The Way of Virtue: Introduction to a Chinese Culture-based Bioethics

Time and Date: March 27, 2017 (Monday), 18:30-20:30

Location: Room 204, Science Teaching Building, Peking University

Lecturer: Prof. FAN Ruiping
BM, Ph.D., is Chair Professor of Bioethics and Public Policy in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong. He serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Medicine & Philosophy, Associate Editor of Chinese Medical Ethics, Co-Editor of International Journal of Chinese & Comparative Philosophy of Medicine, and Editor of Asian Studies in the Philosophy of Medicine & Bioethics book series. His research focuses on Confucian bioethics, Chinese and comparative philosophy, and ethics and public policy. In addition to over 140 journal articles and book chapters (80 in English and 40 in Chinese) published, he has also authored Reconstructionist Confucianism: Rethinking Morality after the West (in English, 2010) and Contemporary Confucian Bioethics (in Chinese, 2011). He was the editor or co-editor of Confucian Bioethics (in English, 1999), Confucian Society and the Revival of Dao (in Chinese, 2008), the Renaissance of Confucianism in Contemporary China (in English, 2011), Confucian Constitution and China’s Future (in Chinese, 2012), Ritual and the Moral Life (in English, 2012), Confucian Constitutional Order (in English, 2013), and Family-oriented Informed Consent: East Asian and American Perspectives (in English, 2015).

Brief Introduction:
There is no such thing as universal bioethics. What we have seen are divergent culture-based bioethics over the world. A tenable Chinese culture-based bioethics should meet four conditions: national relevance, political legitimacy, historical reasonableness, and ethical justifiability. This presentation addresses two prominent issues in international bioethics to illustrate the prospect of Chinese culture-based bioethics. In medical decision making, shall we turn to principlism or maintain a virtue-centered ritualism? Regarding the so-called a right to VSED (voluntarily stopping eating and drinking), should we build a virtue-oriented Confucian conception of rights or simply embrace an interest-based liberal conception of rights to direct our practice? The presentation demonstrates that the Chinese culture-based bioethics should develop in the way of virtue and expand its moral imagination in contrast with liberal individualist bioethics.