Bioethical and bio‐political questions are increasingly tackled by committees, councils, and other advisory boards that work on different and often interrelated levels. Research ethics committees work on an institutional or clinical level; local advisory boards deal with biomedical topics on the level of particular political regions; national and international political advisory boards try to answer questions about morally problematic political decisions in medical research and practice. In accordance with the increasing number and importance of committees, the quality of their work (...) and their functional status are being subjected to more and more scrutiny. Besides overall criticism regarding the quality of their work, particular committees giving political advice are often suspected of being incompatible with democratic values, such as respect for affected parties, representation of diverse values and transparency in the decision‐making processes. Based on the example of the German National Ethics Council, whose inauguration caused a still ongoing debate on the aims and scopes of committees in general, this paper discusses: (1) the requirements of modern democratic societies in dealing with complex scientific‐technical problems; (2) the composition and organisation of committees working as political advisory boards; and (3) the appointment procedures and roles of laymen and experts, and here in particular of ethicists, who may legitimately be taken on by a committee. I will argue that bioethics committees do not necessarily endanger democratic values, but can considerably improve their realisation in democratic decision‐making procedures – if, and only if, they do not act as substitutes for parliamentarian processes, but help prepare parliamentarian processes to be organised as rationally as possible. (shrink)

The area of biomedicine is one of the fastest developing areas of science and technology. The perception of its possible and expected positive or negative impacts results in the growing number of bioethical discussions in scientific community, politics and public. Their intensity, focus and used methods differ from country to country. Th e authors of the prologue have tried to map the state of the art and expected development of bioethical discussion in the countries of Middle and Eastern Europe. In (...) the beginning, they addressed the bioethical experts with short questionnaire from 7 “new” European countries and two “old” European countries. In the end, seven experts have responded their questions and expressed their expectations and difficulties of the development of bioethical discussions and institutionalisations in their countries. The authors summarize in the prologue the most interesting results. (shrink)

In den westlichen Industrienationen gilt das Prinzip der informierten Einwilligung als das Zentralelement medizinischer Forschungsethik. In anderen, stärker die Relationalität als die Individualität von Personen betonenden Kulturen hingegen werden medizinische Entscheidungen traditionell eher durch die Gemeinschaft bzw. ihr Oberhaupt getroffen. Um verschiedenen kulturellen Normen gerecht zu werden, wird international tätigen Forschungsteams häufig empfohlen, den Community Consent und den Informed Consent einzuholen. Ausschlaggebend soll dabei letztlich der Informed Consent des Individuums sein. Es soll die Teilnahme auch dann verweigern können, wenn die (...) Gemeinschaft bzw. ihr Repräsentant dem Vorhaben zugestimmt hat. Der Beitrag diskutiert, ob eine solche Kopplung von Community Consent und Informed Consent tatsächlich geeignet ist, den Ansprüchen beider Prinzipien gerecht zu werden. Es wird argumentiert, dass die Kopplung von Community Consent und Informed Consent ethisch problematisch ist, wenn der Gemeinschaft hierbei ein Vetorecht eingeräumt wird, das geeignet ist, die Realisation konträrer individueller Interessen und damit das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Betroffenen zu unterlaufen. Um zu gewährleisten, dass in interkulturellen Forschungszusammenhängen sowohl der individuellen als auch der relationalen Autonomie von Personen angemessener Raum gewährt wird, wäre es empfehlenswert, den Informed Consent ausdrücklich mit einer Community Consultation zu koppeln. Hier käme die Entscheidung gegen, aber auch für eine Studienteilnahme in letzter Instanz klar dem Individuum zu, während die Vorzüge einer Einbeziehung der Gemeinschaft in den Entscheidungsfindungsprozess anerkannt und genutzt werden könnten. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 17 Heft: 1 Seiten: 29-70.

In den westlichen Industrienationen gilt das Prinzip der informierten Einwilligung als das Zentralelement medizinischer Forschungsethik. In anderen, stärker die Relationalität als die Individualität von Personen betonenden Kulturen hingegen werden medizinische Entscheidungen traditionell eher durch die Gemeinschaft bzw. ihr Oberhaupt getroffen. Um verschiedenen kulturellen Normen gerecht zu werden, wird international tätigen Forschungsteams häufig empfohlen, den Community Consent und den Informed Consent einzuholen. Ausschlaggebend soll dabei letztlich der Informed Consent des Individuums sein. Es soll die Teilnahme auch dann verweigern können, wenn die (...) Gemeinschaft bzw. ihr Repräsentant dem Vorhaben zugestimmt hat. Der Beitrag diskutiert, ob eine solche Kopplung von Community Consent und Informed Consent tatsächlich geeignet ist, den Ansprüchen beider Prinzipien gerecht zu werden. Es wird argumentiert, dass die Kopplung von Community Consent und Informed Consent ethisch problematisch ist, wenn der Gemeinschaft hierbei ein Vetorecht eingeräumt wird, das geeignet ist, die Realisation konträrer individueller Interessen und damit das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Betroffenen zu unterlaufen. Um zu gewährleisten, dass in interkulturellen Forschungszusammenhängen sowohl der individuellen als auch der relationalen Autonomie von Personen angemessener Raum gewährt wird, wäre es empfehlenswert, den Informed Consent ausdrücklich mit einer Community Consultation zu koppeln. Hier käme die Entscheidung gegen, aber auch für eine Studienteilnahme in letzter Instanz klar dem Individuum zu, während die Vorzüge einer Einbeziehung der Gemeinschaft in den Entscheidungsfindungsprozess anerkannt und genutzt werden könnten. (shrink)

When dealing with questions of scientific responsibility, we are often concerned with the ethical implications of new and promising but at the same time risky advances in technology and with the responsibility researchers might bear for the application of their scientific results. One very well known example is the question of whether or not the physicists and engineers of the atomic bomb were — at least partly — morally responsible for the bombing of Hiroshima, because their research technically enabled a (...) form of killing that otherwise would not have been possible. Similar problems of responsibility currently arise in the field of biomedicine. Biologists, physicians and other scientists, who are engaged in the development of technologies like reproductive cloning that can be used in morally questionable ways, are increasingly asked to assume some responsibility for the use of their research by others. Ethicists are dealing with the question of how much responsibility can be ascribed to someone who’s action was not inherently morally wrong but can be used in morally blameworthy ways.More rarely it is asked however, if and how much responsibility a user of research results bears for morally questionably or even clearly immoral research that had been conducted that was necessary for his or her work to be carried out Insofar as these questions are dealing with responsibility that in the end must be born by more than one agent, both questions also raise issues of shared or collective responsibility. In this article I will focus on the issue of moral responsibility as it is related to the use of results that were obtained in a morally questionable way. Insofar as the actions that I will focus on are not inherently morally wrong they might be considered to be examples of “moral complicity”. (shrink)

This volume attempts to bring into philosophical focus central problems and topics of intercultural salience. Simultaneously, our underlying aim is to render philosophical analysis more accessible to those social sciences in which intercultural studies are now firmly established. Both these concerns – a philosophical clarification of relevant terms and concepts as well as a broadening of the thematic spectrum – are not merely of academic interest, for by constructively contributing to a more rigorous analysis of intercultural discourse in a whole (...) range of academic disciplines, the intellectual self-understanding of society in general can be beneficially impacted. Given such an academically and socially oriented agenda, this anthology has collated contributions by authors, reputed for their expertise in intercultural topics and societal concerns. Concepts seminal both to multifarious intercultural processes, as well being central to the social sciences, are discussed from differing disciplinary perspectives. (shrink)