Editor in Chief’s Message
- Mohammad Rasekh - Professor at faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University [rasekh.m@gmail.com]
- Mohammad Jalal Abbasi Shavazi - Professor at Department of Demography, University of Tehran
Abstract
Biomedical law and ethics belongs to the "normative" field. In this branch, it is aimed to bring about a morally or legally desired situation, rather than to merely describe what exists out there. We leave aside the differences between biomedical law and biomedical ethics, with which we should deal in another occasion, but the common aspect of these two sub-fields, in addition to being normative, is that they are limited to important limits. These limits function in a very useful way, and understanding and utilising them shall very much add to the potentiality of biomedical law and ethics. One of the limits derives from the subject matter of this field. Data put forth by bio sciences and technologies are all "is" statements. Bio sciences and technologies belong to this possible world. All scholars of this area endeavour to provide us with a correct and true description of what exists in the outside world, and employ the reality to their service. Law and ethics cannot and should not ignore scientific and technological "data" of this area, the same as those of any other area, since the least harm that would be inflicted on them is that their commands and recommendations would turn inefficient. On the other hand, biomedical law and ethics addresses human beings. Even in those discussions where the subject matter relates to animals and the nature, addressees are still human beings. Indeed, here the desired attitude toward and behaviour of human beings with animals and the nature also form the subject matter. Therefore, bio sciences and technologies have given and still are giving rise to problems in the human life for which biomedical law and ethics seeks solutions. Nevertheless, human beings are themselves extremely complicated members of this possible world. Guidance and directing such beings requires a profound and precise knowledge on them. This knowledge is provided by such disciplines as philosophy, history, sociology, psychology and economics. They all present "is" statements, they seek to provide precise and true description of various dimensions of the human being. Not only shall those analyses and rules provided by biomedical law and ethics which are not produced on the basis of close-to-truth characterisations of the "human being" encountering consequences of bio sciences and technologies not be effective, they cannot progressively direct human beings in such a risky and costly confrontation. Biomedical law and ethics are limited but beautiful. Normative rules of this field may find a human meaning and desired direction in the context and web of "is"-oriented data. Laying bare the limits of this filed by scholars of the mentioned disciplines shall be equal to a discovery of "dynamics" of biomedical law and ethics. Accordingly, we hope and await researches by scholars of those disciplines on normative claims of biomedical law and ethics. What are opinions and evaluations of sociologists, anthropologists, population study scholars, psychologists, social psychologists, historians, economists, philosophers and the like on claims put forward in biomedical law and ethics, and in general on the multifaceted relationship between biomedical law and ethics, on the one hand, and human beings and their surrounding possible world on the other?