Holistic Bioethics - Paperback

by Jude Thaddaeus Buyondo (Author)

In pursuing a holistic bioethics while dialoguing with different sciences' appreciation of moral affinities between human and nonhuman entities, Dr. Buyondo argues for a minimum moral status for nonhuman entities. The minimum normative basics of approaches to biomedical ethics are at the very least not distinctive to either human animals or nonhuman animals only. The investigation builds further on the African understanding of life--where no creation is lifeless. In establishing a more inclusive, functional bioethics, the African approach goes further than biocentrism, ecocentrism, and holism to ground an inclusive African "holistic moral egalitarianism," suggesting that "all forces" and "all created things have life." We are not emphasizing how every system and creature command equal respect; rather, everything has life, commands respect, and moral concern as a minimum imperative within a Black African holistic approach to bioethics. However, holistic bioethics can neither be Western nor an African invention that people of other cultures only admire from a distance. Moreover, holistic bioethics doesn't offer the last word on the ethics of nonhuman animals, holistic anamnetic solidarity, the relational Other, and intercultural theological bioethics.

Author Biography

Jude Thaddaeus Buyondo is a leading research scholar in eco-theological bioethics and African diasporic thought based at the University of Vienna and Boston College. He was born and raised in Uganda and trained in Eastern and Western Africa, Central Europe, and the USA. Buyondo studied at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa and the University of Innsbruck, and earned his doctorate at the University of Vienna. He is the author of The Critique of Bioethical Principlism in Contrast to an African Approach to Bioethics, a book revered by professors and doctoral students preparing for comprehensive examinations.