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Putting the Bios Back into Bioethics: Prospects for Health and Climate Justice

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Bioethical Insights into Values and Policy

Part of the book series: Public Health Ethics Analysis ((PHES,volume 4))

Abstract

Global climate change is the most complex and significant ethical issue of our time. The urgent discussion of how to bring about alterations in human energy usage and economic production in order to mitigate the social and ecosystemic harm done by climate change calls for a bioethics voice. But bioethics will not be able to make this contribution if it merely addresses climate change as one more in a series of problems or dilemmas. The nature of the climate change challenge is such that bioethics will have to alter fundamentally its discourse and broaden its moral horizons. This chapter argues that bioethics should become more discerning and insightful concerning matters of political power and economics. It will also do well to establish new ties and overlapping perspectives with the ecological sciences. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the structure and the logic of the encounter between bioethics—understood as a particular kind of discourse—and climate change—understood as a systemic challenge to human and ecological health. Extended consideration is given to what needs to be added to the conceptual range of bioethics in its engagement with climate change, with particular emphasis on the concepts of autonomy, membership, and solidarity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Perhaps this moderation was fundamental to the success and subsequent influence of the field. Bioethics researchers and practitioners needed to gain entry into certain professional, governmental, and financial citadels; it was important that they retain academic respectability by not becoming too activist or radical; and it was important that they position themselves so as to make what was perceived by their patrons and clients as constructive contributions to problem solving (Fox and Swazey 2008; Evans 2012; Callahan 2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Humans and Nature, Chicago, IL, USA

    Bruce Jennings

  2. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Bruce Jennings

  3. The Hastings Center, Garrison, NY, USA

    Bruce Jennings

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  1. Bruce Jennings
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Correspondence to Bruce Jennings .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Chair of the Bioethics Dept, Sch. Med., St George’s University (SGU), WINDREF, Great River, New York, USA

    Cheryl C. Macpherson

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Jennings, B. (2016). Putting the Bios Back into Bioethics: Prospects for Health and Climate Justice. In: Macpherson, C. (eds) Bioethical Insights into Values and Policy. Public Health Ethics Analysis, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26167-6_2

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