Global bioethics and ethics of responsibility: a phenomenological examination of the their origins and future challenges

Abstract

This article shows how the original insights that arose during the foundation of bioethics by Fritz Jahr and Van Resselaer Potter and were forgotten in the early stages of the evolution of the discipline are
being newly recovered in two ways that lead to a bioethics that is needed in the era of globalization. On the one hand, it is possible to link the bioethics of Jahr and Potter with the tradition of environmental ethics and ethics of responsibility. On the other hand, the dominant bioethical tradition in recent decades is starting to be overcome owing to the growing social, economic, and environmental effects of globalization. The recovery of the foundational concept of Jahr and Potter’s bioethics is just a starting point for the construction of a global bioethics. Based on this recognition, the author proposes a framework of principles for a global bioethics.