Bioethics and human rights

Abstract

Bioethics and human rights face two great contemporary challenges. The first is that they have not been designed to apply to the most powerful actors causing many of the most serious problems they strive to address – supranational corporations. The second is that they arise from and (through their consistent application) sustain great anthropocentric virtues such as justice, equity, and respect for human dignity, yet have not been structured to deal with the emerging social virtue of environmental sustainability. This chapter explores the intersecting normative ancestry of bioethics and human rights in the context of their need to engage with these challenges as they play a role in key global policy debates concerning energy, food, and water security and the use of new technologies to address those problems.