Bioethics After God: An Exploration of Weak Bioethics and Strong Bioethics

Abstract: Weak bioethics is unable to rationally ground its claims in an objective and binding way, and without such grounding, bioethical claims reflect only the particular concerns of particular people in particular places who often resort to using social and political power to establish their moral claims in the absence of rationally adequate grounds. In this panel, the presenters will argue that bioethical truth claims are inevitably weakened and demoralized without God or a canonical God’s-eye perspective and point out the metaethical advantages of a Theistic worldview in securing a firm foundation for moral truth claims. They will also explore how a Christian worldview and its metaethical commitments affect bioethical reasoning by introducing particular sources of moral authority (e.g. Divine revelation) and particular understandings of moral concepts (e.g. personhood, autonomy, etc.). Finally, we will illustrate through cases how a Christian metaethics compared to a secular metaethics can result in radically different bioethical conclusions.

Keywords: Christian ethics, Bioethics, Metaethics