Collating the concepts of vulnerability through five regional perspectives on bioethics from the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia, this article proposes a means of integration between the different approaches in order to seek a theoretical and normative basis for the field of global bioethics. It argues that only through opening continuous, critical, and self-critical dialogue within the international bioethical community will it be possible to achieve a sufficiently global understanding of vulnerability that is capable of identifying the means needed for addressing the conditions that leave certain groups and individuals more susceptible to “wounding” than others.

This article examines the relationship between philosophy and culture in global bioethics. First, it studies what is meant by the term “global” in global bioethics. Second, the author introduces four different types, or recognizable trends, in philosophical inquiry in bioethics today. The main argument is that, in order to make better sense of the complexity of the ethical questions and challenges we face today across the globe, we need to embrace the universal nature of self-critical and analytical philosophical analysis and argumentation, rather than using seemingly philosophical approaches to give unjustified normative emphasis on different cultural approaches to bioethics.