[The possibility of universalizing values in clinical ethics: questions and stakes]

A derivative of modernity, bioethics is a torn between its legitimate desire to universalize the values to which it has traditionally adhered (for example: autonomy, beneficence, non-malfeasance, fairness) and the awareness of the very Western character of these ethical guidelines. Should one resolve to work in a relativist model? Bioethics arose through the necessity of having ethics to accompany the development of medical biotechnology in the aftermath of the Second World War And obviously Western bioethics was applied to serve Western biotechnological developments. Can these culturally based medical techniques and know-how be exported without equally exporting the ethical guidelines that have been gradually assigned to their development? To shed light on the issue, the author suggests linking free and informed consent to the concept of autonomy and to its corollary.