Bioethics and an African Value System

Bioethics and the Challenges to Its Growth in Africa

Bioethics has now become a burgeoning interdisciplinary field of scholarly investigation which has in the past decades migrated from bedside consultations to public policy debates and wider cultural and social consultations that privilege all discourse about everyday life issues. It has made exponential progress in addressing moral issues in science, technology and medicine in the world. In spi...

Decolonizing Bioethics in Africa

The global spread of bioethics from its North-American and European provenance to non-Western societies is currently raising some concerns. Part of the concern has to do with whether or not the exportation of bioethics in its full Western sense to developing non-Western states is an instance of ethical imperialism or bioethical neocolonialism. This paper attempts an exploration of this debate i...

Colonialism, Biko and AIDS: reflections on the principle of beneficence in South African medical ethics.

This paper examines the principle of beneficence in the light of moral and epistemological concerns that have crystallized in the South African context around clinical care. Three examples from the South African experience affecting the development of bioethics are examined: medical colonialism, the death in detention of Steve Biko, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Michael Gelfand's book [(1948). The...

Bioethics Education in Africa: Still Complex Challenges

In recent times, bioethics has emerged as a burgeoning interdisciplinary field of scholarly investigation which has in the past decades migrated from bedside consultations to public policy debates and wider cultural and social conversations that privilege all discourse about everyday life issues. Today, bioethics is increasingly seen as a field departing from a multi-disciplinary perspective to...

The Value of Engaging the Public in CHATing About Healthcare Priorities: A Response to Recent Commentaries