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Fritz Jahr used the term “bioethics” (“Bio=Ethik”) as early as 1927. His “bioethical imperative” (Respect every living being as an end in itself, and treat it, if possible, as such!) should guide personal, professional, cultural, social, and political life, as well as the development and application of science and technology. In order to promote the Bioethical Imperative and the future of integrative bioethics, the participants of the Rijeka symposium “Fritz Jahr and European roots of bioethics: Establishing an international scholars’ network (EuroBioNethics)” wish to highlight the following:
1. Contemporary bioethics quite often has been narrowed down to issues of informed consent and liability in medical ethics, whereas the practical impact of general ethical principles has been minimal.
2. It is necessary that bioethics be substantially broadened and conceptually and methodologically transformed so that it may consider different cultural, scientific, philosophical, and ethical perspectives (pluriperspective approach), integrating those perspectives into orientational knowledge and practical action (integrative approach).
3. Such Integrative Bioethics will have to harmonise, respect, and learn from the rich plurality of individual and communal perspectives and cultures of the global community.
4. Recognising the inexhaustible source of relevant perspectives for Integrative Bioethics in the works of authors and teachings using the term and the concept of bioethics, but also of the other ‘precursors’ of integrative bioethical and deontological ideas since antiquity, we strongly call upon the study of classical works and teachings.
5. Respect for life, the considerate treatment of all life forms, needs to be supported by all citizens, public discourse and the media, and by educational programmes at all levels.
6. If these ideas are successful, bioethics will become a truly open field of meeting and dialogue of various sciences and professions, visions and worldviews that have been gathered to articulate, to discuss, and to solve ethical issues related to life as a whole and each of its parts, life in all its forms, shapes, stages, and manifestations, as well as to life conditions in general.
7. If these ideas are successful, bioethics will become the basis for the development and implementation of law, nationally and internationally.
8. If these ideas are successful, the recognition and implementation of bioethics will become the ‘bridge to the future’, a ‘science of survival’, and wisdom as ‘knowledge of how to use knowledge’ (as Van Rensselaer Potter defined it in the 1970s) of modern medicine and technology.
The EuroBioNethics International Scholars’ Network, promoting the above ideas, will organise further conferences and establish a website to improve global intercultural communication and cooperation. A Fritz-Jahr Award for the Research and Promotion of European Roots of Bioethics will soon be announced. The Network invites scientists and ethicists for communication and cooperation in implementing these ideas of the Rijeka Declaration.
Signed in Rijeka/Opatija (Croatia), on March 12, 2011, by:
Christian Byk, Judge of the Court of Appeal, Paris; Secretary General of International Association of Law, Ethics and Science; Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Bioethics; Ante Covic, Full Prof and Head, Dept of Ethics, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Univ of Zagreb; President of Croatian Bioethics Society; Editor-in-Chief of Synthesis philosophica and Filozofska istrazivanja; Eve-Marie Engels, Full Prof and Head of the Chair for Ethics in the Biosciences, Dept of Biology, Faculty of Science; associated member of the Institute of Philosophy; spokesperson of the DFG-Research Training Group Bioethics (Graduiertenkolleg Bioethik) at the International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW) of Eberhard Karls Univ of Tübingen; Igor Eterovic, PhD candidate, Dept of Social Sciences and Medical Humanities, Faculty of Medicine, Univ of Rijeka; Márcia Santana Fernandes, Prof, Centro Universitário Ritter dos Reis, Porto Alegre; José Roberto Goldim, Associate Prof, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul; Prof, Univ of Extremo Sul Catarinense, Criciúma; Lecturer, Federal Univ of Rio Grande do Sul; Clinical Hospital of Porto Alegre; Nada Gosic, Associate Prof, Dept of Social Sciences and Medical Humanities, Faculty of Medicine, Univ of Rijeka; Hrvoje Juric, Assistant Prof, Dept of Ethics, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Univ of Zagreb; Eleni Kalokairinou, Assistant Prof, Dept of Classics and Philosophy, Univ of Cyprus, Nicosia; Tomislav Krznar, Assistant Lecturer, Dept of Gamekeeping and Environmental Protection, Univ of Applied Sciences, Karlovac; Natacha Salomé Lima, PhD candidate, Dept of Psychology, Ethics, and Human Rights, Univ of Buenos Aires; Amir Muzur, Associate Prof and Head, Dept of Social Sciences and Medical Humanities, Faculty of Medicine, Univ of Rijeka; Editor-in-Chief of Jahr; Iva Rincic, Senior Lecturer and Research Assistant, Dept of Social Sciences and Medical Humanities, Faculty of Medicine, Univ of Rijeka; Ricardo Andrés Roa-Castellanos, Lecturer-Researcher, Institute of Bioethics, Pontifical Xavierian Univ, Bogotá DC (Colombia); Hans-Martin Sass; Prof, Ruhr Univ, Bochum; Senior Research Scholar, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown Univ, Washington DC; Lecturer, People’s Univ of China and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing; Marija Selak, PhD candidate, Dept of Ethics, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Univ of Zagreb; Ivana Zagorac, PhD candidate, Dept of Ethics, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Univ of Zagreb.
