Schramm and Kottow’s bioethics of protection: principles, scopes and conversations

Abstract

The bioethics of protection is a theoretical-practical ethics proposed from the recognition of the insufficiencies of principialism for the approach of conflicts in the field of public health, an area to which originally the efforts of the nascent bioethical current were oriented. The basic rights of certain beings and populations are threatened by the expansion of globalization and social inequality and, in response to this context, the bioethics of protection aims to support them until they can autonomously seek quality of life (whenever possible). Based on these preliminary considerations, this article, this paper seeks to elucidate historical aspects, conceptual elements and the current scope of the bioethics of protection, outlining possible relations with other bioethical currents, such as care ethics and (bio)ethics for all beings, as a way to support reflection on current ethical conflicts in the sphere of health, lato sensu, and public health, stricto sensu.