A Communitarian Approach for Bioethics

Abstract

This paper justifies a communitarian approach to the issues of dissemination of biotechnologies and human enhancement. Communitarianism is compared against the Kantian paradigm in bioethics. Contrary to utilitarianism, Kantianism transcends strictly individualistic perspective by treating use of biotechnologies as social interaction and underlining the primacy of autonomous decision and human dignity. However, Kantianism fails to discriminate between real autonomy and formal autonomy of human decisions that are prefigured by biotechnological environment that stimulates the use of technologies. Treating man as an end easily slips into treating it as a target and object of technological perfection. For communitarianism, human autonomy is a collectively enacted capacity, and therefore it argues that biotechnologies should be evaluated by their impact on integrity of human communities affected by them. This paper argues that communitarian approach calls for a democratic response to bioethical challenges.