Confucian Virtue Ethics and its Contribution to Biomedical Ethics

Choi, Suk Ewha Institute for Biomedical Law & Ethics 2010 BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS Vol.4 No.2

Recent reinterpretations of Confucian ethics as a virtue ethics have focused on demonstrating that Confucian ethics satisfies the requirements of a virtue ethics in Western ethical discussions. But these works have tended to neglect discussions of whether Confucian ethics can overcome some of the challenges that virtue ethics typically encounters. In the first part of my paper I will attempt to remedy that oversight. Some critics of Confucian ethics doubt its possible relevance to biomedical ethics, and one philosopher attempts to apply Confucian ethics to issues in contemporary biomedical ethics by interpreting Confucian ethics as a role-based ethics. But in my view, their interpretations of Confucian ethics overlook that Confucian ethics is built on and pursues recognition, cultivation, and realization of common human virtues. Furthermore their analyses of Confucian ethics do not successfully demonstrate that Confucian ethics can make a meaningful contribution to contemporary bio-medical ethics. Hence in the second part of my paper I will attempt to implement Confucian virtue ethics in the context of contemporary biomedical ethics, specifically focusing on the issues of personhood and patient-doctor/researcher relationship.

What is Bioethics and Law? : From the Korean Perspective

Kim, Hyeon-Chul Ewha Institute for Biomedical Law & Ethics 2010 BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS Vol.4 No.1

Law and Bioethics is a relatively new academic area of dealing with a broad range of legal issues relevant to the biomedical ethics. This article first reviews the unique features of the Law and Bioethics as a special field of law. Legal topics in the Law and Bioethics are not limited to one specific area of a traditional field of law, such as criminal law, but cover almost all spheres of the legal phenomena. In addition, since the Law and Bioethics treats ethical issues raised in a very technical and highly specialized areas - life science and the medical science, legal reasoning in this area requires a certain level of knowledge on the scientific subjects as well as reflexive attitude towards legal and ethical conclusions. Considering these unique features of the Law and Bioethics, this article investigates the three regulation models: the model centered around regulations by law and rules, the model centered around administrative regulations, and the model centered around self-regulation. With specific examples, each model will be examined in the context of the Law and Bioethics.

Le droit et les institutions de l'insanite´ d'esprit en France sous I'Ancien Re´gime

Christine Peny EWHA INSTITUTE FOR BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS 2008 BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS Vol.2 No.2

Duhng the last two centuries of the Ancien Regime, rnedicine and the monarchistic state progressively increased their hold over the law and institutions dedicated to insane people. Whereas at the beginning of the XVII^(th) century, families and charity institutions were still the main supports of mad people, on the eve of Revolution, most mentally sick persons were locked up and taken care of on "public powers" initiative. Allied to the "medical power", the absolute monarchy developed a kind of social assistance specifically intended for insane people, while their legal status tended to be standardized. The principles and practices established by the "Esquirol law" of June 30th 1838 already existed at the end of the Ancien Regime.

"Bioethics Policy" : As a New Interdisciplinary Study

Choi, Kyungsuk Ewha Institute for Biomedical Law & Ethics 2007 BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS Vol.1 No.1

Bioethics is often called "applied ethics." But the idea of "mechanical or simple application" of traditional ethical theories is wrong. For bioethical issues are so novel and unprecedented that many of them do not give a great help. In addition, "applied ethics" does not reflect interdisciplinary characteristics of bioethics. Bioethical problems require bioethics as an interdisciplinary study to respond to challenges of societal policy-making relevant to them. I argue for "bioethics policy study" as an new interdisciplinary discipline. The reason most of bioethical issues are difficult to be resolved lies in the fact that there are reasonable disagreements. Reasonable disagreement means "disagreement among reasonable persons." What Rawls calls "the burdens of judgment" explains why we have such disagreement. We should accept reasonable disagreement and pluralism as facts of our pluralistic society. While bioethics just tries to give an answer to bioethical issues from its own perspective, bioethics policy study tries to give a societal agreement with respecting and tolerating various reasonable comprehensive doctrines and perspectives. Thus the main research question of "bioethics policy" as a study is "how can we make policies on ethical issues to which answers are elusive and often conflicting among individuals consisting of a society?" Interdisciplinary studies in bioethics policy are important in that they have to deal with fundamental questions to each discipline relevant to bioethics policy. Bioethical issues require us to reconsider fundamental philosophical and/or theological questions modem philosophers avoided and may lead philosophy to a new project. Bioethical issues also raise the question "What is the role of law in ethical issues?" for law. I argue that an interdisciplinary study is meaningful when it stimulates each discipline involved, I emphasize "spiral development of interdisciplinary studies."

Les avancées de la loi du 27 juin 1990 et de la loi du 4 mars 2002 en matière de législation psychiatrique française

PENY, Christine EWHA INSTITUTE FOR BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS 2009 BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS Vol.3 No.1

Adopted on June 27th 1990, the "loi Evin" replaced the famous "loi Esquirol" of 1838, the old text which ruled the French legislation concerning mental illness. The law carried unanimously in 1990 was supposed to "revolutionize" French psychiatric legislation. In fact, it did not so and confirmed many principles going back to 1838. But on one point the text introduced a real and interesting innovation: it recognized specific rights to the persons placed in psychiatric institutions. On this point precisely, it was confirmed and completed by an other text, a law of March 4th 2002. Nevertheless, not all the rights established by theses two acts seem very realistic and it is sometimes difficult to make them respected, especially in the absence of an enforcement by the courts of judicial order.

Le droit et les institutions de l’insanité d’esprit en France sous l’Ancien Régime

Christine Peny Ewha Institute for Biomedical Law & Ethics 2008 BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS Vol.2 No.2

During the last two centuries of the Ancien Regime, medicine and the monarchistic state progressively increased their hold over the law and institutions dedicated to insane people. Whereas at the beginning of the XVII^(th) century, families and charity institutions were still the main supports of mad people, on the eve of Revolution, most mentally sick persons were locked up and taken care of on "public powers" initiative. Allied to the "medical power", the absolute monarchy developed a kind of social assistance specifically intended for insane people, while their legal status tended to be standardized. The principles and practices established by the "Esquirol law" of June 30th 1838 already existed at the end of the Ancien Regime.

Neuroscience and Personhood

Dan Ernst EWHA INSTITUTE FOR BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS 2008 BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS Vol.2 No.1

The concept 'personhood' lies at the center of contemporary disputes concerning whether certain biological interventions are ethical. Thus, if personhood' could be located or its existence evidenced by observa-tions available to biologists, then each of these controversies could be resolved in biology's own terms, I argue that this is a fruitless task. The attempt to track down a material object, personhood,' reveals ignoran-ce of an important metaphysical presupposition underlying contemporary culture's Cartesian/ Kantian concept of 'personhood.'

Establishing Institutional Ethics Committees in Australia : Challenges and Operational Procedures with Particular Attention to the New Reproductive Technologies

Pollard, Irina Ewha Institute for Biomedical Law & Ethics 2009 BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS Vol.3 No.2

The ethical difficulties of modern health care are, for the most part, a result of new technologies - especially relevant are the New Reproductive Technologies. Increased costs, cultural emphasis on individual rights, uncertain or conflicting social values, and changing relationships among health care professionals all have dramatically changed hospital life and contributed toward modern predicaments. Recent changes in reproductive technology, for example, have altered control of fertility, childbearing, and child rearing. The newer aspects of reproduction such as contraception, abortion, fetal diagnosis, gamete and embryo donation, assisted conception, surrogacy and research on human embryos, all present major ethical challenges to individuals, governments and nations. However, it must be qualified that some of these topics such as contraception and abortion have been practiced since antiquity. Still, it is clear that medical questions require medical answers, but many of the most puzzling questions that health care workers currently face are not exclusively medical in nature. These questions are mostly about individual values, the personal meaning of life and death, and fairness or justice. Patients, doctors, nurses, social workers, religious advisers, hospital administrators, and society itself all need to take part in asking relevant questions and making decisions, which not only affect individual lives but, importantly, also shape social relations. Ethics committees represent an important response to that need for a broader range of thinking about critical health care decisions. Discussing ethical issues more openly and more frequently can lead not only to better decisions but also to better relationships among health care professionals. My experience of hospitals with ethics committees suggests that each institution will handle things a little differently; each will create a form that fits its own situation. In this publication, I am going to share my experiences on one of Sydney’s largest Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC). As one of the founding members of the IEC servicing the Royal North Shore Hospital and allied Northern Sydney Health community in 1990, we had to start from scratch devising the composition and constitution of our Committee, which subsequently assisted other institutions also in the process of establishing their individual IECs. Since space does not allow for a full discussion of the varied and diverse ethical dilemmas considered, I have concentrated on one implemented directive relating to the new reproductive technologies - a discipline I have some expertise in.

Bio-Ethik in Deutschland Vortrag an der EWHA Universität Seoul

Kuhne, Hans-Heiner Ewha Institute for Biomedical Law & Ethics 2010 BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS Vol.4 No.2

Questions of Bio-Ethics are placed within a very sensitive field which is mostly influenced by religious beliefs or dogmata. This ism especially true with christian religions which have a long tradition in fighting (medical) progress as violation of a heavenly plan. So far it is not at all surprising that actually in Germany the prohibition of pid(pre-implantation diagnosis)is strongly argued for by christian groups and authorities. For this reason there is a chance that the German legislator may pass a law banning any pid, although in neighbouring European countries as in France, the Netherlands or the UK these techniques are legal within some limits. These questions cannot be solved by the interpretation of constitutional law - in Germany especially with regard to Art.1 I Basic Law, which establishes the protection of human dignity - because new medical techniques have to be newly assessed by society and according to such an assessment may then become part of constitutional provisions.

Ethics, Culture and Relativism : Some Reflections on Teaching Medical Ethics in Contemporary Sri Lanka

S.N. Arseculeratne,R. Simpson,P.D. Premasiri,P.V.R. Kumarasiri EWHA INSTITUTE FOR BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS 2008 BIOMEDICAL LAW & ETHICS Vol.2 No.1

This paper is the first of two that set out to explore issues that arise at the interface between globalised systems of biomedicine and bioethics on the one hand and non-western traditions of medicine, healing and ethics on the other. At this interface, fundamental questions of relativism and context are in evidence. Here we offer a preliminary overview of these questions in relation to medical education in Sh Lanka and attempts by local scholars to develop curricula that incorporate indigenous traditions in ways that are both appropriate and realistic, In the paper, we argue for approaches that go beyond simply accumulating and juxtaposing knowledge of different traditions. The strategy we advocate takes the experience of the medical student as the starting point for pedagogical enquiry into different ethical traditions with an emphasis placed on their translation, evaluation and comparison. The promise of such an approach is a bioethics that makes beneficence, respect for life, honesty, truthfulness, dignity and respect central but, through on-going dialogue, connects these values to the local moralities that inform all cultures of healing and care.