Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law

The main problem of ethical decision-making in modern pluralistic societies is that consensus is hard to establish. Most of the relevant questions in the field of biomedicine, such as stem cell research, euthanasia and transplantation medicine, are highly controversial. At the same time, legal certainty often requires legislative action to regulate these questions. Thus, the legislator appears obliged to act, but there are no generally accepted moral rules that can be relied upon when dealing with the issues, nor can all-encompassing consensus be obtained.
 
The PhD-project concerns the question how dissent can be coped with when legislation appears to be necessary. It will be investigated how Great Britain and Japan deal with the problem and which (presumably new) procedures have been or are being established in order to legitimately legislate in biomedical matters. As a result of the comparison of different ways of coping with dissent the project aims at developing a new strategy of dissent management that is democratically legitimate.
 
Starting point of the project is the concept of dissent and the question how it influences the democratic legitimacy of legislative acts. In order to solve the problem of democratically legitimate ethical decision making the thesis examines procedural aspects such as public deliberation through public consultations, the role of experts and ethics committees, as well as open or disguised delegation of powers of decision making upon the administration or the judicative. 
 
By examining current approaches of dealing with dissent a comprehensive strategy of dissent management will be developed in order to cope with the challenge of bioethical decision making in modern societies.

 

Project category:	Doctoral thesis
Status of Project:	Completed

• Last update: 19 Feb. 2010
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