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WHAT CAN HISTORY DO FOR BIOETHICS?
Author(s) -
WILSON DUNCAN
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
bioethics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.494
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1467-8519
pISSN - 0269-9702
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2011.01933.x
Subject(s) - bioethics , enthusiasm , perspective (graphical) , field (mathematics) , sociology , environmental ethics , epistemology , social science , political science , law , philosophy , psychology , social psychology , mathematics , artificial intelligence , computer science , pure mathematics
This article details the relationship between history and bioethics. I argue that historians' reluctance to engage with bioethics rests on a misreading of the field as solely reducible to applied ethics, and overlooks previous enthusiasm for historical perspectives. I claim that seeing bioethics as its practitioners see it – as an interdisciplinary meeting ground – should encourage historians to collaborate in greater numbers. I conclude by outlining how bioethics might benefit from new histories of the field, and how historians can lend a fresh perspective to bioethical debates.