Hans-Martin Sass

The term ›Bioethik‹ was first used by Fritz Jahr 1926 in introducing the ›Bioethical Imperative: Respect every living being in general as an end in itself and treat it, if possible, as such!‹. The term was ›reinvented‹ 1970 by Van Rensselaer Potter in an article ›Bioethics: The Science of Survival‹ calling for knowledge of how to use knowledge’, then again 1971 at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, when the ›Kennedy Institute of Bioethics‹; a rare ›three-located birth‹ of a term. The Kennedy Institute’s focus on medical ethics led to a quasi synonymous use of ›bioethics‹ and ›medical ethics‹. Recent conceptual and terminological developments suggest to use ›bioethics‹ as a comprehensive term, which includes social, cultural, environmental, medical and other fields of applied ethics. mehr