The Unbearable Whiteness of the Mainstream: Should We Eliminate, or Celebrate, Bias in Bioethics?

Catherine Myser (2003) argues that mainstream bioethics is widely regarded as unbiased and consequently is taken as the standard against which all nonmainstream bioethical thinking should be compared. But, she claims, far from being unbiased, mainstream bioethics in the United States originates from a white Anglo-Saxon protestant worldview, which serves silently to perpetuate white dominance. Failing to understand the cultural origins (read: "whiteness") of mainstream bioethics in the United States perpetuates its hegemony over alternative worldviews, because many wrongly see "white" values as fundamentally human—not bound by place, time, and social structures, including power. This false bioethics hierarchy leads to the notion that "white bioethics" is the de facto "normal," and therefore a model that can be (and is being) applied across all cultures—both national and international. All of this, according to Myser, is a problem.

We agree that a hierarchy in bioethics is not always healthy, though it might be unavoidable. We also agree that culture is a defining aspect of bioethics, and we will stipulate that various cultures might not share "white" values such as primary concerns with autonomy, justice, beneficence, and so on. We also will not argue whether "white" is the most appropriate label for mainstream bioethics thinking in the United States, because other commentators are addressing this issue (Baker 2003). It seems clear that without respectfully exploring the cultural viewpoints of minority populations, mainstream bioethics in the United States could become (if it is not already) narrow, isolated, and (dare we say?) bigoted. At issue though, is how to go about increasing the diversity of viewpoints in U.S. bioethics.

Myser believes that bioethicists should incorporate perspectives originating from generally marginalized groups into the mainstream model. She writes,

"different" voices should not be sought merely to be maintained in the "hidden niches, separate channels, [and] alternative arenas" of minoritized spaces and interpreted or translated in and through the majority space; rather they should be sought to participate fully in creating and revising "mainstream" bioethics issues.

That is, "white bioethics" can best show that it values different perspectives by incorporating them into the mainstream view, thus elevating them into accepted standards. But because bioethics has not "problematized" (i.e., recognized as problematic) the "whiteness" of mainstream bioethics, Myser fears that increasing sociocultural diversity in bioethics only "legitimates and maintains 'minoritized spaces' in bioethics." Instead of "minority bioethics" models being compared to "white bioethics," Myser would prefer ethicists to "adjust their theorizing and practice by understanding and incorporating the 'unique' and 'varying' sociocultural contexts and standpoints, values, beliefs, and practices of" minority groups. (It is not clear whether she perceives the irony in this idea: using a "melting pot" of diverse ideas to create a new and improved mainstream is, after all, a quintessentially American ethical and political ideal, one that is not universally held.) Myser hopes that through such an incorporation of other viewpoints "white" bioethics will no longer be the standard worldview (it also will not be "white" anymore, with all the negative connotations Myser implies with this term), and hence "white bioethics" will disappear rather than being exported wholesale to other cultures, like some sort of risky Western medical technology.

To be sure, mainstream bioethics in the United States does need to be understood in context—its principles and values, such as the primacy of the individual, are just as much a product of culture as other models that might emphasize different values. And understanding that mainstream bioethics in the United States originates from a "white" perspective is necessary to understanding its biases. But this understanding will not, and should not, eliminate the real differences that exist between various value systems. The goal of eliminating "minoritized spaces" in bioethics by elevating all perspectives into the mainstream is impossible to achieve—and even if achieved would still...