Subject in Bioethics: Individual and Collective

Abstract

The problem of collective and individual subjectivity in bioethics is examined. Although full recognition of the subject in bioethics occurs through a commitment to self-determination already at the beginning of the 20th century, it cannot be said that the creation of bioethical subjectivity can be considered complete. The purpose of the study is to analyze the opposition between the collective and individual subject in bioethics. To solve this problem, the genesis of the concept of subjectivity in bioethics and its adaptation to modern biomedical technologies are considered. Traditionally in the medicine the subject was appropriated to both physical and intellectual manipulations under the guarantee of the doctor's virtuous intention. The recognition of the distinction between autonomy and the benevolent intention to restoring health occurs as a result of the increasing importance of subjectivity, which changes the very content of medicine from the virtue of providing assistance and saving human life to the recognition of an active subject who independently determines his own good, using critical thinking and personal experience. The assumption is substantiated that the subjective approach based on autonomy (self-determination) can be considered in two modes — as critical, based on reflection, and trusting, based on following and empathizing with collective values ​​that receive representation in the collective subject, as well as on the distinction between the concepts of autonomy and freedom in bioethics. Collective and individual subjectivities are structurally rather related, through opposites, since they use authentication as a way of procedurally organizing action. The individual subject always retains substantivist autonomy, which allows him to build and reconfigure collective forms of autonomy, using his innate freedom. The stability of collective subjectivity is based on trust and empathy; without these conditions, collective subjectivity disintegrates. The distinction between freedom and autonomy in modern bioethics allows us to describe the subject simultaneously as a collective and individual actor.