All posts tagged: interdependence

Environmental Bioethics and the Problem of Interdependence

Environmental Bioethics and the Problem of Interdependence

I find myself bothered by the relationship between bioethics and public health ethics. Is it that the former focuses on individuals and the latter on communities? What is the relationship between the individual and their communities? Practically speaking, bioethics has been institutionalized in ways that emphasize individual (patient) integrity, while public health ethics has been institutionalized more recently to emphasize collective well-being and justice. Yet, from a philosophical—or, if you prefer, impractical—perspective, these distinctions seem to me importantly arbitrary, a fact I once illustrated by losing the attention of nearly every clinical bioethicist during an invited grand rounds. The emerging field of environmental bioethics is, in part, an effort to reconcile the individual with their communities by articulating a view of interdependence rather than mere interconnection. Of course, environmental bioethics is rough around its edges, providing footholds for all sorts of philosophical climbing. As part of a recent workshop on environmental bioethics in Geneva, several of us mapped the various lines of theory across the field. We imagined intersecting axes (that is, more than one …

Meditating on the connectedness of life could help reunite a divided country – here’s how ‘interbeing’ works

Meditating on the connectedness of life could help reunite a divided country – here’s how ‘interbeing’ works

(The Conversation) — The late Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh often emphasized the interconnectedness of everything in this world. He explained how meditation can change our perceptions about the things we encounter in our daily lives by revealing this interdependence. Take the example of an apple: Before meditation, an apple is just a piece of fruit. During meditation, the meditator sees how deeply the apple is interconnected with the world – the apple would not exist without the rain, the sunshine, the soil and the farmer who planted the seed. These are just a few of the causes and conditions that allow the apple to exist. The apple is because of all these other things. An apple is not just a piece of fruit. The apple is also part rain, part sunlight, part soil, part farmer. After meditation, an apple goes back to being an apple again. The meditator continues to call it an “apple,” but they understand its true nature. Hanh calls this sense of connection “interbeing.” The apple insight applies to any …