| Abstract |
In this study we attempt to answer some questions concerning the possibility and necessity of introduction of bioethical issues in secondary education. The essay is divided into three parts, the first of which relates to bioethics as a distinct field of normative ethics, the second refers to biology as a science taught in secondary education and the explicit and proposed objectives of education and the third concerns the link between biology and bioethics and the proposed goals and methods.
The first part includes an investigation of the causes that gave birth to bioethics within its economic, social, political and historical context and its goals as a distinct field of normative ethics. Some of the issues raised nowadays by modern biomedical applications are reported and its history is traced back, starting from Hippocrates and Plato, continuing in the 18th century., the early 20th century., mid-20th century, with the Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association, medical scandals Tuskegee, Willowbrook in the U.S.A and the subsequent Belmont Report and the principles promoted in it. The course of bioethics since its origin until today is mapped out and the challenges it faces are explored. The existence and use by various scholars of two different meanings of the word autonomy is detected: autonomy as an individual right and autonomy as self-legislation. It has been identified which of the two is the morally relevant sense of autonomy, which may produce values, which may guide the decisions of the actors. The reason of being of bioethics has been justified and bioethics has been grounded epistemologically on ethics. The need for education in bioethics has been formulated, both at the graduate and undergraduate level but also in secondary education.
The second part presents biology as a particular historic natural science, along with the specific characteristic meanings, as non-linear complex systems, self-organization, emerging properties, complexity and evolution. The issue of consciousness as emergent property of the brain has been briefly investigated and the connection of individual consciousness with the collective one, through education, was done. Current and proposed education objectives and goals of teaching science were evaluated. Our theoretical educational framework has been proposed and a critique of the existing curriculum of biology has been formulated. It was found that the values and skills (autonomy, democracy, active citizenship, respect, critical thinking) indicated as promoted and cultivated by the curriculum are part of a general rhetoric with no bounce.
The third part is an attempt to link biology with bioethics. Clear educative goals for the introduction of bioethics in secondary education have been expressed, based on the principles and objectives of bioethics itself. We investigated whether ethics may be instructed on the basis of the moral philosophy of Aristotle and the findings of neurobiology. A critical reading of the biology textbooks has been done and presented along with suggestions on what issues could be studied in which specific chapters. Various proposals and applications concerning the presentation of bioethical issues abroad have been critically appraised. Our own proposals have been formulated on the methodology of presentation of bioethical issues, highlighting certain methods that meet the goals that had already been set.
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Βιολογία, βιοηθική και εκπαίδευση
