Three Levels of Problems in Cross-Cultural Explorations of Bioethics: A Methodological Approach

Abstract

It is believed that cross-cultural explorations of ethics in general and bioethics in particular are important in disclosing apparently different moral standards and moral practices among distinct cultures. On the other hand, cross-cultural comparisons of morality are often made by ethicists in order to demonstrate the universal validity of certain basic (or core) moral standards in every culture, no matter how divergent cultures appear to be. In this regard, cross-cultural examinations of bioethics are an extension of standard Western bioethics, “the family of secular approaches rooted in the theories and principles of analytical moral philosophy that are dominant in the English-speaking world” (McKenny, 1996, p. 74). One representative and very influential standard Western bioethical theory claims itself to be a common-morality theory which “takes its basic premises directly from the morality shared in common by the members of a society — that is, unphilosophical common sense and tradition” (Beauchamp and Childress, 1994, p. 100). Accordingly, many believe that most fundamental secular moral premises and principles thus obtained from a common sense of Western morality apply universally in the West. They are supposed to be basic secular moral beliefs shared by everyone in spite of diverse religious, ideological, or other commitments. In this regard, standard Western bioethics is considered to have successfully transcended the diversity of moral communities which marks pluralist Western society.