The foundations of secular bioethics

Stephen Wear

pp. 45-56

in: Lisa M. Rasmussen, Ana S. Iltis, Mark Cherry (eds), At the foundations of bioethics and biopolitics, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

As long as we stick to secular bioethics, the basic view of H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. is quite clear and simple: given the failure of the Enlightenment to rationally secure a content-filled, lexically ordered secular morality, we are left with a bare-bones sort of ethics of permission between moral strangers (Engelhardt, The foundations of Christian bioethics. Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers, Lisse, 2000). In what follows, I will address three interrelated issues: (1) is the secular, libertarian ethics of permission that Engelhardt sees us left with as impoverished as he and others hold it is – is this really all a secular bioethics can say?; (2) does this libertarian view somehow naturally tend to evolve into the liberal cosmopolitan view as he asserts?; and (3) is there nothing between the libertarian and liberal cosmopolitan views within which those who lack the content-filled sort of vision that Engelhardt aspires to might rest relatively satisfied?

Cited authors

Engelhardt Tristram