Abstract
The emergence of biopolitics and bioethics are closely related. They not only focus on ‘bio,’ life in a wide and abstract sense, but also reach beyond the individual subject and beyond theoretical rationality. But instead of developing as two related discourses, bioethics has in fact become the dominant manifestation of biopolitics itself. Bioethics has generated a political regime, a system of governance that administers, fosters and secures life as a form of ‘biopower,’ controlling the population and disciplining the individual. This emergence of biopower is closely linked to the ideology of neoliberalism since it emphasizes internal regulation by autonomous subjects rather than external force and pressure.
However, this articulation of mainstream bioethics as the prime manifestation of biopolitics, emphasizing humanitarianism, requesting respect for the individual as the subject of politics and ethics, and regulating life from its interior; at the same time neglecting the social, political and economic dimensions of human life, is increasingly more difficult to maintain in light of the globalization of bioethics. Rather than re-iterating and facilitating biopower, global bioethics is better capable of using moral discourse to critically analyze medicine and healthcare. The question is whether global bioethics can escape from biopolitics. Can it develop moral discourses and critical practices that criticize, resist and oppose the dominant neoliberal ideology?
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Notes
- 1.
Goodlatte’s campaigns were funded by the patent industry. Rea herself is a pharmacist and patent lawyer. In March 2015, Obama appointed a new Director of USTPO, Michelle Lee, a patent lawyer and former Google employee.
- 2.
For a report on the Rea hearing: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/10/obamas-health-policy-global-health-reform_n_1659742.html. For the video of the hearing, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9_68z6De9E
- 3.
For the new global fund, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/25/global-health-fund-obama-administration_n_1544399.html. See also WIPO: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/trade-deals-cheap-drugs-us_n_1554314.html
- 4.
For Oxfam’s comments on the TTIP, see: https://www.oxfam.org/en/whats-wrong-european-union-united-states-free-trade-talks
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ten Have, H. (2017). Can Boethics Escape from Biopolitics?. In: Kakuk, P. (eds) Bioethics and Biopolitics. Advancing Global Bioethics, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66249-7_7
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