A Metaethical Analysis On Bioethics

The field of bioethics emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Since then, bioethics has developed quickly and flourished around the world. In this dissertation, bioethical issues are divided into 3 levels: casuistry, normative ethics and meta-ethics, which are understood as three views of bioethics. So this dissertation consists of three parts in accordance with three levels. The first part focuses on bioethical cases in the view of casuistry. Casuistry is the study of individual moral cases to which general moral principles fails to be directly applied. In bioethical cases it developed into the art of practical reasoning on condition of normative 'vacuum'. Once a decision has been made in a bioethical case, it might be set as conventional or judicial precedent. In this way ethical norms are influenced and therefore renovated. Casuistry has been revived again mainly and is used frequently in bioethical cases because the current preparation of moral and other fields have not yet caught up with the development of science and technology. On the level of casuistry, three characteristic issues are argued as followed: â… .Human cloning. It consists of cloning-for-therapy and cloning-to-produce-children. In the view of technology, cloning-for-therapy could bring great breakthrough and benefit in the field of biomedicine. Contrasting to cloning-to-produce-children, cloning-for-therapy arouses less argument and fear, but there are still some ethical dispute, which involves the rights of animals and germ cells and slippery slope effect. The reasons that we must allow the technology of cloning-for-therapy are: (1) there is the fact that human being finds no way to prohibit cloning-for-therapy experiments around the world, and (2) allowing it can prevent the worse results, and (3) health and happiness. Cloning-to-produce-children is a popular topic, which is full of the arguments for or against it. Do human have rights of cloning-to-produce-children? There are two reasons, which determine this question still has no certain answer: (1) in the view of deontology, we can not reach a reliable conclusion by some kind of general principles; (2) in the view of consequentialism, we could not find the final result definitely and accurately. So we had better suspend it and leave it to the future people. My suggestion is that cloning-to-produce-children should be prohibited, because it is wise of taking no action before we find the answer. â…¡.Euthanasia (1) Voluntary passive euthanasia There is less fierce ethical argument about voluntary passive euthanasia. It needs to emphasize that it is not euthanasia that patients have to give up their medical treatment because of poverty, which is caused by the failure of distributive justice and happens frequently in the sense of 'modern moral tragedy'. (2) Voluntary active euthanasia It has been recognized and understood by modern moral conscious in a great extent, but because of lacking legal support it would be defined as murder from the standpoint of judicial judgment. The arguments against it mainly arise from worrying about using it for the purpose of evil and malevolence. Based on these facts, society should consider of the necessity of regulation and legislation seriously and prudently. (3) Non-voluntary passive euthanasia It refers to proxy rights. The convention that relatives of patients have proxy rights is unreasonable, because non-voluntary passive euthanasia is notself-regarding action so that it needs to be regulated by a special institution. (4) Non-voluntary active euthanasia It is still in ethical 'forbidden zone'. â…¢.Commercial surrogacy It refers to distributive justice. It arose from social inequality and might accelerate social inequality with the flourishing of assistant reproductive technology,so the moral implication of the reproductive technology depends on its purpose of whether it serves the public or a small part of the rich. The second part is about the argument of several normative bioethics. Although bioethical issues on the level of normative ethics are theoretical, they actually could not been resolved in a theoretical way. In the 21st century human being are inquiring a new morality, which might be constructed well in the process of moral transformation and renovation. The process would require all people in different levels to join actively in the means of some ways such as negotiations and compromises, and require ethicists to join theoretical construction with their neutral and prudent attitudes. Here three representative theories of normative ethics are analyzed: â… .Fukuyama's human nature theory Fukuyama's theory has a strong tendency of universalism and absolutism and monism. What Fukuyama puts interest into is not inquiry of a normative system but a justification of liberal political and ethical system by way of assumption that human would had posthuman future in biotechnology revolution if governments did not take some regulation. Human nature, in Fukuyama's definition, is the sum of the behavior and characteristics that are typical of the human species, arising from genetic rather than environmental factors. Fukuyama predicts that biotechnology might destroy current political and ethical system based on human nature by the means of interfering withhuman genes. It is hard to accept Fukuyama's understanding of human nature as a genetic determinism, but his assumption that human nature could be transformed by way of gene interference is indeed a good admonition.. â…¡.Engelhardt's postmodern bioethical theory The goal Engelhardt sets in his postmodern bioethical theory is to construct a neutral moral frame in order that moral strangers can set their common moral enterprise by negotiation in this moral framework. He bases his bioethical theory on two procedural principles that is the principle of beneficence and the principle of permission. It needs to be mentioned that the latter is prior to the former in ethical practice. â…¢. Singer's utilitarian bioethical theory Singer proposes a disputed utilitarian theory. In his theory the concept of 'person'precludes a part of human being such as a fetus and a vegetable. Although there are a lot of deficiencies in his theory and people might deduce some uneasy ethical judgments from his definition of 'person', it needs to acknowledge that Singer is a courageous ethicist who dares to challenge tradition moral convictions when many ethicists cautiously try to evade these disturbing problems. What is the common failure of the above theories lies in their misunderstanding of the social roles of ethicist. The duty of an ethicist is not to set a moral law for human being but to provide his neutral observation and warning in the processes of communication and assimilation among moral communities. The third part is about philosophical or meta-ethical inquiry of an orientation to human nature and some worthwhile and expectable norms in bioethics. Bioethical issues in the levels of casuistry and normative ethics need to bepromoted into the analytical level of meta-ethics in order to meet bioethical fundamental theoretical problems. It is understood that Meta-ethics is the study and analysis of the logic and language of normative ethics in a narrow sense, and is an inquiry into the method for specifying the ways to answer moral questions from a moral point of view broadly. Meta-ethics is, then, a logical and epistemological inquiry concerning the form and frame of normative ethics. Some important analytic methods, taken from meta-ethical theories of Moore and emotivism, are not limited into the scope of language and logic. The project of reconstructing Archimedes's pivot of bioethics is based on argument of these methods. As we need to know, a system of normative bioethics is established in the process of moral dialogues by which divergences in the field of norm could be removed and moral consensus finally would be reached. On the base that those characters of bioethical issues in modern times are prudently considered about and the process of moral dialogues is penetrated into, a conclusion is drawn that the pivot of bioethics should be established on moral consensus acquired by way of communicative action, which suggests that an fundamental end in the field of value is moral consensus and conventional value standard instead truth and objective value standard. Because there would be a possibility: human can change human nature by means of biotechnology, it is urgent for bioethics to find an orientation to human nature. Facing bioethical challenges and potential threats, a system of expectable and worthwhile bioethical norms should meet four factors: 1)its goal is not to pursue the best but evade the worst; 2)the spirit of cooperation should be promoted; 3)the balance of advantages and disadvantages should be considered; 4)both postmodern moral tragedies and modern moral tragedies need to be...