The Variants of Non-Mainstream Bioethics in Europe: An Essay on Hopes and Disappointments

Abstract

By „mainstream bioethics,“ we intend the interpretation of bioethics imposed by Kennedy Institute of Ethics (Washington), American Journal of Bioethics, Oxford University Press, and other powerful institutions of the same opinion. Those institutions use English language and principlism (the „Georgetown mantra“), deeply rooted in the Anglo-American, culturally-bound set of values. In Europe, the discovery of the work of Fritz Jahr (by the end of the 20th century) encouraged the development of several more or less original schools of bioethics, including the Mediterranean, Integrative, and others.

It is the intention of this paper to analyse the spread of the ideas of Fritz Jahr, the appearance of ecological (bio)ethics, as well as other approaches alternative to the dominative Anglo-American medical ethics in Spain, Italy, Croatia, and several other countries.