| Systems bioethics (Robert 2007b) is my interdisciplinary approach to framing, asking, and answering ethical and policy questions in the life sciences writ large. This work ranges well beyond the usual confines of bioethics, such that it is hardly identifiable with traditional bioethics. As I am developing it, systems bioethics invokes aspects of the idea of systems biology: it seeks to define relevant interests and values, probe their nature, and establish an understanding of the dynamic, interactive relations among the disparate components of the particular bioethical ‘system’ under study. The substance of bioethics is a web of interacting elements each of which must severally and jointly be brought under scrutiny, perturbed and probed, in order to anticipate and attempt to resolve impending controversies.
Additionally, inasmuch as I advocate a systems approach in biology generally, the intersection of history and philosophy of science and bioethics in my work takes seriously the view that in both science and ethics, dynamic interactions are central. Studying the ‘parts’ in isolation one from the other will always yield partial answers at best. Systems bioethics provides a proactive way to think about scientific, ethical, and political issues together and interactively. For more, see "Systems Bioethics and Stem Cell Biology" (Robert et al., 2006) and "Systems Bioethics" (Robert 2007).
This research has been supported through a seed grant from the Institute for Humanities Research at ASU.
|
