Response to Open Peer Commentaries on “Three Ways to Politicize Bioethics”

Abstract

My primary aim in writing this article was to promote more thoughtful discussion of what it means and could mean to politicize bioethics. The peer commentaries are encouraging in this regard, and I am grateful to the authors for taking the time to respond. I am not sure how Sam Berger (2009) got the idea that republicanism involves “the elimination of interest groups” or that it might “hide groups’ actions behind the veneer of individual citizen engagement” (61). Berger’s characterization might apply to an extreme version of communitarian republicanism, which my article explicitly rejects. The Machiavellian republicanism I describe relies on diverse institutions and associations — including interest groups, although I focus on bioethics councils — for facilitating popular political engagement. Moreover, I endorse the “liberal emphasis on the irreducible plurality of values and interests in modern societies,” (Brown 2009, 43) and I note that excluding interests from public deliberation works against disadvantaged groups. The article also includes a paragraph on “non-deliberative contributions to public bioethics” where I praise the actions of a disability rights group (43). It is true that some theorists of republicanism and deliberative democracy have neglected interest groups, but my article criticizes the standard liberal view of politics for “reducing it to interest group competition,” (43, emphasis added) not interest group competition as such. Berger’s (2009) other main point is that my article “ignores political realities” (61) by underestimating the difficulties of promoting intelligent public engagement in complex bioethical issues. Here Berger’s comment overlaps with Chris Durante’s concern that my article “lacks a detailed method of engaging the public” (55). My article did not aim to provide such a method, nor to describe the practical challenges of public engagement. Berger (2009) notes correctly that popular understanding of many bioethical issues is rather dismal, and that public opinion is necessarily framed and easily manipulated by the media. But criticizing efforts to expand public engagement on the basis of poor public understanding of science puts the cart before the horse. Is it really surprising that standard public surveys regarding isolated scientific facts reveal widespread ignorance? Who