생명윤리학의 방법론 小考

A Study on the Methods of Bioethics

Nowadays there are so many approaches to bioethics including traditional deontology and utilitarianism, modern principlism and casuistry as well as virtue bioethics, care bioethics, narrative bioethics, feminist bioethics, communitarian bioethics, pragmatism bioethics, phenomenological bioethics etc. Although the methods of bioethics would never resolve every legal problem resulting from bio-science and bio-technologies, they could provide methodological basis for finding a way to resolve the problems. The methods for bioethics are not going to differ from those for ethics or moral philosophy in general. Like another applied ethics, main ethical theories of bioethics are not different from those of ethics in general. Above all, deontological theories and utilitarian theories are intermingles with each other in bioethics. The structure & process of resolution of bioethical problems is also analogous to that of another applied ethics or practical ethics. The resolution mechanism of bioethical problems will not work by simple case study without appeal to ethical theories. But mere application of ethical theories to particular cases can not resolve bioethical problems properly. In these respects, every method in bioethics has it's strengths and weaknesses. Futhermore some approaches are overlapped, converged and complementary to each other. Nearly all bioethicists reject the extreme approaches in favor of more moderate views that concede much to the other camp. The methodological debate has now moved to a more mature and reflective stage, in which confrontation has begun to be superseded by accommondation and reconciliation.