Bioethics and globalization

The WorldTradeCenter attack on 11 September 2001 was an epoch-making event because it clearly showed us the worst form of hostility caused by “globalization.” Of course, the current globalization process has exploited and suppressed a number of developing countries in an unfair manner; hence, it is natural that people in these countries feel frustrated and express their hostility against, for example, the USA. However, it is wrong to kill innocent citizens in the USA, and it is even worse to kill the same number of innocent citizens in Afghanistan with air raids. As Mahatma Gandhi said, an eye for an aye leaves the whole world blind. What is needed is some different forms of action.

Bioethics is in the process of globalization. Some scholars seem to think that this is a movement to spread “American values” based on individualism, autonomy and freedom around the world. Anti-American emotions may have emerged in the field of bioethics in some places outside the USA, but just criticizing American bioethics does not create anything. Any value system has its own faults. I will discuss this topic first, and then try to find a way of overcoming the conflict between “values.” In the second half of this paper, I will discuss the idea of “life studies” that I have advocated for years.

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Cross-cultural Approaches to the Philosophy of Life in the Contemporary World
(2004)
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