Purpose/Context.

This article reflects on the ecological approaches to the body of bioethics theories to delimit environmental bioethics based on Fritz Jahr, Aldo Leopold, Van Rensselaer Potter, and Latin American authors who promote a paradigm shift in the human being-ecosystem relationship.

Method/Approach.

This qualitative research is supported by a hermeneutical analysis of bioethical studies between 1970 and 2018. It uses specialized programs to establish co-occurrence relationships and view semantic communities.

Results/Findings.

The environmental dimension of bioethics was structured from the founding ideas of Jahr, Leopold, and Potter, who established a conceptual line that abandons anthropocentric ethics to move towards an ecocentric model. Therefore, environmental bioethics assumes an integrating role between humans and ecosystem communities.

Discussion/Conclusions/Contributions.

The defense of life and the creation of harmonious relationships between people and non-human beings are consolidated as structuring lines of environmental bioethics. The limits of human morality are also expanded to include animals, plants, and territory in new coexistence settings, and nature is established as a subject of rights.

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