The ethical issues integral to embryo research and brain death are intertwined with comprehensive views of life that are not explicitly discussed in most policy debate. I consider three representative views – a naturalist, romantic, and theist – and show how these might inform the way practical ethical issues are addressed. I then consider in detail one influential argument in embryo research that attempts to bypass deep values. I show that this twinning argument is deeply flawed. It presupposes naturalist commitments (...) that are at issue in the embryo research debate, and exhibits a blindness to alternative philosophical viewpoints. By considering the work of Hans Driesch, the discoverer of the facts of embryology integral to the twinning argument, I show how the twinning facts are compatible with romantic and theistic accounts that affirm full moral status for the early embryo. While these alternative interpretations might have a tenuous status in current scientific debate, they should be respected in ethical and policy debate. (shrink)

”Merely fact-minded sciences make merely factminded people.”“ …the positivistic concept of science in our time is, historically speaking, a residual concept. It has dropped all the questions which had been considered under the now narrower, now broader concepts of metaphysics….all these ‘metaphysical’ questions, taken broadly – commonly called specifically philosophical questions – surpass the world understood as the universe of mere facts. They surpass it precisely as being questions with the idea of reason in mind. And they all claim a (...) higher dignity than questions of fact, which are subordinated to them even in the order of inquiry. Positivism, in a manner of speaking, decapitates philosophy.”Edmund HusserlIn ethical literature associated with controversies at the beginning and end of human life, there is often a two-part structure: first, basic facts about the topic are presented in a more or less descriptive format, then there is the ethics or policy. (shrink)

Abortion is an especially salient issue for considering the general problematic of religiously based conversation in the public square. It remains deeply divisive, fully thirty-four years after Roe v. Wade. Such divisiveness cannot be interpreted as merely an expression of profound differences between “secular” and “religious” voices, because differences also emerge among Christian denominations, reflecting different sources of moral authority, different accounts of moral discernment, and different judgments about the appropriate relations between law and morality in the context of pluralism. (...) As this paper explores, however, despite those differences, a generally identifiable “Christian” position concerning the moral status of abortion can be distinguished from secular philosophical judgments on the issue, which is important for Christian engagement with public policy debate. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes is one of the most ardent and thoroughgoing opponents of participatory democracy among Western political philosophers. Though Hobbes 's alternative to participatory democracy - assent by subjects to rule by an absolute sovereign - no longer constitutes a viable political alternative for Westerners, his critique of participatory democracy is a potentially valuable source of insight about its liabilities. This essay elaborates five theses from Hobbes that stand as cogent warnings to those who embrace participatory democracy, especially those advocating (...) for deliberative democracy based on a rational consensus model. In light of these warnings, the author suggests an alternative, modus vivendi approach to deliberative democracy that would radically alter the current practice of bioethics. (shrink)

Current philosophical and legal bioethical reflection on reprogenetics provides little more than a rationalization of the interests of science. There are two reasons for this. First, bioethicists attempt to address ethical issues in a “language of precision” that characterizes science, and this works against analogical and narratological modes of discourse that have traditionally provided guidance for understanding human nature and purpose. Second, the current ethical and legal debate is framed by a public/private distinction that banishes robust norms to the private (...) realm, and leaves a minimalist public discourse of harm avoidance that is insufficient for regulating the science. In this essay, I argue that Mark Hanson's account of anxiety provides a valuable starting point for addressing deficiencies in the current philosophical and legal debate, and it highlights the need for a theological discourse on genetic enhancements. Through an assessment of Joel Shumann's criticism of the public/private distinction, I show how the needed theological discourse should be situated in the context of robust communities, and how such a communitarian inter-ethic is compatible with a variant of liberalism. Finally, I critically assess James Keenan's account of virtue and perfection, in order to outline what a sufficient discourse on reproductive and genetic enhancements requires. (shrink)