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CONFUCIAN BIOETHICS Philosophy and Medicine VOLUME 6 1 Editors H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Baylor College of Medicine and Philosophy Department, Rice University, Houston, Texas S. E Spicker, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Sciences, Boston, Mass. ASIAN STUDIES IN BIOETHICS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MEDICINE 1 Series Editor Ruiping Fan, Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA Editorial Advisory Board Kazumasa Hoshino, Kyoto Women’s University, Kyoto, Japan Shui Chuen Lee, National Central University, Chung-li, Taiwan Ping-cheung Lo, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon, Hong Kong Ren-Zong Qiu, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China CONFUCIAN BIOETHICS Edited by RUIPING FAN Centerfor Medical Ethics and Health Policy Baylor College ofMedicine Houston,USA KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS NEW YORK / BOSTON / DORDRECHT / LONDON / MOSCOW eBook ISBN: Print ISBN: 0-306-46867-0 0-792-35723-X ©2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow All rights reserved No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written consent from the Publisher Created in the United States of America Visit Kluwer Online at: and Kluwer's eBookstore at: http://www.kluweronline.com http://www.ebooks.kluweronline.com TABLE OF CONTENTS RUIPING FAN / Introduction: Towards a Confucian Bioethics 1 PART I / BODY, HEALTH AND VIRTUE PEIMIN NI / Confucian Virtues and Personal Health ELLEN Y. ZHANG / The Neo-Confucian Concept ofBody and its Ethical Sensibility 27 45 PART II / SUICIDE, EUTHANASIA AND MEDICAL FUTILITY PING-CHEUNG LO / Confucian Views on Suicide and Their Implications for Euthanasia 69 GEORGE KHUSHF / Reflections on the Dignity ofGuan Zhong: A Comparison of Confucian and Western Liberal Notions of Suicide EDWIN HUI / A Confucian Ethic ofMedical Futility 103 127 PART III / “HUMAN DRUGS” AND HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION JING-BAO NIE / “Human Drugs” in Chinese Medicine and the Confucian View: An Interpretive Study RONALD A. CARSON / Interpreting Strange Practices XUNWUCHEN / A Confucian Reflection on Experimenting with Human Subjects 167 207 211 PART IV /JUST HEALTH CARE AND THE CONFUCIAN TRADITION QINGJIE WANG / The Confucian Filial Obligation and Care for Aged Parents RUIPING FAN / Just Health Care, the Good Life, and Confucianism CHINESE GLOSSARY NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS INDEX OF CHINESE TERMS INDEX 235 257 285 299 301 305 This page intentionally left blank. RUIPING FAN INTRODUCTION: TOWARDS A CONFUCIAN BIOETHICS I. “MUSEUM” BIOETHICS OR REAL BIOETHICS? The title of this volume, Confician Bioethics, may sound odd to some. It is odd to them not because they find Confucianism has lost its traditional strength in its homeland. It is odd because they doubt any essential relevance that Confucianism still has to contemporary society in general or to bioethical issues in particular. As the world changes, it seems that all traditional world views have been in retreat before a global cosmopolitan view. Confucianism is the tradition that seems to have declined most speedily in the 20th century. Even the so-called “last Confucian” has passed away (Alitto, 1985). For some, the only appropriate ‘‘ism’’ for the contemporary world is cosmopolitanism, because it attempts through reason alone to provide moral guidance to all people in all places. Confident in the creative power and justifying capacity of human reason, cosmopolitans hold that all particular traditional moral resources are rationally irrelevant to c