non-living beings, also wanted to indicate the
responsibility of all towards the environment (17).
That term, as well as others, lay the foundation
of bioethical principles, and the relationship
between bioethics and deep ecology (5).
Bioethics and Deep Ecology
Bioethics is a term that came into use in the
1970s, relating to ethical questions in the areas
of biology, medicine and psychology in order to
provide answers to the challenges of new
knowledge. Although the term bioethics, i.e.,
“bioethik”, was first used by Paul Max Fritz Jahr in
an article from 1927, the credits for
conceptualizing and preparing the term go to
Van Rensselaer Potter II, who built the
foundation for the development of bioethics in
his work in the 1970s (15). Since the meaning of
life is broader than the human or medicinal
aspect, bioethics questions the responsibility of
human action towards humans themselves, but
also towards all life on Earth, or better said
towards the biosphere (18). Namely, Potter
thought that ethical values cannot be separated
from biological facts, and he considered
bioethics to be a bridge between science and
humanity (19) which includes all living beings or,
in other words, a biosphere essential for
guaranteeing a future (20). Numerous
discoveries have brought new knowledge,
which he believed could not in itself be
completely bad or good, but that it represented
power, and, therefore, once available, it would
mostly be used for power (21). It is therefore
essential to know how to use new knowledge,
and that is possible only by possessing the
wisdom on how to use new knowledge (22). On
that end, he believed that bioethics as a science
of survival would provide the wisdom on how to
ensure sustainability (21). However, despite that,
bioethics is often synonymous with clinical,
medical or, the commonly called, biomedical
ethics, which is wrong and inconsistent with
Potter’s original idea of a global bioethics which
deals with man’s relationship with himself, but
also with the ecosystem (23). Bioethics cannot
be only clinical ethics because the concept
simultaneously contains elements of
environmental ethics — it is concerned with the
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survival of man, but not any survival - the survival
which considers the survival of the ecosystem
that has its value, entirely independent of man
(24).
Finally, according to Potter, bioethics implies the
inevitable interconnectedness of man and the
rest of the living world (25), or in other words, an
interconnected biosphere (20). Deep ecology as
a part of environmental ethics understands
people as an indispensable part of nature or a
link in the chain of life, it points to the
interconnectedness and interdependence of all
parts of the ecosphere, emphasizes the
primordial value of all species regardless of
human needs, and it focuses on wisdom and
balance (26). Deep ecology can be seen as a
form of a radical environmental critique of the
technological civilization which reacts to
technolatry, anthropocentrism, instrumentalism
and resourcism, consumerism, and linear
progressivism which overtook society with the
emergence of new knowledge (27). Naess
considered deep ecology to be an ecosophy
developed under the influence of Leopold,
focused on wisdom, that is, the wisdom of the
Earth, which focuses on ecologically wise and
healthy living (28). It is shown that ecological
ethics, ecoethics, or environmental ethics gather
different theories, some of which are mentioned
here. For example, ecocentrism, biocentrism,
pathocentrism, or their mixed forms such as
ecocentrism and ecofeminism, as well as the
ethics of deep ecology from which each of them
stems, try to set a frame in order to discuss the
moral relationship between humans and
inhuman entities, by expanding the human
moral obligation to animals, plants or certain
areas of nature or life in general (29). Despite the
critics and the deficiencies to which deep
ecology subjected, the framework for building a
new theory is the concept of responsibility, more
precisely the responsibility of acting, as in
lighting the effects of knowledge (30). Also, new
ethics must have a dimension of sustainability,
which bioethics as an interdisciplinary field of
science can realize within the scope of its
content, and its strength can be seen in
generating a new sensibility and creating a new
awareness which goes past particular
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