Department of Philosophy

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https://hdl.handle.net/1794/1177

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Browsing Department of Philosophy by Subject "bioethics"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Bioethicists Should be Helping Scientists Think About Race
    (Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 2021) Russell, Camisha
    In this essay, I argue that bioethicists have a thus-far unfulfilled role to play in helping life scientists, including medical doctors and researchers, think about race. I begin with descriptions of how life scientists tend to think about race and descriptions of typical approaches to bioethics. I then describe three different approaches to race: biological race, race as social construction, and race as cultural driver of history. Taking into account the historical and contemporary interplay of these three approaches, I suggest an alternative framework for thinking about race focused on how the idea of race functions socially. Finally, using assisted reproductive technologies as an example, I discuss how bioethicists and scientists might work together using this framework to improve not only their own but broader perspectives on race.
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    Questions of Race in Bioethics: Deceit, Disregard, Disparity, and the Work of Decentering
    (Philosophy Compass, 2016) Russell, Camisha
    Philosophers working in bioethics often hope to identify abstract principles and universal values to guide professional practice, relying on ideals of objectivity and impartiality, and on the power of rational (individual, autonomous) deliberation. Such a focus has made it difficult to address issues arising from group-based, sociohistorical differences like race and ethnicity. This essay offers a survey of some of the major issues concerning race in the field of bioethics. These issues include a long history of racialized abuse in medical and scientific research, reproductive injustice and abuse against women of color, and persistent racial and ethnic disparities in U.S. health and healthcare. The essay also argues that the field of bioethics as a whole would be improved by taking the experience of racial minorities into account in all its theorizing. Philosophers can aid in this task by expanding their theoretical focus beyond questions of individual rights to questions of social justice, beyond informed consent to community collaboration, and beyond cultural competency to both structural competency and cultural humility.
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    Response to Feder and Mills
    (Philosophy Today, 2020) Russell, Camisha