Identity and Status of the Italian National Bioethics Committee: Contrasting Paradigms (1990-2006)

Abstract

So far the activities of the Comitato Nazionale per la Bioetica (CNB) have been subject to desultory and fragmentary analyses, stuck to the paradigm (in the way Kuhn means it) which claims the division between the issues of "frontier bioethics" and those of "everyday bioethics" (and between the respective types of communication). According to the above mentioned paradigm, bioethics should just deal with the problems coming from the application of technological progress to extreme cases (which imply a type of communication internal to the scientific communities), and only subordinately with other issues, even if of a more general interest and widespread public involvement. Nonetheless, in the last years another paradigm has come out and it is emphasizing the importance of the interaction between the two models of bioethics and of a type of external communication not just limited to the scientific communities in the strict sense of the word, but based on "open opinions ". The present notes are supposed to be an introduction to a historical comprehension of the CNB activity and of its impact, in the light of the rising of the new paradigm and of the Italian adherence to the Oviedo Convention of the Council of Europe.