Rauprich Oliver
Institute for Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, Ruhr-University Bochum, Markstr. 258a, 44799 Bochum, Germany.
Theor Med Bioeth. 2008;29(1):43-71. doi: 10.1007/s11017-008-9061-5. Epub 2008 Apr 8.
The notion of common morality plays a prominent role in some of the most influential theories of biomedical ethics. Here, I focus on Beauchamp and Childress's models in the fourth and fifth edition of Principles of Biomedical Ethics as well as on a revision that Beauchamp proposed in a recent article. Although there are significant differences in these works that require separate analysis, all include a role for common morality as starting point and normative framework for theory construction in combination with a coherence theory of moral justification. I defend to some extent the existence and empirical significance of common morality, as delineated by Beauchamp and Childress in different versions, but criticize its normative role. It is neither convincing as a moral foundation nor well compatible with a standard coherentist justification. I suggest that the authors should give up the foundational account for a more modest account of common morality as resource of well-established moral insights and experiences, which have proved generally valid but neither sufficient nor infallible. Beauchamp's latest proposal appears as a step in this direction; indeed, it may be the beginning of the end of his common-morality theory.
共同道德的概念在一些最具影响力的生物医学伦理理论中发挥着突出作用。在此,我关注博尚和奇尔德雷斯在《生物医学伦理原则》第四版和第五版中的模型,以及博尚在最近一篇文章中提出的修订版。尽管这些著作存在显著差异,需要分别进行分析,但它们都将共同道德作为理论构建的起点和规范框架,并结合了道德正当性的融贯论。我在一定程度上捍卫博尚和奇尔德雷斯在不同版本中所描述的共同道德的存在及其经验意义,但批评其规范作用。它既不能作为令人信服的道德基础,也与标准的融贯主义正当性不太兼容。我建议作者放弃基础主义的解释,转而采用更适度的对共同道德的解释,将其视为已确立的道德见解和经验的资源,这些见解和经验已被证明总体上是有效的,但既不充分也不是绝对可靠的。博尚的最新提议似乎是朝着这个方向迈出的一步;事实上,这可能是他的共同道德理论终结的开始。