Bioethics is a field of study that arises in a contemporary context, emerging in the sixties as a neologism, which allowed in the medical field to recognise the link between doctor and patient. Over the years, authors such as Fritz Jahr, Aldo Leopold, Van Rensselaer Potter, have expanded this perspective of bioethics, raising the need to rethink the relationship between humans in nature and the areas of knowledge, human and natural sciences.
Bioethics offers the possibility of establishing a bridge between the natural sciences and the human sciences, by recognising the bidirectional relationship between the health of humans and the health of ecosystems; what happens in ecosystems directly affects humans (Rodríguez, 2015).
When speaking of environmental bioethics, it is assumed as a possibility of response from ethics to socio-environmental situations or problems. From the study of Salazar, et. al (2020) within the pragmatic line of ethics, environmental ethics entered into crisis, since only a group of people in a reductionist (definition of reductionist) way was dedicated to address environmental ethics and this was limited to respond in a discursive way and with debates of a theoretical nature in front of environmental problems. Over the years, environmental ethics was transformed into environmental bioethics as a field of analysis of specific real problems and the offering of possible solutions to solve them. This proposal gives way to a social and political perspective, favouring the inclusion of all subjects to participation and inclination to provide practical solutions to immediate problems, rather than searching for foundations. In turn, Triana (2005) describes bioethics as the possibility of ethical reflection on technoscientific facts, in such a way as to recognise the impact of technoscience on human and non-human life, as well as the relationship of humans with nature and the development of symbolic effects in human cultural groupings.
According to Vargas (2020), environmental bioethics is the set of actions that human beings must deploy to stop the degradation of the environment, in natural environments, worldwide; it is also the expeditious way to protect the life of all species and, consequently, to achieve the survival of mankind. Potter (1988), who proposes bioethics that transcends the existing fields of knowledge and links interdisciplinarity, is framed in this same way of linking the actions of humans in relation to their impact on the ecosystem, from global bioethics. In turn, Jahr (1927) adds another element of interest from bioethics is the need to place humans in a context of equality with other living beings, raising the importance of respecting each living being as an end in itself and treating it, if possible, as an equal. In other words, it presents the need to rethink the anthropocentric paradigm, i.e., that human is the centre of nature and therefore superior to one that allows recognising other species as equals.
In this sense, Leopold (2004) presents as a problem the existing relationship between humans and nature, since human actions are aimed at fulfilling an economic development model, oriented from a utilitarian vision of nature, where there is an excessive expansion of human populations, an extractivist and servile view of nature, suggesting that the ethics of the earth, in this case understood as environmental ethics, allows changing the relationship between human and the Earth. At the same time, it proposes from the ethics of the Earth a way of transition of paradigms from the anthropocentric to the biocentric.
In the relational field of environmental bioethics with environmental public policies, Gudynas (2016) highlights the importance of the role of environmental ethics in the Latin American context, because they allow a change in them thanks to the valuation of nature from its intrinsic values, i.e. that there are multiple valuations such as historical, cultural, ecological, spiritual, or for its own sense of existence and not only from instrumental valuations.
But this is achieved thanks to the transformation of the anthropocentric paradigm to a biocentric one, that is, one that places humans in the same place as other species and allows the elucidation of the rights of nature and the duties of humans. In this path of emergence in the face of a civilisational and environmental crisis, Mora (2016) proposes that an alternative ethics to the anthropocentric vision is necessary, based on new value schemes, from a vision (ecocentric/biocentric); of intra and intergenerational responsibility, critical of the values of modernity/postmodernity; that provides new forms of democratic participation at all levels, including material production and distribution of the wealth generated, but also equitable access to the process of creation of culture, for good living with respect for human rights/duties. This environmental bioethics will have to face ecological destruction, socioeconomic inequality and the lack of control of technoscience.
For More Details – Explore the References (In Spanish)
- Jahr, Fritz. (1927). Bio-Ethik. Eine Umschau über die ethischen Beziehungen des Menschen zu Tier und Pflanze. [Bio-Etica: Un análisis de la relación ética de los seres humanos con los animales y las plantas] Kosmos. Handweiser für Naturfreunde 24(1): 2-4. Hay versión en español “Bio-Etica: Un análisis de la relación ética de los seres humanos con los animales y las plantas”, traducción de Natacha Lima y Juan Jorge Michel Fariña, 2009 (inédito).
- Gudynas, E. (2014). Debates ambientales. Derechos de la naturaleza y políticas ambientales. Colección Pérez Arbeláez.
- Leopold, A. (2004). “La ética de la Tierra”. Trad. por A. Herrera. En: Naturaleza y valor. Una aproximación a la ética ambiental, compilado por Valdés, M. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Fondo de Cultura Económica.
- Rodríguez, I. (2015). Tendencias y perspectivas de la bioética ambiental: un análisis documental. Revista Colombiana de Bioética. Universidad el Bosque. 10 (2). p. 142-156. https://doi.org/10.18270/rcb.v10i2.1762
- Triana, J. (2005). La enseñanza de la bioética general en la construcción de una ética civil. En: Bioética y medio ambiente. (12). Colección Bios y ethos. Editorial Universidad El Bosque.
- Salazar, V.,Gensollen, M. y Reyes, S.(2020). Ética ambiental y política pública: Factores críticos y estratégicos en la interacción territorial desafíos actuales y escenarios futuros. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México y Asociación Mexicana de Ciencias para el Desarrollo Regional A.C, 601-620. http://ru.iiec.unam.mx/id/eprint/5072
- Vargas, F. (2020). La Bioética Ambiental y sus Postulados en la Convivencia con el Territorio Un análisis desde el ecosistema Sabana de Bogotá [Tesis doctoral]. Repositorio institucional Universidad Militar de Colombia. https://repository.unimilitar.edu.co/handle/10654/35996