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The article presents the discussion on practical fields like bioethics. Topics include addressing cutting-edge challenges like human-brain organoids, artificial intelligence (AI), and interspecies chimeras; and concern arises specifically when individuals lack intellectual capacities that Western views deem necessary for personhood, such as sentience, consciousness, autonomy, and rationality.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first took the world by storm, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a Solidarity Call to Action to realize equitable global access to COVID-19 health technologies through pooling of knowledge, intellectual property and data. At the dawn of 2022, 70% of rich countries' populations were vaccinated but only 4.6% of poor countries (Our World In Data, Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccinations, 2022). Vaccine nationalism and rampant self-interest grew and our ineffective global response led to new variants of concern - like Omicron - emerging. Rather than abandon the idea of solidarity in global health, we believe that the international community must embrace it. Solidarity, with its emphasis on relationality and recognition of similarities, could offer fertile ground for building an ethical framework for an interconnected and interdependent world. Such a framework would be better than a framework that focuses principally on individual entitlements. To defend this view, we draw on African relational views of personhood and morality. When humans are conceived of as essentially relational beings, solidarity occupies a central role in moral behaviour. We argue that part of the reason appeals to solidarity have failed may be traced to an inadequate conceptualization of solidarity. For as long as solidarity remains a beautiful notion, practiced voluntarily by generous and kindhearted persons, in a transient manner to respond to specific challenges, it will never be able to offer an adequate framework for addressing inequities in global health in a systematic and permanent way. Drawing on this understanding of solidarity, we propose pathways to respond creatively to the risks we face to ensure equitable access to essential health for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across sub‐Saharan Africa, bioethics is an emerging field of scholarly inquiry, informed by contextual features distinct to the region. A cultural mix comprised of Euro‐American influences, indigenous traditions, Christian faiths and Muslim communities, a bioethics for the sub‐Saharan region must be responsive to this milieu. This paper asks, what values and methods can best promote the practice of bioethics in Africa? We set forth a strategy that leans one way or another in response to contextual features of a particular setting. Since our aim is to be responsive to context, we begin with a series of cases and develop values and methods in response to each case as we work through its ethical analysis. Section I introduces a case involving setting priorities for public funding of services that produce large benefits for a small group of people, using the example of dialysis in Ghana. Section II presents a situation involving determining the permissibility of a double standard of quality for healthcare devices in rich and poor nations, using the example of explanting pacemakers from deceased people in wealthy nations for use by people in low‐ and middle‐income nations. Section III describes a scenario where international groups clash with religious and spiritual healers over the chaining of people with severe mental illness at prayer camps and healing centers in Ghana. Section IV articulates a three‐pronged strategy for engaging in bioethics brought to light by the case analyses and defends it against objections. Throughout the paper, we tag certain views 'African' and others 'Western' to indicate ethical beliefs commonly found in these regions and less commonly found elsewhere. We do not mean to imply that all Africans hold a certain ethical stance or that all Westerners do; nor do we mean to suggest that people outside these regions do not hold the views in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sets forth a solidaristic approach to global distribution of vaccines against the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus. Our approach draws inspiration from African ethics and from the characterization of the Covid‐19 crisis as a syndemic, a convergence of biosocial forces that interact with one another to produce and exacerbate clinical disease and prognosis. The first section elaborates the twin ideas of syndemic and solidarity. The second section argues that these ideas lend support to global health alliances to distribute vaccines beyond national borders. The third section introduces ethical criteria to guide global distribution, emphasizing priority to low‐ and middle‐income countries, which have the least ability to obtain vaccines on their own. It also justifies giving priority to people at high risk of infection and high risk of severe disease and death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioethics is gradually becoming an important part of the drive to increase quality healthcare delivery in sub-Saharan African countries. Yet many healthcare service-users in Africa are familiar with incidences of questionable health policies and poor healthcare delivery, leading to severe consequences for patients. We argue that the overarching rights-based ethical administrative framework recently employed by healthcare authorities contributes to the poor uptake and enforcement of current normative tools. Taking Ghana as a case study, we focus on the cultural ethical context and we tease out the concepts of the good and the ethical among the Akan and Bulsa ethnic groups. We point out three tenets towards building a normative framework that can resonate with service-users and practitioners: ontological communitarianism; empathic humanism; and virtuous character. Finally, we indicate how these core tenets can be dovetailed into building an effective normative framework and into the training of healthcare providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper opens a critical conversation about the ethics of international bioethics conferencing and proposes principles that commit to being anti-discriminatory, global, and inclusive. We launch this conversation in the Section, Case Study, with a case example involving the International Association of Bioethics' (IAB's) selection of Qatar to host the 2024 World Congress of Bioethics. IAB's choice of Qatar sparked controversy. We believe it also may reveal deeper issues of Islamophobia in bioethics. The Section, Principles for International Bioethics Conferencing, sets forth and defends proposed principles for international bioethics conferencing. The Section, Applying Principles to Site Selection applies the proposed principles to the case example. The Section, Applying Principles Beyond Site Selection addresses other applications of the proposed principles. The Section, Objections responds to objections. We close (in the Section, Conclusion) by calling for a wider discussion of our proposed principles. One-Sentence Capsule Summary: How should bioethicists navigate the ethics of global bioethics conferencing? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]