This paper explores the evolution of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights , which was adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2005. While the draft UDBHR generated controversy among bioethicists, the process through which it evolved excluded mainstream bioethicists. The absence of peer review affects the declaration’s content and significance. This paper critically analyses its content, commenting on the failure to acknowledge socioeconomic and other factors that impede its implementation. The UDBHR outlines ideal (...) standards but fails to provide guidance that can be readily applied in different settings. It strives for universality but does not contribute to understanding of universal or global bioethics.The Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights was developed through multinational consultation over several years. It was officially adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in October 2005.1 This paper explores the process of drafting the UDBHR, critically analyses its content and considers its status in the context of global bioethics. It comments on the UDBHR’s failure to acknowledge or respond to socioeconomic and other factors that impede attempts to implement it. The paper concludes that the process of drafting the declaration excluded a necessary group of stakeholders and that the UDBHR therefore fails to provide the guidance it aims to offer.Identifying a need to develop universally applicable ethical guidelines within a context of cultural pluralism, Unesco began developing a draft Declaration on Universal Norms on Bioethics. A near final draft was posted on Unesco’s website in February 2005 and replaced in June 2005 with the version subsequently adopted as the UDBHR. Stakeholder consultation on the draft involved hundreds of people in many diverse nations. These were seemingly limited to consultations with Unesco affiliates, however, and public comment was not solicited. …. (shrink)

Moral relativism provides a compelling explanation of linguistic data involving ordinary moral expressions like 'right' and 'wrong'. But it is a very radical view. Because relativism relativizes sentence truth to contexts of assessment it forces us to revise standard linguistic theory. If, however, no competing theory explains all of the evidence, perhaps it is time for a paradigm shift. However, I argue that a version of moral contextualism can account for the same data as relativism without relativizing sentence truth to (...) contexts of assessment. This version of moral contextualism is thus preferable to relativism on methodological grounds. (shrink)

In his recent analysis of multiculturalism, Tom Beauchamp has argued that those who implement multicultural reasoning in their arguments against common morality theories, such as his own, have failed to understand that multiculturalism is neither a form of moral pluralism nor ethical relativism but is rather a universalistic moral theory in its own right. Beauchamp’s position is indeed on the right track in that multiculturalists do not consider themselves ethical relativists. Yet, Beauchamp tends to miss the mark when he argues (...) that multiculturalism is in effect a school of thought that endorses a form of moral universalism that is akin to his own vision of a common morality. As a supporter of multiculturalism, I would like to discuss some aspects of Beauchamp’s comments on multiculturalism and clarify what a multicultural account of public bioethics might look like. Ultimately, multiculturalism is purported as a means of managing diversity in the public arena and should not be thought of as endorsing either a version of moral relativism or a universal morality. By simultaneously refraining from the promotion of a comprehensive common moral system while it attempts to avoid a collapse into relativism, multiculturalism can serve as the ethico-political framework in which diverse moralities can be managed and in which opportunities for ethical dialogue, debate and deliberation on the prospects of common bioethical norms are made possible. (shrink)