Despite the massive scale of global
inequalities, until recently few political philosophers or bioethicists
addressed their ethical implications. Questions of justice were thought to be
primarily internal to the nation state. Over the last decade or so, there has
been an explosion of interest in the philosophical issues surrounding global
justice. These issues are of direct relevance to bioethics. The links between
poverty and health imply that we cannot separate questions of global health from
questions about fair distribution of global resources and the institutions
governing the world order. Similarly, as increasing numbers of medical trials
are conducted in the developing world, researchers and their sponsors have to
confront the special problems of doing research in an unjust world, with
corresponding obligations to correct injustice and avoid exploitation. This book
presents a collection of original essays by leading thinkers in political
theory, philosophy, and bioethics. They address the key issues concerning global
justice and bioethics from two perspectives. The first is ideal theory, which is
concerned with the social institutions that would regulate a just world. What is
the relationship between human rights and the provision of health care? How, if
at all, should a global order distinguish between obligations to compatriots and
others? The second perspective is from non-ideal theory, which governs how
people should behave in the unjust world in which we actually find ourselves.
What sort of medical care should actual researchers working in impoverished
countries offer their subjects? What should NGOs do in the face of cultural
practices with which they deem unethical? If coordinated international action
will not happen, what ought individual states to do? These questions have more
than theoretical interest; their answers are of direct practical import for
policymakers, researchers, advocates, NGOs, scholars, and others. This book is
the first collection to comprehensively address the intersection of global
justice and bioethical dilemmas.
