[What is personalistic bioethics? An analysys of its specificity and its theoretical foundations]

This article try to analyze why, although personalistic bioethics is expanding, there are so few theoretical studies on its characteristics and identity, and concludes it is due to a problem of lack of specificity. Personalistic bioethicists rely either on movements or institutions that have a weak theoretical foundation or in the realist philosophy taken in a very broad sense, which generates a problem of internal inconsistency due to its great diversity. To solve this problem the author proposes: 1) be aware of the existence of this theoretical problem; 2) solve it through the use of personalistic philosophy understood as a particular philosophical school of the XX century. In this sense, the author proposes: 1) a detailed description of personalistic philosophy; 2) states that a particular version, the modern ontological personalism, developed from an anthropological point of view by Wojtyla, from a bioethical point of view by Sgreccia and from the theory of personalism by Burgos is the best choice to put the foundations of personalistic bioethics. The author concludes exposing the contributions and limits of this theory for personalistic bioethics, and the steps that should be followed to promote it and develop it.