The concept of responsibility: Three stages in its evolution within bioethics

Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics

Volumn 17, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 114-123

  Turoldo, Fabrizio ^a   Barilan, Y Michael ^b  

^a CA' FOSCARI UNIVERSITY OF VENICE   (Italy)

^b MEIR MEDICAL CENTER   (Israel)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BIOETHICS; HUMAN; MORALITY; REVIEW; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR;

BIOETHICS; HUMANS; MORAL DEVELOPMENT; SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY;

EID: 37349038356     PISSN: 09631801     EISSN: 14692147     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0963180108080110     Document Type: Review

References (54)

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2. Another influential early work is Passmore J. Men's Responsibility for Nature. London: Duckworth; 1974 (2nd ed. 1980), where responsibility is interpreted with regard to the protection of nature and setting limits on human population growth.
3. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Bk 3, ch. 1-5.
4. For recent discussions, see Arpaly N. Unprincipled Virtue. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2003, for the "merit based camp,
5. and Dennet D. Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press; 2004, for the consequentialists.
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9. Issue 63 of the "Federalist," published in 1787 in various New York News Papers. For a web version see: http://www.founding fathers.info/federalistpapers/fed63.htm, accessed Jan 4, 2007.
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16. The responsible person is the one who chose to act (Plato, Republic, 617e),
17. the origin and "father" of the action (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1113bff.).
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32. Later Levinas grappled with an idea of "guiltless responsibility." Hand S. The Levinas Reader. Oxford: Blackwell; 1989:83.
33. Martin Heidegger also discusses guilt as a psychic event that may precede any particular context such as indebtedness. Heidegger M. Being and Time. Oxford: Blackwell; 1967:337. Both philosophers stress the role of shame.
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37. Bridging over distances and respect for distances are two fundamental cognitive schemes in ethics. The expansion of the horizons of obligation and responsibility is always in a potential conflict with the language of human rights. The latter is based on the metaphor of unimpeded movement.
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42. Whereas Hegel saw social norms as "measures" for moral principles, Strawson (see note 4, Strawson 1962) went much further, claiming that social contexts actually define the very substance of responsibility.
43. See note 28, Ricoeur 2005:68-9.
44. For a recent discussion, see Wolin R. Heidegger's Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas and Herbert Marcuse. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press; 2001:123-9.
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49. This is a commonplace topos in the philosophy of desire. We do not discuss here the different and the overlapping characteristics of cares and desires. One important point is that cares do not strive to satiate wants. Another crucial difference is that cares target something in the real world. See Barilan YM. Towards a dialogue between Utilitarianism and medicine. Medicine, Healthcare & Philosophy 2004;7:163-73. In Humean terms, desires are prerequisite for the adoption of moral goals; according to Levinas, cares evolve spontaneously when a human being becomes aware of a crisis of injustice or a vital need.
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