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This volume links three different theoretical approaches that have a common focus on the relationship between biopolitics and bioethics. This collection of papers can be categorized into different domains that are representative of the contemporary usage of biopolitics as a concept. On the one hand, several chapters develop a clear and up-to-date understanding of the primary sources of the concept and related theories of Agamben, Negri or Foucault and approach the question of relevance within the field of bioethics. Another group of papers apply the philosophical concepts and theories of biopolitics (biopower, Homo Sacer, biocitizenship) on very specific currently debated bioethical issues. Some scholars rely on the more mundane understanding of (bio)politics and investigate how its relationship with bioethics could be philosophically conceptualized. Additionally, this work also contains papers that follow a more legally oriented analysis on the effects of contemporary biopolitics on human rights and European law.
The authors are philosophers, legal scholars or bioethicists. The major strength of this volume is to provide the reader with major insights and orientation in these different contemporary usages of the concept and theories of biopolitics, within the context of its various ethically relevant applications.
List of contents
Introduction to the volume: Perspectives on biopolitics and bioethics; Péter Kakuk.- Biopolitics and Biopower. The Foucauldian Heritage in the Light of the Contemporary Usage; Takács, Ádám.- How to get plump, or why do we choose what we choose?; Devisch, Ignaas.- preface:Theories of biopolitics and bioethical issues; Péter Kakuk.- Biological or Democratic Citizenship?; Árnason, Vilhjálmur.- Biopolitics and the Longevity of Lefthanders ; Arnason, Gardar.- Chronic Disorders of Consciousness and Homo Sacer; Edgar, Andrew.- Government, Big Pharma and the Exercise of Biopower: The ethical acceptability of lobbying and promotion; Badcott, David.- preface: Biopolitics and legal discourse; Péter Kakuk.- The ME MOLECULE; Sándor, Judit.- Of Emerging Life in Law: the European Story; Selkälä, Toni.- Beyond bioethics and biopolitics? Doing privacy ethics in whole Genome sequencing research; Schickhardt, Christoph & Winker, Eva C.- preface: Questions of relatedness: bioethics and biopolitics; PéterKakuk.- Can bioethics escape from biopolitics?; ten Have, Henk.- Bioethics as politics Takala, Tuija.- On the relationship between bioethics and biopolitics; Gunson, Darryl.
About the author
Péter Kakuk is a philosopher, bioethicists currently teaching at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. He is research associate at the Center for Ethics and Law in Biomedicine at the Central European University and he is member of the Medical Research Council of Hungary. His publications focused on various issues related to current debates in bioethics and modern philosophy.
Summary
The first book to investigate the diffuse relationship between bioethics and biopolitics in contemporary social settings
Brings together a group of top scholars linking various concepts of biopolitics to the much debated issues of bioethics
Provides the reader with major insights and orientation in the different contemporary usages of the concept and theories of biopolitics
