates (ca. 460-377 BC) to the 1970s focusing on the physician-patient relationship and moral obligations of beneficence and nonmaleficence. In the 1970s developments such as the gene splicing method and in vitro fertilization (IVF) created concerns about the adequacy of these long-established moral obligations (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009, p. 1). In addition to technological developments, historically, horrifying medical experimentation in concentration camps (the Nuremberg trials in the late 1940s) and the following Helsinki Declaration on the protection of human subjects had influence on the establishment of ethics committees worldwide and a shift toward focusing on the moral obligation of respecting informed consent of research subjects (Andersen, 1999, pp. 11-15; Beauchamp & Childress, 2009, pp. 1, 117; Ebbesen, 2009). The discipline of bioethics or biomedical ethics1 was established in the 1970s and various professions are involved such as ethics consultants, health care professionals, medical doctors, biomedical researchers, philosophers, theologians, and politicians. This essay, however, focuses on bioethics as an academic philosophical discipline and on empirical investigation of the ethics of the biomedical profession (Ebbesen, 2009). Most research within the academic philosophical discipline of bioethics focus on theoretical reflections on the adequacy of ethical theories and principles. The principles of biomedical ethics of the American ethicists Tom L. Beauchamp & James F. Childress (2009) is an example. Beauchamp & Childress examined “considered moral judgements and the way moral beliefs cohere” and found that the general principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, respect for autonomy, and justice play a vital role in biomedical ethics (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009, p. 13). They believe that these principles are an analytical framework and a suitable starting point for biomedical ethics (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009, p. 12). However, Beauchamp & Childress state that these four principles are not only specific for biomedical ethics; the principles form the core part of a cross cultural (universal) common morality. Beauchamp & Childress appeal to the common morality normatively by saying that the common morality establishes moral standards for everyone and failing to accept these standards is unethical. And, they appeal to the common morality descriptively by saying that it can be studied empirically whether the common morality is actually present in all cultures (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009, p. 4).