Solidarity and Moral Complicity in Bioethics

Abstract: In recent years, Bioethicists have argued that solidarity should be included as a core principle of bioethics joining autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, reciprocity, and other principles. Solidarity, in this context, is understood as standing with others with whom one shares certain connections including shared community membership, markers of personal identity, or vulnerabilities. However, critics have pointed out limitations to the application of a principle of solidarity to the context of infectious disease and other pressing global health-related issues. Communities can take steps to reduce their shared vulnerability to infectious diseases and other threats by, for example, hoarding vaccine supplies and enacting regional travel restrictions.

I argue that moral complicity can address some of these concerns and is an important complement to or replacement of solidarity as a principle in bioethics. Traditionally, complicity in bioethics has been focused narrowly on the responsibilities of individual healthcare providers and researchers not to causally contribute to bad acts. Much less has been said about how the concept of moral complicity can be used to illuminate responsibility for structural injustices related to health. Using Aragon and Jaggar’s adaption of Iris Young’s conception of political responsibility to moral complicity, I show how an account of structural complicity illuminates health-related ethical issues. Structural complicity more successfully serves the role envisioned by a principle of solidarity in that it directs individuals and policies toward addressing unjust structures without depending on a sense of communal bonds or shared vulnerabilities which may or may not be present in these contexts.

Keywords: Moral Complicity, Solidarity, Political Responsibility