Abstract
In bioethics, there have been adopted a variety of approaches since the 1980s. However, as the normative approach has been the mainstream in the existing discussion of bioethics, the importance of a descriptive one has not been examined fully. In this paper, the problems in descriptions found in current bioethics are uncovered through a comparison with ethnographic epistemology, theory and methodology, which are the basis of anthropological understanding about human conditions. In addition, the relevance of an ethnographic approach in bioethical thinking is demonstrated through an examination of the dialectic process between description and theory construction.
