Bioethics Education: Learning Perspectives and Multidisciplinarity

Abstract

Technological progress, bio-medical advances, socio-economical inequalities and the problem of human rights and well-being, access to the advantages of scientific development, dedicated care for the environment and for the future become distinguishing characteristics of the present, and, accordingly, distinct and pressing issues in the rapidly expanding sphere of bioethics. Bioethics education and a comprehensive education with bioethical sensibility become increasingly important in the light of the challenges of the new epoch. The article briefly explores two approaches to an appropriate modelling of an open, inquisitive and pluriperspective worldview in dealing with problems concerning life (bios): a nurturing of a broad sensitivity about the importance of the care for the living on all levels concerning issues pertaining to, or bordering with, a strictly bioethical realm; and a specified teaching and learning of the key concepts of the interdisciplinary and pluriperspective area of integrative bioethics. The former encompasses a consciousness typical for universal ethics and the encouragement of rationality paired with empathy, the latter – a study of pressing key concepts of bioethics in a staggeringly evolving world where problems of bioethics abound. An overview of the need for bioethics education is shown, both as a background knowledge and as a life-long learning goal, and that need is placed in the context of multidisciplinarity. The conceptualisation of bioethics education is explored in the context of institutionalised learning and in its necessary openness to a pluriperspective approach in understanding the present and especially, in anticipating the future.