Tabib Noureddine: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-8396-6413 Drizi Aicha: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6463-9506
The accelerating transformations in biomedical and biotechnological research, ranging from genetic modification to artificial reproduction, have radically redefined the human condition. This article examines the intersections of anthropology and bioethics as a philosophical response to this reconfiguration, arguing that universality in bioethics cannot be conceived as an immutable or transcendent category. Rather, it is a dialogical construct arising within the interplay of cultural difference, recognition, and human vulnerability. By integrating anthropological reflection into the bioethical discourse, the paper highlights how the plurality of human experience demands an ethical model grounded in dialogue rather than domination. Anthropology, in its redefined form, transcends its classical descriptive mission to become a space of mediation between epistemic diversity and moral reflection. The study proposes a framework of “situated universality”, where local ethical systems interact with global moral imperatives, producing a plural yet coherent understanding of human dignity. This shift challenges the technocratic reduction of life to biological or instrumental terms and restores the ontological centrality of the human being as both a cultural and ethical subject.
Arbaoui M. (2025) From paternalism to systemic bioethics: principles, characteristics, and contemporary relevance of applied ethics in medicine and society. Science, Education and Innovations in the Context of Modern Problems, 8(12): 62-69; doi: 10.56352/sei/8.12.6
Beauchamp T.L., Childress J.F. (2019) Principles of biomedical ethics. 8th ed. Oxford University Press.
Benatar S.R., Brock, G. (2011) Global health and global health ethics. Cambridge University Press.
Borry P., Schotsmans P., Dierickx K. (2005) The birth of the empirical turn in bioethics. Bioethics, 19(1): 49-71; doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2005.00424.x
Callahan D. (2012) The roots of bioethics: Health, progress, technology, death. Oxford University Press.
Chadwick R., ten Have H., Meslin E.M. (Eds.). (2011) The SAGE handbook of health care ethics: Core and emerging issues. SAGE Publications.
Dalloz E.Z.G. (2013) Anthropologie biologique et bioéthique: Élément de dialogue. Revue Africaine d’anthropologie, Nyansa, (15). Côte d’Ivoire.
Dumont F. (1981) L’anthropologie en l’absence de l’homme (1st ed.). Presses Universitaires de France.
Engelhardt H.T.Jr. (2017) The foundations of bioethics. 2nd ed.. Oxford University Press.
Farmer P. (2005). Pathologies of power: Health, human rights, and the new war on the poor. University of California Press.
Folscheid D. et al. (1997). Philosophie éthique et droit de la médecine. Paris: Dalloz.
Foucault M. (2008) The birth of biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979 (G.Burchell, Trans.). Palgrave Macmillan.
Foucault M. (n.d.). Al-Kalimat wa al-ashyaʾ [The order of things] (M. Safadi et al., Trans.). Markaz al-Inmaʾ al-Qawmi.
Fox R.C., Swazey J.P. (2008) Observing bioethics. Oxford University Press.
Hours B. (2004) Trois objets-étapes de la globalisation de la norme de santé. Autre, (29). Éditions Presses de Sciences Po.
Kass L.R. (2002) Life, liberty, and the defense of dignity: The challenge for bioethics. Encounter Books.
Kleinman A. (2006) What really matters: Living a moral life amidst uncertainty and danger. Oxford University Press.
Marin A., Bouffard C. (n.d.). La bioéthique à l’épreuve de la diversité socioculturelle: La portée du sens donné à un concept; pp. 17-45.
Marshall P.A. (1992) Anthropology and bioethics. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, New Series, 1(1): 49-73.
Massé R. (2000) Présentation: L’anthropologie au défi de l’éthique. Anthropologie et Sociétés, 24(2): 5-10. Université Laval.
Nietzsche F. (2006) Qadiyat Fagnerīyah: Nietzsche didd Fagner [The case of Wagner; Nietzsche contra Wagner] (ʿA. Misbah, Trans.). Al-Jamal Publications.
Pellegrino E.D., Thomasma D.C. (1993). The virtues in medical practice. Oxford University Press.
Pottier R. (2021) Voyage d’un anthropologue dans le monde de la bioéthique. L’Homme, 238(2): 175-177.
Ragua A. (2025) The significance of bioethics as an ethical inquiry into science. Science, Education and Innovations in the Context of Modern Problems, 8(4): 600-606; doi: 10.56352/sei/8.4.65.
Singer P. (2011) Practical ethics. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press.
Spinoza B. (2009) ʿIlm al-akhlaq [Ethics] (J. al-Din Saʿid, Trans.). The Arab Organisation for Translation.
Turner L. (2003) Bioethics in a multicultural world: Medicine and morality in pluralistic settings. Health Care Analysis, 11(2): 99-117; doi: 10.1023/A:1025338514936
Zwart H. (2017) Psychiatry, subjectivity, and biological reductionism: Revisiting bioethical issues in the age of neuroscience. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 20(3): 329-339; doi: 10.1007/s11019-016-9725-2
Received: November 02, 2025; Reviewed: November 30, 2025; Accepted: December 10, 2025
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62088/timbb/9.2.5Keywords:
Anthropology, bioethics, universality, dialogical ethics, cultural plurality, human dignity, ontological fragility, transcendence, post-technological humanity
Noureddine, T., Aicha, D.. (2025). ANTHROPOLOGY AND BIOETHICS: DIALOGICAL UNIVERSALITY, ETHICAL RELATIONALITY, AND THE TRANSCENDENCE OF EPISTEMIC BOUNDARIES IN CONTEMPORARY HUMAN SCIENCES. TIMBB, 9 (2), 39-45.