bioethics and the challenges to its growth in africa生物伦理学和非洲经济增长的挑战.pdfVIP

Open Journal of Philosophy 2011. Vol.1, No.2, 67-75 Copyright © 2011 SciRes. DOI:10.4236/ojpp.2011.12012 Bioethics and the Challenges to Its Growth in Africa Cletus T. Andoh Department of Philosophy, University of Yaounde I, Yaounde, Cameroon. Email: actandoh@ th th nd Received August 24 , 2011; revised September 26 , 2011; accepted October 2 , 2011. Bioethics has now become a burgeoning interdisciplinary field of scholarly investigation which has in the past decades migrated from bedside consultations to public policy debates and wider cultural and social consultations that privilege all discourse about everyday life issues. It has made exponential progress in addressing moral is- sues in science, technology and medicine in the world. In spite of this progress, core bioethics issues, approaches and values are still exclusively Western dominated and largely foreign to most African societies. Although medical ethics has existed since the time of Hippocrates, in Africa, there is a noted sluggish growth and low prestige of ethics education as bioethics is not taught in most higher educational systems of learning, low under- standing of its processes as researchers manifest a general lack of appreciation for bioethics and general igno- rance characterize those involved i