責任概念の転換と生命倫理
スポンサーリンク
概要
- 論文の詳細を見る
Today, philosophically and juridically, the theory of rights, which extends the right of self-determination even to so-called incompetent persons is flourishing in bioethics. At the same time, some argue that an alternative language of resoponsibility is essential for conceiving bioethics, since the language of rights serves so well as a preemptory appeal in adversarial situations. It can also be pointed out that extending the right of self-determination to incompetent persons forces individual responsibility upon them and is a form of oppression. Nonetheless, arguments critical of the theory of rights are coming into fashion in medical ethics in the United States. Moreover, these critics argue that the concept of responsibility encourages reflection on the social and institutional structures of medical practice and assert that a communal responsibility should be established in medicine, since illness itself is defined by the community and socially experienced. Among those who adovocate changing the existing concept of individual responsibility, some maintain that the absence of agency should protect the incompetent from individual responsibility. Others separate individual responsibility from its social-bearing costs in order to protect the incompetent. Particularly noteworty is the vulnerability model which traces our responsibilities for the incompetent to their vulnerability to us. Although, this line of argument may be inadequate to the task of rigidly defining the concept of responsibility and in concretely reforming the social and institutional structure of medical practice, I think that this tendency to convert the concept of individual responsibility into a communal one should be central to the project of reconstructing and developing bioethics. The primary aim of this paper is to examine these changes in the concept of responsibility and to suggest the significance of establishing a concept of communal resoponsibity in bioethics or medical ethics.
- 日本生命倫理学会の論文
- 1996-06-30