I enjoyed the reading this week by Mark B. Brown. The piece “Three Ways to Politicized Bioethics” takes a look at and creates distinctions between the notions of politicization. I have always struggled with this word and the three terms that follow; liberalism, communitarianism, and republicanism. The piece firsts takes a look at the concept behind public bioethics, which sparked my interest. The article states that there are many participants that are “potential players” (Brown, pg. 43). I saw it as a top-down model, with the general public being the bottom, which I believe are most important. These players are consistent as well. What kinds of politics are being played here? Are they ones that affect the public?
The rest of the piece takes a look at the three concepts I stated above, while going in-depth in contrasting and comparing. These separate groups all take a different look at how they come together to over come some kind of conflicts and new ideas, while power only creates further difference. Our professor created a Venn diagram with the three aspects, and showed the three similarities, while showing the many differences. While this paper took a look at these terms, it was not referring to the political parties and what they represent, but “considering these traditions in terms of the politicization of bioethics emphasizes their perspective modes of responding to emerging dynamics of power and conflict”(45).
Liberalism has many characteristics including a competitive market economy, it draws a sharper boundary between the state and society, while also separating morality and politics. What is really important is that this outlook disperses the power without quite equalizing it. They take away from the government and give to private organizations.
Republicanism insists that social order and rule can only be done through politics itself. Unlike liberalism, power is distributed very widely and as equally as possible. “Republican politicization of public bioethics focuses on expert institutions rather than the individual experts”. They look at the broader scope than the narrow individual ideas.
Communitarianism focuses on positive liberty. The focus on the government promoting public deliberation while focusing on civic virtue; it is a collective self-government and self-control. The Venn diagram also shows that this politicization promotes public deliberation as well.
It is interesting to see what characteristics of the three modes of political thought you chose to emphasize in your short paragraph summaries. I think you are fair in your selections and that one can see the differences by virtue of how you chose to describe them. Now...you say early on that "politicization" is a term you have struggled with. After having studied Brown's argument, is that struggle at an end? is it a different struggle? How so? That is, what difference has Brown's argument made to your understanding of how we should view politics, how and where it should be allowed to play out, and so on?
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