Izvorni znanstveni članak
Translating Asian Bioethics into developing global Biocultures Translational Challenges In Bioethics
Hans-Martin Sass
; Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA
Sažetak
Health Care Ethics and Bioethics are not just European phenomena, and they definitely are not identical with the so called Georgetown Mantra (autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, social justice) nor have they been ‘invented’ in the USA in the last century. The concept and practice of ethics as a respectful and caring attitude towards bios is a phenomenon in all existing cultures and can be found in all known traditions and actually has deeper roots in 2500+ Vedanta and Buddhist traditions in India and Confucian and Taoist traditions in China. The Chandoya Upanishads first use the slogan ‘tat tvam asi’, i.e. this (the absolute, he reality, the other, God, Brahman) is also you (i.e. the Self, Atman, the constituent irrepressible reality). In the words of Confucius, such respectful attitude towards bios is culturally different, ‘in harmony but not identical’, it is ‘in harmony as well as diversified’ (he er bu tong).This interrelated and interactive understanding of integrated but different bios in all forms and shapes is echoed by the Bhagavad Gita, ‘If thus the Lord, the Self, is the essence from which the universe has emerged out as every item of its names and forms, there must be the Self inherent and ever present ..The property by which a thing is a thing and without it cannot be what it is called is its Dharma. Thus, the essential quality of sugar because of which it is sugar, without which it is not sugar, is its sweetness. Therefore, sweetness is the Dharma of sugar; in the same way heat is the Dharma of fire; light is the Dharma of sun. The Dharma of man is his essential inherent divinity, the Self in him’.In the developing culture of global communication, conflict, and cooperation, the specific ‘diversified’ attitudes and understandings of respecting and caring for bios in all its forms we need to translate these and other bioethical traditions, concepts and practices from one cultural biotope to the other one, all of which are moving towards new forms of conflict and/or cooperation in the developing 21th century. Actually, diversity in the universe of bios and also in human visions and acts, can be seen as natural richness, rather than a deficiency, as expressed in the Hellenistic concept of the ‘logos spematikos’.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
153725
URI
Datum izdavanja:
1.12.2015.
Posjeta: 761 *