All Across the Universe: Bioethics Across Cultures

Excerpt

This journal aspires to a global vision of bioethics. It has a distinct editorial category of “Global Bioethics,” and its editorial team and board are globally engaged in both their vision and their lives. However, the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry is published by a global multi-national company, of European origin, and its editorial processes are firmly lodged in the western logical-positive tradition and peer review structures. Scrutiny of its publication and rejection record shows that most papers come from Australasia, North America, and Europe, and no doubt many authors from other regions, cultures, and traditions, would say they are under-represented. There are language barriers for sure and big differences in approach and writing styles. We do need to publish papers that have global interest and open up novel concepts, tell new stories, or describe innovative ways of analyzing ethical issues. In other words, papers that have some generalizable value to settings other than that of the authors in question. It is also clear that countries around the world are at different stages of development in their regulation and societal consideration of the conduct of science and health service delivery. They do this by attempting to implement core values and procedures of the global (but predominantly western) bioethics cannon but also by exploring their own political, religious, and philosophical traditions, and both these paths are represented in our short symposium in this issue, in Latin American, Middle Eastern, and Islamic settings. …