Bioethics and natural law: the relationship in Catholic teaching.

In the discipline of Catholic moral theology, bioethics (traditionally described as medical ethics) has held a major place. The systematic development of bioethics has drawn principally upon a natural law ethic, supported by broader religious arguments. The purpose of this essay is to examine the status and role of natural law in Catholic teaching as it bears upon bioethics.     

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.     

A memo from the central office: the "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services"

In 1994, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops revised the "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services." A goal of the Directives is to maintain the moral integrity of Catholic health care institutions and to address controversies in bioethics and health care. The Directives represent a shift to an exclusively principle-based approach to moral reason. This shift threatens to undermine the very tradition that the bishops seek to protect.     

James Drane's More Humane Medicine: a new foundation for twenty-first century bioethics?

James Drane's More Humane Medicine: A Liberal Catholic Bioethics is an outstanding contribution to the study of bioethics in our day. Catholics and others who are interested in the issues discussed here will benefit from this masterful treatment. The author opens with a set of definitions, starting with what he means by a "more humane medicine." Drane contends that a more humane medicine has become necessary and desired, but not because the traditional medical ethic as "a self-declared and self-imposed ethic, outlining what noble service to others entails" is no longer valid. Rather he defines it as an advance on the traditional ethic; a "new foundation" based on a "lived set of obligations derived from a felt commitment to other persons ... an ethics based on the relationship between doctors and patients and essentially an ethics of virtue." Drane's work is a "liberal Catholic Bioethics" in which he challenges his own faith tradition, the Roman Catholic Church, on such topics as sexuality, birth control, abortion, cloning, stem cell research, aging and dying, and euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. The present article is a critical essay that analyzes the author's statements and conclusions.     

A Response to G. Scott Davis

This defense of my essay on Vitoria and Suárez argues that my use of the term “religious war” is based on religious authority at least as much as religious cause, and that Davis’s decision to discuss only Vitoria limits his ability to come to terms with my thesis. To Davis’s argument that for Vitoria war was justified against the Indians only as a necessity of simple justice and to protect the innocent, I argue that his disjunction between simple justice and religious cause is a false one that fails to come to term with the church’s primary reason for approaching Indians, with the Thomistic understanding of the relation between nature and grace and between reason and revelation, and with the distinction between what justice requires in relation to the church and Christians and what it requires for others. I explain finally that my claim is not that the Catholic political rulers readily responded to papal calls for war except when it was in their interest, but that papal war was central to the normative just‐war tradition of the church in canon law and among major theologians like Vitoria and Suárez.     

The impact of Roman Catholic moral theology on end-of-life care under the Texas Advance Directives Act.

This essay reviews the Roman Catholic moral tradition surrounding treatments at the end of life together with the challenges presented to that tradition by the Texas Advance Directives Act. The impact on Catholic health care facilities and physicians, and the way in which the moral tradition should be applied under this statute, particularly with reference to the provision dealing with conflicts over end-of-life treatments, will be critically assessed. I will argue, based on the traditional treatment of end-of-life issues, that Catholic physicians and institutions should appeal to the conflict resolution process of the Advance Directives Act only under a limited number of circumstances. The implications, under the Texas statute, of varied interpretations of Pope John Paul II's recent allocution on artificial feeding and hydration in the persistent vegetative state will also be considered.     

FOOD ETHICS: A CRITIQUE OF SOME ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVES ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD

This article critiques some Islamic approaches to food ethics and the debate over genetically modified (GM) food. Food ethics is a branch of bioethics, and is an emerging field in Islamic bioethics. The article critically analyzes the arguments of the authors who wrote in favor of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) from an Islamic perspective, and those who wrote against GMOs, also from an Islamic perspective. It reveals the theological and the epistemological foundations of the two main approaches. Moreover, it provides an attempt to critique what is perceived as an exclusivist and legalistic trend adopted by some authors. It argues that an alternative approach that acknowledges the priority of reason in ethics and is at the same time rooted in Islamic tradition would be more inclusive and constructive.     

Tube feedings and persistent vegetative state patients: ordinary or extraordinary means?

This article looks at the late John Paul II's allocution on artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH) and the implications his statement will have on the ordinary-extraordinary care distinction. The purpose of this article is threefold: first, to examine the medical condition of a persistent vegetative state (PVS); second, to examine and analyze the Catholic Church's tradition on the ordinary-extraordinary means distinction; and third, to analyze the ethics behind the pope's recent allocution in regards to PVS patients as a matter of conscience. Rather than providing clarification, I argue that the papal allocution has raised many difficult questions. People in situations where decisions must be made about withdrawal or continued ANH are in need of guidance. Moreover, additional analysis is needed to determine whether the papal allocution is in conflict with the traditional Catholic medical ethics understanding of the ordinary-extraordinary care distinction.     

Much Ado About Something: An Ethic of the Common Good for Information Technology

As the culture of information technology grows and with it the exacerbation of associated problems, so does the body of literature that seeks to reflect on its impact and prospects. The advancements in information technology tend to be outpacing critical reflection and solid ethical analysis. The quality of the foundational ethical work done in information technology ethics has been inadequate, consisting of applied ethics or an appeal to law. This article considers how the richer perspective—the common good, as expressed through the lens of the Roman Catholic Church—can serve as a hermeneutic in the field of information technology ethics, offering a more substantial foundation to address pressing controversial issues associated with this burgeoning field and function as a guide for future developments in this industry. The common good can supplement the operative ways of appealing to law and business ethics to address crime and abuse associated with the World Wide Web with a specifically Roman Catholic paradigm and, in turn, offer a broader and richer appreciation of the societal-wide context that information technology impacts.     

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

Christian ideas have continued to inspire European bioethicsuntil now. The central thesis of this essay is that the open-mindednessof Roman Catholic and other Christian denominations in Europeis crucial for understanding why Christian ethics is so wellintegrated in the European culture. The essay describes firstthe institutional frameworks in which these Christian mainlyRoman Catholic ideas are developed. It analyzes further thedifference between the secular Anglo-American and European bioethicsas it has been influenced by these Christian ideas. It finallysummarizes the challenges to which Europe's Christian bioethicalidentity is presently exposed to. The essay states that theChristian inspiration of European bioethics is mainly connectedwith the ideologically moderate, tolerant, and dialogical participationof Christian bioethicists in the bioethical debate in Europe.     

Revelation,Scripture and Tradition: Lessons from Vatican II's Constitution Dei verbum for Contemporary Theology

For Roman Catholic systematic theology, any reflection on the relation between revelation, Scripture and tradition has to take into account the dogmatic constitution of the Second Vatican Council concerning this theme: Dei verbum. In this document, the dialogical nature of these fundamental theological concepts has been accentuated. Revelation, but also Scripture and tradition, are historical dynamic givens that reveal a salvific God at work in our history, both through Christ and in the Spirit. In conversation with Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, both the coming into being of this document and its main assets are discussed. Moreover, it will be Dei verbum's reception, and especially the difficulties subsequently encountered to uphold and institutionally anchor the dialogical nature of revelation, tradition, theology and the magisterium that are also commented upon. Inasmuch, however, as Dei verbum has become a part of tradition for the Roman Catholic Church, a reading and rereading of this tradition requires the same dialogical hermeneutical principles which Dei verbum itself presents and requires.     

Whose tradition? Which Enlightenment? What content? Engelhardt, Hauerwas, Capaldo, and the future of Christian bioethics.

The development of a content-full Christian bioethics requires an analysis of the particular contents and traditions which different Christians bring to morality. For Hauerwas, the content of Christian ethics is the speech and practices of the community. For Engelhardt, only a content-full tradition, such as the Orthodox tradition, will be able to arrive at closure on the moral issues presented by the contemporary practice of medicine. Capaldi calls, in contrast, for a Kantian society of autonomous self-legislators whose responsible freedom is grounded in a cosmic order that must be explicated and retrieved in particular practices. The manner in which we view our own traditions and the shortcomings of modernity determine the content that Christianity brings to bioethics.     

Social Conceptions of Moral Agency in Hegel and Sellars

This essay contributes to our understanding of the relation between the philosophies of Hegel and Sellars. While most treatments of this relation have focused on metaphysics or epistemology, I focus on ethics, and in particular on the formulation of moral agency. I argue that Hegel and Sellars arrive at a similar metaphilosophical rejection of individual moral agency in favor of conceptions of moral agency as the outcome of social mediation. To demonstrate this, I trace how Hegel and Sellars offer parallel resolutions of the ‘Kantian paradox’: the apparent problem that, in Kantian ethics, moral agents must both freely self-legislate the moral law unto themselves and stand in a dutiful relation to the moral law as a necessary function of practical reason. Drawing Hegel and Sellars together in this way casts new light on Sellars’s understudied ethical theory and further evidences the contemporary relevance of Hegel’s moral philosophy.     

上帝之手——高道德风险的生命技术何以从伦理学与神学获得辩护

克隆人的出现是后生命科学时代开始的标志;原有的高新生命科学技术发展时期是科学过渡带;人类基因组计划、克隆人与胚胎干细胞研究是后生命科学事件。传统伦理学和神学伦理学在后生命科学时代理论资源桔竭,已达边界;我们“只有同意识形态断裂,彻底改变其结构,才能有真正的科学”;我们必须一边从传统中寻求辩护、一边解放伦理学和神学（经典理论后现代化）。清除障碍,获得解放。     

DEFENDING NIEBUHR FROM HAUERWAS

In his 2001 book, With the Grain of the Universe, Stanley Hauerwas has made an extended case for Karl Barth as the model for how to do Christian ethics, and for Reinhold Niebuhr as the model for how not to do it. Though Barth's closer and deeper theological connection to the Christian tradition appeals to a Jewish traditionalist by analogy, nevertheless, Niebuhr's approach to social ethics, based as it is on a version of natural law, is of greater appeal. That is because it is more philosophically arguable in a secular society and culture, and because it is more politically effective there. It is what made Niebuhr a more effective opponent of Nazism than was Barth. Also, Niebuhr's version of natural law is not a christianized version of Stoic natural law teaching but, rather, a profound use of the biblical prohibition of idolatry, having heretofore unnoticed affinities with rabbinic developments of that prohibition.     

Is Natural Law a Border Concept Between Judaism and Christianity?

With the passing of disputations between Jewish and Christian thinkers as to whose tradition has a more universal ethics, the task of Jewish and Christian ethicists is to constitute a universal horizon for their respective bodies of ethics, both of which are essentially particularistic being rooted in special revelation. This parallel project must avoid relativism that is essentially anti‐ethical, and triumphalism that proposes an imperialist ethos. A retrieval of the idea of natural law in each respective tradition enables the constitution of some intelligent common ground for ethical cooperation in both theory and practice between the traditions. This essay also suggests how the constitution of this common ground could include Muslims as well. The constitution of this common ground enables religious ethicists to present more cogent ethical arguments in secular space, but only of course, when those who now control secular space are open to arguments from members of any religious tradition.     

Can Bioethics be Lutheran?

Abstract :  A Lutheran bioethics must rest on a reconstructed version of Martin Luther's ethics. In the article it is shown that this ethics is Christian in that it has faith in Jesus Christ as its source. But the ethics of neighbor love is practiced in the secular world where it to some extent corresponds with natural law ethics. A Christian believer acts ethically both as an individual and as a citizen. Against the background of this understanding of Lutheran ethics, the position of Ted Peters and Gilbert Meilaender on genetics and stem cells is presented and criticized. One conclusion is that there is no Lutheran doctrine on the status of the human embryo.     

Reason and revelation: Kant and the problem of authority

This paper explores the significance of authority for Kant’s understanding of the relationship between reason and revelation. Beginning with the separation of the faculties of Theology and Philosophy in Conflict, it will be shown that Kant sees a clear distinction between the authority of reason and that of revelation. However, when one turns to Religion, it is also clear that Kant sees an important, perhaps necessary, relationship between the two. Drawing on a variety of texts, in particular those concerning the public and private use of reason, this paper then explores the relationship between the authority of reason and that of revelation. From this discussion, several conclusions will be drawn regarding Kant’s understanding of the relationship between reason and revelation, namely that while distinct, the two are not necessarily in conflict and that, ultimately, the proper functioning of public reason must include some reference to revelation.     

Renegotiating Aquinas

While Roman Catholic feminist ethicists typically endorse moral realism and crosscultural standards of justice, they also have been influenced by the postmodern interrogation of abstract reason and moral universalism. As theologians writing after the Second Vatican Council, they are increasingly sensitive to the communal and ecclesial dimensions of morality and of Christian ethics, and to the integral relation of Christian faith and ethics. This essay will consider two approaches to Catholic feminist ethics that differ in the relative weight they give to constructive work for social justice (realist gender justice ethics), or to the grounding of ethics in prayer and mysticism (postmodern gendered faith ethics). Using critical feminist reappropriations of the theology and ethics of Aquinas as examples, this essay will argue that the two approaches are overlapping and interdependent.