 "Photo:")
There is an unacceptable ambiguity used in ethical parlance: the mistaken use of "bioethics" and "medical ethics" interchangeably.
I am not merely being picky here; rather I notice that the continued willingness to make this mistake robs us of a useful instrument for solving some very severe matters related to our conduct among one another in an everyday sense.
If one wants to speak of the norms and conduct that are present, or ought to be, in the one on one doctor-patient relationship in the research or clinical settings, then one is asking a question in the realm of medical ethics.
However, if one begins to ask questions about how we ought to justify our organization and use of a hierarchy in any sense of all living things, both rational, such as humans and not, then one is asking a bioethical question.
Recognizing this distinction, and further accepting it, should make evident that we are able to put the mirror on ourselves, so to speak. How we could possibly ever justify and accept racism in spite of the historical difficulties that have arisen because of it?
There exists obvious physical differences among people which gives us enough to begin grouping like people together.
Once we allow that such division exists, we admit a cultural distinction and then begin to consciously, and sometimes even subconsciously, cast value judgments. We are simply in error.
If the differences appear to be the problem, and yet are a biological fact, how is one to solve such an error in a positive way?
I think we may be looking at a good case for positive eugenics. We should begin actively encouraging interracial relationships that could result in multiracial offspring such that the divisions would no longer be apparent and racism would be unintelligible.
However ideal as this may seem, even if it does sound like the plot a strange utopian novel or a bad science fiction flick, we should be ask a deeper and far more pragmatic question: if the recognition of differences in skin color cause us to make a categorical distinction simply for the sake making discourse easier, why is it that value judgments tend to follow?
Since we cannot seem to get even the most basic racial divisions out of our science, I submit we need to make greater efforts to embrace and promote those differences and see them as a benefit.
For many years the classroom wisdom that we leaned on to discourage racism was: we are all the same on the inside, if not on the outside. Science is beginning to show that even that statement is a polite fiction when we consider that medicine done on the genomic level suggests that certain races are prone to certain maladies more so than others. For instance: the occurrence of sickle cell anemia in blacks, or the occurrence of Tay-Sachs disease in Jews of Ashkenazic descent.
So there you have it folks, we are different and since racial integration on the biological level does not seem practical, we need to move past our negative value judgments of those obvious differences among us and embrace them.
As I frequently point out to my fiancé who is the polar opposite of me in so many ways, it is her presence and contribution of a separate life experience that I lean on everyday for perspective.
If we begin teaching our children that they are not only different from one another, but it is just those differences that make them of value to one another, we can make a move toward a more cooperative society where racial diversity and social integration is more firmly embraced.
Be the first to comment on this article!