Communitarianism Vs. Invidualism

We spent the first several weeks of the course discussing the issues surrounding the stem cell debate. One thing that prompts a great deal of thought is not an issue itself, but how one approaches and thinks through the issues. There are two schools of thought regarding the approach to rights and justice and prioritization. One is the concept of communitarianism, espoused by Daniel Callahan, in which the needs of the greater community outweigh the needs of the individual. In his rejection of the use of principalism, Callahan purports that that parties to bioethical debates would be better served by an approach that took more seriously the betterment of the community.

The other end of this spectrum is a more liberal (liberal in the classical sense) approach. This approach, explored in significant detail in the Robertson piece, places greater emphasis on the autonomy of life. Robertson seems to feel that ethicists should approach the bioethics debate with the rights of the individual at the forefront. He does allow for some tempering of this focus on autonomy. This is to say that he doesn't allow for "bioethical anarchy".

This debate between communitarianism and individualism and where one falls in that spectrum has a great effect on the exploration of justice within bioethics. For example, if one fell toward the extreme end of the communitarianist side of the spectrum, one could purport that the individual actually has no right to justice. Though this would likely be a difficult viewpoint to defend, it does tend to simplify the debate about fairness.

Do the rights of an individual outweigh the rights of the community? Yes? No? A little? Where is the line? Where one falls in this spectrum will tend to color all bioethical analysis. I personally find myself pretty firmly in the Robertson camp, and I think this position is probably reflected in my libertarianist (small l, not the nut-jobs) political views.