Global Bioethics: Building on the Leopold Legacy

Title: Global Bioethics: Building on the Leopold Legacy
ABP identifier: ABP-W-0027
Creator: Van Rensselaer Potter
Date: 1988
Type: Book
Description: Potter returned to the expansive meaning of bioethics he had proposed in the early 1970s and connected human health to ecological survival, population, and the ethical use of biological knowledge. Building on Aldo Leopold, he argued that medical bioethics and ecological ethics should be understood within a single global framework.
Intellectual stream: Boundary expansion; Justice & allocation
Verification status: Verified
Evidence confidence: High
Historical significance: Potter returned to the expansive meaning of bioethics he had proposed in the early 1970s and connected human health to ecological survival, population, and the ethical use of biological knowledge. Building on Aldo Leopold, he argued that medical bioethics and ecological ethics should be understood within a single global framework. The book appeared after American bioethics had become strongly associated with clinical dilemmas, research rules, and health law. It therefore records an alternative path for the field, one concerned with the conditions of collective survival and the relation between human beings and their environments. Its later relevance should not obscure its original role as a critique of bioethics’ narrowing scope.