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VISUALIZATION IN TEACHING BIOETHICS: ITS FORMS AND FUNCTIONS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2015. Issue 1 (3). P. 127-132

In the paper necessity of usage of visual approach to teaching course of bioethics is proved. It is caused by specific of teaching bioethics to first-year students of Medicinal university. Between different forms of visual means used at this course author especially notes the importance of films.

Keywords: bioethics, visual means, cinematography, cases of conscience, individuality

THE PARADIGMS AND “TURNS” OF BIOETHICS: THE POTENTIAL FOR DIALOGUE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2024. Issue 1 (39). P. 62-81

The article provides an analysis of the use of the terms “paradigm” and “turns” in bioethics research. Various paradigms in bioethics serve as its images – each paradigm reveals a certain aspect of bioethics. Bioethics can be considered, in the sense of a paradigm, as a disciplinary matrix (Thomas Kuhn), since the transition from traditional medical ethics to bioethics marked a true scientific revolution, and it can rightfully be called a paradigmatic science. More often, bioethical paradigms represent its models, varieties. This is explained by the fact that bioethics is an interdisciplinary activity, and it does not correspond to the idea of “normal science”, as no single discipline can claim an exclusive representation of bioethical research. Among the vast array of bioethics paradigms, the most discussed are the liberal, conservative, American ones, and the paradigm of the principles-based system. All of them are grounded in the principles of bioethics but examine them in different contexts, combinations, and approaches to understanding individuality, autonomy, and human dignity. The presence of turns indicates a different nature of bioethical paradigms. They began to emerge in the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, revealing shortcomings in existing paradigms and directing researchers toward aspects of bioethics that were either not considered at all or received no adequate attention from bioethics researchers. Anthropological, cultural, and relational turns share a sensitivity to cultural diversity, consideration of socio-cultural context, and dissatisfaction with the analytical methods of traditional bioethics. This has led to bioethics adopting methodological tools from empirical disciplines, particularly sociology, giving rise to an empirical turn. Today, the empirical turn continues to evolve (as evidenced by the emergence of "digital bioethics"), introducing into bioethics the methods of increasingly new disciplines while simultaneously giving rise to new challenges. The turns visualized the necessity of interdisciplinary dialogue because, as a scientific discipline, bioethics needed to rely on a specific method, and this became the interdisciplinary method. In this method, contributions from various specialized disciplines are integrated into a synthesis capable of guiding researchers in the search for ethically correct solutions. Bioethics organizes dialogue within the scientific community, involving experts from various scientific fields in addressing current ethical issues in medical science, practice, and healthcare. An example of such a dialogue is interdisciplinary research conducted at Siberian State Medical University (Tomsk, Russia), in which scientists from different disciplines and specialties participated: sociologists, doctors with experience in clinical trials of pharmaceuticals, historians, and bioethics specialists.

Keywords: paradigm, empirical turn, digital bioethics, dialogue, clinical trials

Images of bioethics: The problem of defining the plural // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2025. Issue 2 (44). P. 194-218

The article discusses one of the problems of teaching bioethics to Russian-speaking students, since in Russian the word “bioethics” does not have a plural from, which creates the illusion of some single correct one. Therefore, the multiple essence of bioethics remains a metaphor. The introductory part of the article emphasizes other aspects of plurality associated with the essence of bioethics (interdisciplinary and/or multidisciplinary field of study, social institution, revision of the history of its origin). In addition, the article associates the plurality of bioethics with expanding its subject area. In one of these expansions – in pedagogical bioethics – one of the tasks is formulated: semiotic protection of the life goals of individuality (I. Melik-Gaikazyan). This type of protection ensures, firstly, the appropriateness of considering bioethics in this journal; secondly, it dictates the need to take into account the changing sociocultural context of perception of the meanings of “protection”, “life goals”, “individuality”; thirdly, it substantiates the relevance of semiotics (and visual semiotics) for the methodology of combining different research approaches in the humanities: historical, holistic and activity-based. The authors of the article, based on their many years of experience teaching the discipline Bioethics to medical university students, note the differences in the perception of the listed meanings. These differences are associated not only with the change in the sociocultural context but also with the course in the curriculum where bioethics is taught and the differences in the future specialties of students (future doctors or future health care organizers). All this makes it difficult to choose and select material for a lecture on the topic “Bioethics: Its Status and Principles”. The article proposes a survey of students preceding the lecture so that the lecturer can know precisely where to start the introductory lecture, which options for the received answers need to be supported and developed, and which options for answers require counterarguments. The authors argue that two questions are enough for the survey: What is bioethics? Who does a voluntary informed consent primarily protect? The article presents the results of surveys of first-year students and postgraduates. It is concluded that the substantiation of the interrelation of these two issues is included in the content of the introductory lecture. This conclusion defines the “starting conditions” for the entire course since it allows for selecting educational material to illustrate the entire spectrum of interpretations, the range of interpretations, and the amplitude of applications. A fragment of the lecture is given, the content of which includes a comparison of views (F. Yahr and V.R. Potter) on the genesis of bioethics, designation of differences in interpretations of bioethics (V.R. Potter and A. Hellegers), schematization of the reasons for the emergence of bioethics (the need to conduct experiments and their ethical consequences, progress in medical sciences and new biomedical technologies, changes in the doctor–patient relationship). A discussion of modern metaphors included in the discourse of bioethics that can be effectively used in the lecture is given. An analysis of the “myths” about the genesis of bioethics is given. The article presents the grounds for distinguishing between bioethics and those areas of applied ethics with which bioethics is often identified. Examples of its extensions demonstrate the multiplicity of bioethics (urban bioethics, pedagogical bioethics, political bioethics, space bioethics, business bioethics, and ethnic bioethics). The authors’ research on identifying the types of bioethics and defining their bases and functions became the basis for developing the structure of the lecture. This overcomes the difficulty of choosing definitions for such a multifaceted phenomenon, existing in the plural, as bioethics. A semiotic analysis of the means of expressing bioethics (metaphors and definitions) allowed the authors to choose two definitions of bioethics and select the most striking metaphors.

Keywords: semiotics of bioethics, metaphors of bioethics, definitions of bioethics, humanitarian education of future doctors