Universalism and Particularism Debate in "Asian Bioethics"

1 U n i v e r s a l i s m a n d P a r t i c u l a r i s m D e b a t e S o r a j H o n g l a d a r o m Universalism and Particularism Debate in “Asian Bioethics” S O R A J H O N G L A D A R O M Introduction In September 2003, I was invited by Prof Ryuichi Ida of Kyoto University’s Faculty of Law to an international seminar on “Dialogue and Promotion of Bioethics in Asia” at the beautiful convention centre in Kyoto, where I gave two presentations. The first one was on “Organ Transplantation from a Theravada Buddhist Perspective” and the second on “Asian Bioethics: What Is It Really?” The first presentation, on which I collaborated with my colleague Dr Sirinart Vasanavathana from the Thai Ministry of Public Health, was a small research work that reflected on how the Theravada Buddhist views the contentious issue of organ transplantation and brain death. The idea presented was that Theravada Buddhism had nothing in principle against organ transplantation and organ donation per se, provided that such acts were genuinely altruistic. The most important consideration in Buddhism, when judging whether an action is right or wrong, is the motivation behind the action. The second presentation was perhaps a more interesting one, albeit more general. In that presentation, I asked whether there was such a thing as “Asian” bioethics, and my answer was a qualifiedly negative one. It was “qualified” because in that presentation I mentioned that one needs to make a distinction between the first-order judgments on issues bioethicists are normally interested in — such as what regulations concerning human reproductive cloning should be like — and the second-order ones which concern the more philosophical approach of providing reasons or justifications of the first-order judgments. My thinking resembled that of John Rawls in his famous Political Liberalism (Rawls, 1993). In that book, Rawls argues that there should be an overlapping consensus of those who have to live together in a pluralistic society. They do Asian Bioethics Review December 2008 inaugural edition 1–14 A R T I C L E S A s i a n B i o e t h i c s R e v i e w D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 i n a u g u r a l e d i t i o n 2 this by keeping their metaphysics private, so to speak. This is political through and through because it aims squarely at finding a workable solution in a less than ideal situation. The idea presented in Kyoto eventually found a place in the journal Eubios (Hongladarom, 2004). In this essay, I will present a more detailed and slightly different treatment of this particular subject of Asian bioethics. I will present arguments by three leading scholars in the field, namely Hyakudai Sakamoto, Leonardo de Castro and Nie Jing-Bao, on the issue of Asian bioethics. The aim is to find in these arguments an anatomy of the debate so that we might understand it better. The analysis is made in the spirit of meta-ethics where the concern is to find a solution to the age-old problem of universalism and particularism. More specifically, I intend to find, through an analysis of the arguments put forward by these scholars, a solution that lies in neither position. An upshot is that we can find a way to merge the two positions, or alternatively speaking of a new position which is neither universalistic nor particularistic. The key to this new position lies in an abandonment of some ingrained habit in ethical thinking — that ethical deliberation should be founded on some metaphysical system or entity. The Relativist in Sakamoto First, let us look at some of the arguments that have been advanced in favour of Asian bioethics. In his seminal paper, “Toward a Global Bioethics”, Hyakudai Sakamoto argues that certain elements of Asian culture should become a basis for a distinctly “Asian” bioethics, what he calls the “Asian ethos” (Sakamoto...