Life Assemblages of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research in China and Japan: Bioethical Problematisations and Bioethical Boundary-making

Abstract

Views about bioethics and the way it has developed and spread over the globe are manifold. But both patrons and critics of neoliberalism assume that ‘Western bioethics’ have shaped and dominated the formation of bioethics in the world. Neoliberal views that subscribe to the notion of a universal bioethics doubt that indigenous views in some cultures respect the privacy and autonomy of the individual. Training and collaboration would persuade other cultures of the fairness or at least the expediency of the ‘universal’ bioethical views developed in the so-called West to the current international politico-economic order. Bioethics, in this view, would provide a degree of ‘social justice’ and increase the choices available to individuals. Critics of neoliberalism argue that what they regard as hegemonic ‘Western’ bioethics prescribes guidelines and regulation to other cultures under the economic pressures of capitalism and through international hegemonic neoliberal institutions. In this view, the assertion of ‘Western’ bioethics institutions enables forms of life science research that would be dismissed as exploitative and irresponsible without these institutions. Not adopting ‘Western’ bioethics, would simply discount other cultures as uncivilised or ‘lacking human rights’. There is a third view common to intellectuals and activist movements at home, which supports the bioethics of the ‘native’.