Implicações bioéticas para o licenciamento ambiental de grandes empreendimentos no Brasil

Abstract

ResumoO processo de licenciamento ambiental de refinarias de petróleo no Brasil tem sido criticado pela ausên-cia do cuidado com relação aos efeitos decorrentes do empreendimento sobre a saúde. Por isso, este trabalho busca identificar ferramentas da bioética que contribuam para a proteção da saúde nesse processo. Amparado numa revisão integrativa da literatura científica e no método desconstrutivo proposto por Derrida, justifica-se a pertinência e legitimidade do uso da bioética para fundamentar a relação entre as consequências para a saúde dos indivíduos, populações e dos ecossistemas e a conflituosidade envolvida. Conclui-se que a bioética pode contribuir como ferramenta teórica e prática por meio da descrição, avaliação dos conflitos e dilemas morais envolvendo a licença para implantação de processos produtivos, servindo para processos de crítica, justificação e de estabelecimento de medidas moralmente aceitáveis para a proteção da saúde humana e dos demais seres vivos do ecossistema.

Bioethics of protection: fundamentals and perspective

“…According to Kottow 3,5 , the vulnerability of citizens was already an object of concern for Hobbes since the protective function appears both in the adoption of the social contract by the state and in the rise of the common good in the figure of the sovereign. Later, and still according to the Chilean bioethicist 3,5 , the Hobbesian conception was refined by Mill, who restricted state functions to guaranteeing individual rights and established protection as a fundamental state action insofar as politically legitimate and justifiable sovereignty should provide a minimum of security to its citizens 2,[6][7][8][9] .…”

“…Moreover, such harm may shift affected individuals from the dimension of vulnerability to that of actual vulnerated beings 2,4,8 .…”

“…Finally, it is important to understand that vulnerability and susceptibility are different conditions and therefore require different approaches since the former tends to be addressed by equitable protective action for all members of a given society via the principle of justice. Susceptibility, in turn, supposes a certain state of deprivation which can only be mitigated or neutralized by compensatory measures guided by the principle of protection, measures which must specifically seek to actively fight a given deprivation [5][6][7][8] .…”

“…In fact, although the link between state and protection had existed since the dawn of modernity, bioethics had not yet incorporated protection as a principle in its discourse. It was based on the notion of state responsibility and the revival of its protective role that researchers Schramm and Kottow 2 turned to authors acknowledged for addressing the issue of responsibility interconnected with ethics, such as Hans Jonas and Emmanuel Lévinas [6][7][8][9]13 .…”

“…Therefore, this process must start out from the assumption that the term "protection" refers to the main function of the ethos, that is, to protect vulnerated individuals or populations from inequity and poverty. In fact, protection of the vulnerated should guide actions as a moral norm, which means that the asymmetry of relations should be the ultimate focus of bioethical analysis [6][7][8][9][10]14 .…”