Ethics and bioethics

No abstractThis introductory article intends to throw some light on bioethics, the interdisciplinary branch of applied ethics that nowadays comes very often to the fore, and show its intimacy with ethics and morals and its close affinity with human rights. The term ‘bioethics’ was coined thirty years ago and initially it was used in a broad sense. Later on it became narrower and almost coincided with medical ethics. Nowadays bioethics has become an autonomous, complex, socio-political but always ethical activity. Although it has been established as the most important branch of applied ethics and is usually delineated as the investigation of moral problems and dilemmas arising from the rapid advance of biosciences and biotechnology, both its competence and methodology are often a matter of debate. Bioethics is rarely faced as applied philosophy. This does not mean that bioethics applies traditional or contemporary moral theories to practice in a linear way. It takes into serious consideration the freedom of research and the technoscientific achievements for the benefit of man and tries to bridge the gap between theory and practice through such notions as justice and human rights. It basically uses respect for human rights -nowadays deemed to be in danger- as a test for the evaluation of the biotechnological revolution. In fact, respect for human rights is a must in the latest European and International Declarations on biomedicine and genetics