BIOETHICS AND BIOLAW, vol. 1

The catalogue of possibilities for biotechnical intervention in – or interference with – life grows longer every day, whether we contemplate the human body, flora and fauna or the whole biosphere. But most people agree that what is possible is not necessarily permissible.  

This Problem was discussed on two major international conferences, held I Copenhagen in the nineties in connection to a project on “Bioethics and Law” undertaken by the Danish Centre for Ethics and Law supported by UNESCO, the Danish Research Councils, the European Commission, The University of Copenhagen, The Danish Council for Ethics and various Foundations. Volume 1 presents the papers at the first conference on “Judgement of Life”. Here distinguished scholars in the fields of philosophy, law, medicine, genetics, agriculture and veterinary science address the most pressing bioethical issues that have arisen in judicial practice and in legislation both proposed and enacted, in government directives and in ethicolegal debate on the relationship between the good life and justice: 

- Is it possible to find common human standards in this field? 

- What variations in bioethics and biolaw are acceptable? 

- Does the development of biotechnology lend itself at all to control? 

- What methods should we adopt? 

- How do we avoid both tyranny of incompetence and the technocracy of expertise?