Cultural Values and Global Bioethics: Integrating Universal Principles with Diverse Ethical Traditions - A Narrative Review
Pheagane Motsime William Nkoana *
University of Limpopo, Polokwane, South Africa.
Mapula Precious Rapao
University of Limpopo, Polokwane, South Africa.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Global bioethics must address problems that cross borders while remaining responsive to moral traditions, social relationships and histories that differ markedly across settings. The central difficulty is not simply whether universal principles or cultural values should prevail, but how ethically defensible common standards can be specified without treating one cultural model as the default for humanity. This critical narrative review examines the relationship between universal norms, cultural pluralism and diverse ethical traditions in bioethics. Literature published from 1 January 1988 to 5 July 2026 was identified through biomedical, philosophical, multidisciplinary and regional scholarly indexes, supplemented by citation searching and authoritative international ethics documents. The evidence was appraised for conceptual clarity, methodological adequacy, cross-cultural validity, attention to power and relevance to clinical care, research, public health, genomics and data governance. The synthesis shows that strong forms of both moral imperialism and cultural relativism are inadequate. Universal approaches are most defensible when they function as a moral floor protecting dignity, bodily integrity, non-discrimination, freedom from coercion and exploitation, and basic requirements of justice, while leaving substantial room for contextual specification. Cross-cultural research indicates that autonomy is not rejected outside individualist traditions, but its meaning and exercise may be relational, family-mediated and socially embedded. Confucian, African communitarian, Islamic, South Asian, Buddhist, Latin American and Indigenous perspectives expose blind spots in individualistic, procedure-centred bioethics, particularly concerning relationships, solidarity, social responsibility, structural injustice, community authority and data sovereignty. Yet traditions are internally diverse and can also reproduce hierarchy, so cultural accommodation requires safeguards for dissent and vulnerable members. An integrative global bioethics therefore needs four mutually constraining elements: a universal moral floor, context-sensitive specification, inclusive intercultural deliberation and structural attention to power and epistemic justice. This approach offers a more credible basis for ethical guidance in plural societies than either uniform universalism or unrestricted relativism.
Keywords: Bioethics, cultural pluralism, human rights, relational autonomy, global health ethics, decolonial bioethics, Indigenous data sovereignty, intercultural ethics