Cuadernos de Bioetica最新文献

The purpose of this paper is to show the historical continuity of transhumanism over time, from the birth of Darwinist eugenics to the present day. The history of transhumanism is rooted in the ideas of Francis Galton, who were assumed by the one who defined the current term, Julian Huxley. The influence of Huxley's thinking on present transhumanist philosophy cannot be considered marginal, as his philosophy was continued by the founders of the first transhumanist movements in the United States of America, F.M. Esfandiary and Timothy Leary. Both thinkers were the masters of today's transhumanists. This is how we seek here to establish a historical line from eugenics to today's transhumanism.

Transhumanism-posthumanism is a current of thought that appears closely linked to the development of technoscience and its application to man. At the same time that this current must be subject to criticism, an anthropological and ethical paradigm must be illuminated that allows accepting or not the new technoscientific advances, making a discernment between them. Such discernment should lead us to weigh the goodness of these advances, rejecting only those that represent a degradation of the human being, and accepting those that help man to be more fully man. To do this, the article proposes starting the discernment from an ethical principle such as respect for the integrity of man. Together with him, it is necessary to act with caution regarding human health, considered in relation to his psychosomatic unity. It will also be necessary to avoid deriving the ethics of the advances from the same technoscience. Finally, discernment requires, ultimately, starting from an idea about what man is, proposing the need to do so from a dual rather than dualistic conception of the human person. Based on all of the above, various ethical criteria are indicated in the work that complete the principle of respect for human integrity indicated above: respect and promote human life in all its dimensions, use of technology at the service of human beings in a controlled manner and that report social benefit or value by each technique, not only from a therapeutic perspective, but also from the improvement of the human psychosomatic unit. In conclusion, it is necessary to recognize in man the uniqueness of him as he is a bodily being who knows and loves in freedom, whose ends are not limited to material or sensible things, but which are only achievable in and from his own material condition. Consequently, any techno-scientific intervention that substantially alters his body condition is inhuman, not instead when it repairs or enhances -without abolishing them- his own qualities.

The recent development of NBIC technologies has led to the emergence of new techniques that allow the modification of genetic, morphological, and physiological aspects of the human being to improve their capacities. In light of this situation, the eternal debate continues: is everything technically possible ethically acceptable? To answer this question, an ethical reflection is needed to assess the scope of enhancement techniques and to direct them to the service of human progress and the common good. Many authors have already begun this reflection, opting for a case-by-case evaluation. However, there is a great lack of specificity in the definition of the criteria that would allow an ethical analysis of each technique, in order to determine the licitness of its application. In response to this need, a practical guide for the ethical assessment of not only human enhancement techniques, but of any intervention on the human body is proposed. This guide is based on the four principles of personalist bioethics proposed by Sgreccia: the principle of defense of physical human life, the principle of totality or the therapeutic principle, the principle of freedom and responsibility, and the principle of sociability and subsidiarity. These principles are the common thread of some questionnaires that serve as support in discerning the licitness of a technique, by virtue of the overall good of the person in their three-dimensional structure: body, mind and spirit, and the respect for their inalienable dignity.

Gender post-feminism or ″gender ideology″ is a revolution against man that denies the existence of his human nature, and promotes a homogenized world with interchangeable roles without sexual distinction. As man has been transforming the world with technology and depending on it, he has been changing himself and we get to the point that, when faced with a machine and a human being, we opt for the machine because the human being seems imperfect to us. The transhumanist ideology as an overcoming of the human supposes the dehumanization of man. It is not that we only transform into other beings, but we could end up despising the human. Does a totally artificial world await us? The key question we have to ask ourselves is what perspective of man does transhumanism have? What are we to this ideology? Will it show the happiness of man?

The human being experiences in the depths of his being a longing for fulfilment. However, pain, disease and death accompany their existence. Transhumanism tries to overcome the limits of man through all a technological scientific development and ventures to predict the definitive triumph over death. In this study, we will analyse the meaning of vulnerability, limits, consciousness of finitude and death for both transhumanism and an anthropology focused on the human being. Transhumanism and this anthropology coincide in the desire to conquer death. The understanding of the concepts studied and the means to save humanity that are proposed differ in both approaches. We understand that in transhumanism there is a reductionism of the definition of person and therefore of the solution that is offered to respond to the deep longing inscribed each human being.

In some countries, particularly Spain, one of the arguments used to justify the legalization of euthanasia is that there is a strong social demand for it. To try to ascertain the truth of this statement, we review different surveys of physicians and the general public, to determine their opinion on whether or not to legalize this practice. We found that the percentage of respondents who approve this practice varies widely from one country to another, with some countries in which approval is close to 80% and others in which it fails to reach even 40%. It has been suggested that this may be because the questions included in the various surveys differ greatly, since not all use the word ″euthanasia″ directly, replacing it with words or phrases of similar meaning. Thus, some respondents may not quite identify them with euthanasia. We conclude that, in the vast majority of countries, there does not seem to be an objective social demand to justify the legalization of euthanasia.

The patient's right to know his/her clinical information corresponds with the duty of the health care professional, especially the physician responsible for his/her care, to provide it. However, in the case of patients whose life prognosis is limited, this presents several difficulties. Determining the content of this right is complicated because it depends on the circumstances. This favors the conspiracy of silence, the main cause of which can be found in the maintenance of the patient's hope. However, condemning the patient to a false hope prevents him/her from developing a grieving process, that requires renouncing that hope and embracing another undetermined hope of open content. In this work we try to outline the structure of this dialectical process, which can be explained, in narrative terms, through the structure of the heroic myth, which is functional even when the energetic structure of the moral character is missing and which is adjustable for each person.

Based on the elements that constitute the bases of Western Medicine and a distinction made by Pedro Laín Entralgo from Homeric work, two possible approaches to medical practice are reflected, which could be characterized as ″palliative″ medicine and ″medicine without palliative″. The relationships that these two approaches may have with Philosophy, Ethics and Bioethics are mentioned; the main characteristics and some of the dangers of each one. It shows how the presence, in clinical practice, of palliative care in itself leaves several lessons on the two approaches. It concludes by showing the importance of person-centered medical education with humanistic components. Some ideas are given so that the curricular contents lead to the training of doctors capable of acting with humanism and professionalism, being agents of a cultural change in favor of life.

From a post hoc analysis of the ADENI-UCI study (multicenter, observational, cohort, prospective study, with a follow-up period of 13 months, in 62 Intensive Medicine Services in Spain. geographical differences in the reason for denial of income in UCI as a LTSV measure are analyzed. A total of 2284 with an average age of 75.25 (12.45) years were included. 59.43% male. By means of multinominal regression adjusted by age, sex, APACHE and SOFA, was evident (by choosing the northern for reference) that age in the south was a less significantly exposed reason (OR: 0.48 (IC95%: 0.35-0.65). p.

One of the keys to overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic is the development of the vaccine in order to immunize the population. In addition to the medical complications to obtain the vaccine, we highlight the presence of other problems, such as the dissemination of fake news that add difficulties to overcoming the global problem, especially due to its incidence in the field of anti-vaccine movements, which have developed, with special presence in Italy in recent years. For this, we warn of the need to be prepared to overcome the two pandemics that are developing in parallel, the one caused by the virus and the one generated by the fake news.