Abstract
The historical development of so-called ‘biomedicine’ is closely linked to the rise and evolution of new ethical fields, such as bioethics and medical ethics. In this chapter, we explain what is understood by ‘biomedicine’ today, highlight the major steps in the development of biomedicine, and discuss its association with the evolution of basic ethical theories into applied ethical arguments. Both biomedicine and bioethics have left their traces and were transformed in popular cultural products, including games and film. We will show how bioethics and biomedicine can be used to analyse these products and reveal their potential contributions to actual debates about the problems, fears, and hopes associated with certain biomedical technologies — debates that are set within the triad of biomedicine, bioethical reasoning, and popular culture.
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Notes
- 1.
Comparable to the synthesis of urea by Friedrich Wöhler.
- 2.
E.g., Games such as Spec Ops: The Line, Battlefield 1 or This War of Mine are discussed in detail with regard to their ethical potential as ‘anti-war games’ by Nick Statt (2016). ‘Battlefield 1 is an anti-war message trapped in a best-selling shooter’, The Verge 06.11.2016 (http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/6/13529304/battlefield-1-anti-war-shooter-video-game-violence)., whereas ‘The Last of Us’ is analysed with regard to environmental issues by Amy Green (2016) ‘The Reconstruction of Morality and the Evolution of Naturalism in The Last of Us’, Games and Culture 11(7–8):745–63.
- 3.
Suffering in its full philosophical conceptualisation requires, among other capacities, self-consciousness in order to reflect upon the experience (feeling) of pain or injury.
- 4.
Not like, e.g., the ents in the novel (and film adaptations of) Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien: these beings can move freely and choose their affiliations, and are, therefore, more human-like in character.
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Fangerau, H., Badura-Lotter, G. (2019). Biomedicine and Bioethics. In: Görgen, A., Nunez, G.A., Fangerau, H. (eds) Handbook of Popular Culture and Biomedicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90677-5_4
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