Content area
Full text
ABSTRACT. In 1927, Fritz Jahr, a Protestant pastor, philosopher, and educator in Halle an der Saale, published an article entitled "Bio-Ethics: A Review of the Ethical Relationships of Humans to Animals and Plants" and proposed a "Bioethical Imperative," extending Kant's moral imperative to all forms of life. Reviewing new physiological knowledge of his times and moral challenges associated with the development of secular and pluralistic societies, Jahr redefines moral obligations towards human and nonhuman forms of life, outlining the concept of bioethics as an academic discipline, principle, and virtue. Although he had no immediate long-lasting influence during politically and morally turbulent times, his argument that new science and technology requires new ethical and philosophical reflection and resolve may contribute toward clarification of terminology and of normative and practical visions of bioethics, including understanding of the geoethical dimensions of bioethics.
"So that the rule for our actions may be the bio-ethical demand: Respect every living being on principle as a goal in itself and treat it, if possible, as such!"
Fritz Jahr, Bio-Ethik, Kosmos 24 (1927): 4.
It is widely accepted that the 1970 publication of Van Rensselaer Potter's book Bioethics: Bridge to the Future and the founding of Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University in 1971 by Hellegers, with the support of Sargent Shriver and the Kenney family (Hellegers 1971), mark the "birth" of the term and concept of bioethics. Consequently, the world celebrated the thirtieth birthday of bioethics 2001. Warren Reich's research articles in 1994 and 1995 actually identify all three-Hellegers, Potter, and Shriver-as "fathers" in speaking "bilocal birth of bioethics" as "the systematic study of human conduct in the area of the life sciences and health care, in as far as this conduct examined in the light of moral values and principles" (Reich 1994; 1995b, p. 29). Referring to Reichs studies, Diego Gracia (2001, p. 17) summarizes the European view of this 1970/1971 birth:
One of the birthplaces was Madison, Wisconsin, where Van Rensselaer Potter, the person who coined the word, was living and working, and the other Washington, D.C., where Andre Hellegers used the term the first time in an institutional way to designate the focused area of inquiry that became an academic field of learning and a movement regarding...