polylog 13
Hans Schelkshorn: Editorial
2005
Biotechnologie
Herausgeberinnen des Thementeils: Anke Graneß & Nausikaa Schirilla
THEMA
Jens Schlieter
Bioethik, Religion und Kultur aus komparativer Sicht:
Zur Bedeutung und Methodik einer neuen Fragestellung
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At a time when various Asian cultures are trying to debate the greatness of their own cultures in terms of Asian values and the freedom given to various kinds of genetic and biomedical research, it is necessary to look at the way bioethics can be made acceptable transculturally. It is arguable whether bioethics can become universally acclaimed like human rights. It will be difficult to come to an agreement on this point for both philosophers and scientists in different cultures. Such disagreement has also caused scientists to move to the countries and cultures where they experience more freedom in their research. A considerable drawback lies in the fact that bioethics has not become an established field of philosophy. To help articulate bioethics in different cultures, four methodological standpoints are offered. Though this could be done effectively at the theoretical level, it remains to be established concretely on the cultural and religious levels. This in turn depends a lot on the understanding of life people have in different cultures and religions. It is here that religion and culture provide answers to inexplicable questions, and where a dialogue on bioethics could be most fruitful.
Byron L. Sherwin
Jüdische Ethik für das 21. Jahrhundert.
Klonen und Fortpflanzungstechnologie
Ilhan Ilkilic
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New biomedical technologies are used nowadays everywhere in the world, and thus in countries of different cultural and religious backgrounds. Application of the new methods of research and treatment in modern medicine makes new diagnostic and therapeutic interventions possible, but also often raises new complex bioethical problems, which cannot be discussed and judged independently of cultural attitudes. In this article the main positions in Islamic discussions about biomedical applications are discussed; for example, stem cell research, gene diagnostics, gene therapy, in vitro techniques, reproductive and therapeutic cloning and related areas. Moreover, intercultural aspects of these bioethical problems in a value-pluralistic society are dealt with, and lay aspects as well as health literacy are thematized.
Godfrey B. Tangwa
Gentechnologie und moralische Werte.
Eine afrikanische Meinung
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This paper reflects, from a cross-cultural perspective, on the implications of biotechnology on moral values. Today, biotechnology, an aspect of Western industrialized culture, is capable of manipulating or modifying the genes of living organisms. This raises many ethical problems, some relating to biodiversity and the environment in general. Bioethics owes its own development to awareness of the seriousness and magnitude of these ethical problems which cannot leave any culture indifferent, no matter its own level of technological development. Africa, for instance, which presents remarkable biodiversity, against the background of which human values and attitudes different from those of the Western world have developed, cannot be indifferent to the problems raised by biotechnology. It is possible for global bioethics to emerge, provided globalization does not simply translate into Westernization.
Petra Gehring
Zirkulierende Körperstoffe, zirkulierende Körper-Daten
IM GESPRÄCH
Karin Preisendanz
»Humangenetik und die Tradition des Ayurveda«
im Gespräch mit A. Amaladass
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FORUM
Anand Amaladass
Eine kurze Darstellung indischer Ontologien
Karl Baier
Transreligiöse Studien und existentiale Interpretation