Secular Bioethics Research Articles

Moral Pluralism, the Crisis of Secular Bioethics, and the Divisive Character of Christian Bioethics: Taking the Culture Wars Seriously

Moral pluralism is a reality. It is grounded, in part, in the intractable pluralism of secular morality and bioethics. There is a wide gulf that separates secular bioethics from Christian bioethics. Christian bioethics, unlike secular bioethics, understand that morality is about coming into a relationship with God. Orthodox Christian bioethics, moreover, understands that the impersonal set of moral principles and goals in secular morality gives a distorted account of the moral life. Therefore, Traditional Christian bioethics is separated from bioethics by a radical difference in paradigms.

Christian Bioethics in Europe: In Defense against Reductionist Influences from the United States

Christian ideas have continued to inspire European bioethics until now. The central thesis of this essay is that the open-mindedness of Roman Catholic and other Christian denominations in Europe is crucial for understanding why Christian ethics is so well integrated in the European culture. The essay describes first the institutional frameworks in which these Christian mainly Roman Catholic ideas are developed. It analyzes further the difference between the secular Anglo-American and European bioethics as it has been influenced by these Christian ideas. It finally summarizes the challenges to which Europe's Christian bioethical identity is presently exposed to. The essay states that the Christian inspiration of European bioethics is mainly connected with the ideologically moderate, tolerant, and dialogical participation of Christian bioethicists in the bioethical debate in Europe.

Bioethics & Organ Transplantation in a Muslim Society

FarhatMoazam was born in Pakistan and attended medical school there. Formany years, she pursued her surgical and pediatric training in the UnitedStates, witnessing not only scientific progress in organ transplantation butalso the rise of modern secular bioethics, the advocacy of individual rightsand patient autonomy, and feminism(p. 175). Equipped with such privilegedknowledge, she obtained high-ranking positions back in Pakistan, reflectingher competence as both a medical doctor and a medical ethics specialist.While working on this dissertation (she received her doctorate in religiousstudies from the University of Virginia in 2004), however, she employed athird and quite unexpected quality: that of an ethnographer. ButMoazamhasno ambition to contribute to the broader theoretical discussion of MarcelMauss’ The Gift (W.W. Norton & Co., 2000). Rather, she brushes aside theapplicability of reasoning in the tradition of the reception of Mauss (cf. pp.126, 138, 143, and 218). Similarly, she is not concerned with theoretical ethnologicalor sociological debates on globalization and its local appropriations,although, ultimately, this is what the story is about.To conduct her fieldwork, she chose to spend three months at a dialysisand renal transplantation unit in her hometown of Karachi. This vanguardinstitution for end-stage-renal-disease (ESRD) patients, part of her old medicalcollege, is now both the largest and the first institution of its type inPakistan. In addition, the country’s first renal transplant was performed therein 1985. Financed to a lesser degree by the state, about 60 percent of theinstitute’s budget has to be raised by sponsors (p. 46). Such services as dialysis,transplantation, medication, and follow-up are free of charge (p. 37), sothere is a tremendous overflow of people in need.The institute, having started its pioneering work in a traditional societythat is still strongly averse to posthumous donation, has to rely on live ...

Who is a parent? Parenthood in Islamic ethics

Who is a parent? Parenthood in Islamic ethics

Global bioethics: the collapse of consensus

Global Bioethics: The Collapse of Consensus explores the persistent failure to produce a universal set of standards for bioethics. The predicament of contemporary morality, the post-modern condition, is such that we find ourselves in the position of numerous competing moralities that not only reach conflicting judgments about particular issues, but also reflect radically divergent world-views. Consensus, therefore, is impossible to achieve. These essays analyze and diagnose the causes and results of the diversity of moral world-views in both philosophy and everyday life. Some of the essays in this volume argue that the post-modern condition is actually the direct result of the philosophical-theological synthesis of the Western Christian Middle Ages. The essays in this volume explore the difficulties, both procedural and contentful, that have arisen from the failure of various attempts to arrive at a global secular bioethics by means of rational-discursive reflection.

Humanism, secularism and embryos

In this paper I discuss the moral status of the embryo in the light of secularism and humanism. After having clarified the terms of the title on which I was asked to speak, and taking for granted that humanism is essential to bioethics, I focus on secularism and sketch some versions of secular bioethics, that of Engelhardt in particular, who has elaborated the most full-fledged view of secular morality according to which only persons have moral worth and embryos get whatever moral significance is attributed to them by the actual persons who want them. Given that there is a consensus that before the 14th day from fertilization, human pre-embryos, particularly those that are not destined to develop into children, can be objects of experimentation, and that embryonic stem cells can be utilized for therapeutic reasons, I argue that it is consistent with a moderate version of secular humanism to use pre-14-day embryos as means and not only as ends. Humanism and secularism are too broad concepts to dictate a single opinion on the moral status of the embryo.

Christian Bioethics, Secular Bioethics, and the Claim to Cultural Authority

Though the papers in this volume for the most part address the question, “What is Christian about Christian Bioethics”, this paper addresses instead a closely related question, “How would a Christian approach to bioethics differ from the kind of secular academic bioethics that has emerged as such an important field in the contemporary university?” While it is generally assumed that a secular bioethics rooted in moral philosophy will be more culturally authoritative than an approach to bioethics grounded in the contingent particularities of a religious tradition, I will give reasons for rejecting this assumption. By examining the history of the recent revival of academic bioethics as well as the state of the contemporary moral philosophy on which it is based I will suggest that secular bioethics suffers from many of the same liabilities as a carefully articulated Christian bioethics. At the end of the paper I will turn briefly to examine the question of how, in light of this discussion, a Christian bioethics might best be pursued.

Christian Bioethics and the Church's Political Worship

Christian bioethics springs from the worship that is the response of the Church to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Such worship is distinctively political in nature, in that it acknowledges Christ as Lord. Because it is a political worship, it can recognize no other lords and no other prior claims on its allegiance: these include the claims of an allegedly universal ethics and politics determined from outside the Church. However the Church is called not just to be a contrast society, but also to witness to the freeing of the world from salvific pretensions in order that it may embrace its proper temporality. The implications of this for the distinctiveness of Christian bioethics are brought out in three movements: first, the Church's itself learning how it is to conceive bioethics; second, the Church's role in unmasking the idols of secular bioethics; and third, the Church's witnessing to the freeing of medicine from idolatrous aspirations.

Between Morality and Repentance: Recapturing “Sin” for Bioethics

Distinguishing within “sin” the dimensions of anomia, hamartia, and asthenia makes it possible to analyze in greater detail the contrary manners in which traditional and post-traditional Christianities in this issue of Christian Bioethics endeavor to recapture what was lost when secular bioethics reconstructed the specifically spiritual-context-oriented normative commitments of Christianity in one-dimensionally moral terms. Various post-traditional attempts at securing moral orientation and resources for forgiveness, both of which secular bioethics finds increasingly difficult to provide, are critically reviewed. Their engagement of secular moral concepts and concerns, and even their adoption of an academically philosophical posture and language, is presented as responsible for their failure to adequately preserve what in traditional Christianity would count as prohibited vs. permitted, and advisable vs. non-advisable, or what would allow to resolve “tragic conflicts.” The deeper reason for this failure lies in post-traditional Christianity's restricting the Christian life (with its central tension between love and the law) to what can be captured by cognitive categories. As the survey of several traditionally Christian accounts of sin in bioethics makes clear, both moral orientation (along with the resolution of “tragic“ conflicts) and the sources of forgiveness are available, once that Christian life is framed in terms of persons' spirit-supported practical involvement in ascesis and liturgy, and once bioethical reflections are situated in the experiential context of such involvement.

Engelhardt and Children: The Failure of Libertarian Bioethics in Pediatric Interactions

In Engelhardt's secular bioethics, moral obligations derive from contracts and agreements between rational persons, and no infants or children and few adolescents meet Engelhardt's requirements for being a rational person. This is a problem, as one cannot have any direct secular moral obligations toward nonpersons such as infants and adolescents. The Engelhardtian concepts of ownership, indenture, and social personhood, which are meant to allow the theory to accommodate children and adolescents adequately, fail to give an Engelhardtian any actual means of determining the right action to take in difficult cases, even on his or her own terms. Thus, the theory is incapable of determining the morally correct action to take in cases involving children and therefore is unhelpful in dealing with moral questions involving children.

Christian Bioethics, Secular Bioethics, and the Claim to Cultural Authority

Though the papers in this volume for the most part address the question, "What is Christian about Christian Bioethics", this paper addresses instead a closely related question, "How would a Christian approach to bioethics differ from the kind of secular academic bioethics that has emerged as such an important field in the contemporary university?" While it is generally assumed that a secular bioethics rooted in moral philosophy will be more culturally authoritative than an approach to bioethics grounded in the contingent particularities of a religious tradition, I will give reasons for rejecting this assumption. By examining the history of the recent revival of academic bioethics as well as the state of the contemporary moral philosophy on which it is based I will suggest that secular bioethics suffers from many of the same liabilities as a carefully articulated Christian bioethics. At the end of the paper I will turn briefly to examine the question of how, in light of this discussion, a Christian bioethics might best be pursued.

Between Morality and Repentance: Recapturing "Sin" for Bioethics

Distinguishing within "sin" the dimensions of anomia, hamartia, and asthenia makes it possible to analyze in greater detail the contrary manners in which traditional and post-traditional Christianities in this issue of Christian Bioethics endeavor to recapture what was lost when secular bioethics reconstructed the specifically spiritual-context-oriented normative commitments of Christianity in one-dimensionally moral terms. Various post-traditional attempts at securing moral orientation and resources for forgiveness, both of which secular bioethics finds increasingly difficult to provide, are critically reviewed. Their engagement of secular moral concepts and concerns, and even their adoption of an academically philosophical posture and language, is presented as responsible for their failure to adequately preserve what in traditional Christianity would count as prohibited vs. permitted, and advisable vs. non-advisable, or what would allow to resolve "tragic conflicts." The deeper reason for this failure lies in post-traditional Christianity's restricting the Christian life (with its central tension between love and the law) to what can be captured by cognitive categories. As the survey of several traditionally Christian accounts of sin in bioethics makes clear, both moral orientation (along with the resolution of "tragic" conflicts) and the sources of forgiveness are available, once that Christian life is framed in terms of persons' spirit-supported practical involvement in ascesis and liturgy, and once bioethical reflections are situated in the experiential context of such involvement.

Christian Bioethics and the Church's Political Worship

Christian bioethics springs from the worship that is the response of the Church to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Such worship is distinctively political in nature, in that it acknowledges Christ as Lord. Because it is a political worship, it can recognize no other lords and no other prior claims on its allegiance: these include the claims of an allegedly universal ethics and politics determined from outside the Church. However the Church is called not just to be a contrast society, but also to witness to the freeing of the world from salvific pretensions in order that it may embrace its proper temporality. The implications of this for the distinctiveness of Christian bioethics are brought out in three movements: first, the Church's itself learning how it is to conceive bioethics; second, the Church's role in unmasking the idols of secular bioethics; and third, the Church's witnessing to the freeing of medicine from idolatrous aspirations.

Moral Philosophy and Theology: Why is There so Little Difference for Roman Catholics?

The cardinal question in Christian moral theory and bioethics is whether the knowledge that Christians have (1) by grace and (2) by revelation (e.g., regarding the character of human and cosmic history as reaching from creation through the Incarnation and the Redemption to the Second Coming and the restoration of all things) makes a crucial contribution to understanding morality, as for example issues such as the good death and the morality of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. This article argues that such a contribution is made by grace and revelation. The reduction of Roman Catholic moral theology and bioethics to secular bioethics is explored, as well as the necessity of the unique knowledge possessed by Christians for adequate end-of-life decision-making.

Which medical ethics for the 21st century?

two theories of medical ethics - secular bioethics and Roman Catholic medical ethics, what they are, comparing their conclusions about what is right or wrong, and indicating where they have already lead us.

PERSPECTIVAS SANITARIAS PROMETEDORAS DEL CLONAJE HUMANO

To evaluate the promises of human cloning, both therapeutic and reproductive, we can start from two pertinent points of view: health and secular bioethics. Under the point of view of health, though public prevention and health promotion policies, adequate to objective existing conditions, they try to protect human population from unnecessary diseases. Secular bioethics seeks to understand the ethics of cloning through rational analysis, free from the moral implications of its use; and if the conclusion is that it is legitimate, to propose it like a tool to protect human health. In spite of their apparently very different functions, both therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning seek to respond to the challenge of unnecessary human suffering: therapeutic cloning, thanks to the technique that uses totipotent stem cells, seek to grow organs and tissues to eliminate avoidable suffering; reproductive cloning may also diminish forms of unnecessary human suffering and if can, therefore, to be considered a particular case of therapeutic approach.

Moral philosophy and theology: why is there so little difference for Roman Catholics?

The cardinal question in Christian moral theory and bioethics is whether the knowledge that Christians have (1) by grace and (2) by revelation (e.g., regarding the character of human and cosmic history as reaching from creation through the Incarnation and the Redemption to the Second Coming and the restoration of all things) makes a crucial contribution to understanding morality, as for example issues such as the good death and the morality of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. This article argues that such a contribution is made by grace and revelation. The reduction of Roman Catholic moral theology and bioethics to secular bioethics is explored, as well as the necessity of the unique knowledge possessed by Christians for adequate end-of-life decision-making.

Reflections

Can it be already 30 years since the first days of modern, secular bioethics? As those of us in the field for almost all these years arrive near the end of our careers, we find that time has truly flown and the challenges have not diminished one bit. If anything, they are even greater than in the early years. Along the way it was tempting to think that the broad consensus reached on research ethics, on the four principles, on the need for consent in clinical ethics, and then on rights in reproduction and dying, would paint the picture rather well. Only fill-in would be needed by the apprentices coming afterward. Yet time and again new biological and medical discoveries continued to challenge that painting. A new canvas had to be hung. Among the major newer developments were the challenges of healthcare reform, genetics, antifoundationalism, the certification of ethics consultants, and now, the internationalization of bioethics, its relationship to the environment and world politics, and biotechnology.

Germline engineering: The moral challenges

Not only is the use of germline genetic engineering likely in the long run to be inevitable, there are also no convincing secular moral grounds to forbid this technology in principle. Instead, the general secular moral constraints on the use of germline genetic engineering are either procedural or without predetermined content. Nor can one develop a coherent distinction between eliminating disease and enhancing human abilities. At best, in secular morality one can establish the principle to proceed with care, though the invocation of the precautionary principle argues as much in favor of the development of germline genetic engineering as against its use. Because germline genetic engineering, by eliminating certain genetic defects, offers the prospect of decreasing human suffering and decreasing the use of prenatal diagnosis and abortion, there is an obligation, all else being equal, to change the human genome. In a post-modern world, humans face the challenge of directing their own evolution, although they share no common understanding of human destiny and purpose. Such understandings, though available within religious contexts, are not available to secular bioethics.

Now, the Real Foundations of Bioethics

he Foundations of Christian Bioethics is Tristram Engelhardt's long-awaited sequel to The Foundations of Bioethics, the second edition of which was published in 1996. The new Foundations is a passionate, probing work of Orthodox theology (p. 199) by one of our most powerful and provocative thinkers. Engelhardt revisits many of the arguments raised in his earlier works but with a more explicit focus on Christian bioethics. Secular bioethics, an ethics of consent and contract between moral