Reconsidering Relational Autonomy as an Essential Feature in Bioethics

Abstract: Human beings on the earth are facing some severe existential and environmental challenges that require philosophical arguments and explanations. There are many debates, controversies and arguments about the applications of moral principles in understanding multiple bioethical and environmental phenomena. Contemporary debates on bioethics emphasize the significance of the autonomy of both human beings and the rest of the natural world. Critical observations on the debates and discussions indicate that many philosophical approaches fail to explain these sorts of human and non-human issues. Applying the feminist concept of autonomy known as “relational autonomy” as a lens, this paper explores how we can establish autonomy as a whole in bioethics. Relational autonomy is fairly an umbrella term, assigning a scope of related viewpoints and does not express a separate collective idea of autonomy. In medical ethics, this concept is very popular in decision-making factors and solving autonomy debates among medical professionals. This article argues that by specifically adopting the concept of relational autonomy as an essential feature, we can solve some controversy in bioethics too. Notable among these issues are: the ethical challenges of biotechnology, a complication related to food security and consumer rights. Simultaneously, this research also helps to understand human-nature relationships in environmental bioethics from the relational autonomy perspective. In addition, this paper gives us a lesson to consider both human beings and the rest of the elements of nature as intrinsically valuable. Conclusively, this research aims to add a new dimension to bioethics with environmental sustainability.