Department of Philosophy, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251-1892, USA.
Theor Med Bioeth. 2012 Feb;33(1):97-105. doi: 10.1007/s11017-011-9204-y.
Given intractable moral pluralism, what ought one to make of the bioethics that arose in the early 1970s, grounded as it was in the false assumption that there is a common secular morality that secular bioethics ought to apply? It is as if bioethics developed without recognition of the crisis at the heart of secular morality itself. Secular moral rationality cannot of itself provide the foundations to identify a particular morality and its bioethics as canonical. One is not just confronted with intractable moral and bioethical pluralism, but with the absence of a secular ground that can show why one should act morally rather than self-interestedly. The result is not merely the deflation of much of traditional Western morality to life-style and death-style choices, but the threat of deflating to political slogans the now-dominant secular morality, including its affirmation of human autonomy, equality, social justice, and human dignity. All of this invites one critically to reconsider the meaning and force of secular bioethics.
鉴于难以解决的道德多元主义，我们应该如何看待 20 世纪 70 年代早期产生的、以虚假假设为基础的生命伦理学，即存在一种普遍的世俗道德，而世俗生命伦理学应该将其应用于？这就好像生命伦理学的发展没有认识到世俗道德本身核心的危机。世俗道德理性本身并不能为确定一种特定的道德及其生命伦理学的规范性提供基础。人们不仅面临着难以解决的道德和生命伦理多元主义，而且还面临着缺乏一种世俗基础，这种基础可以表明为什么人们应该出于道德原因而不是出于自身利益而行事。其结果不仅是将传统西方道德的大部分内容削弱为生活方式和死亡方式的选择，而且还削弱了现在占主导地位的世俗道德的政治口号的威胁，包括其对人类自主性、平等、社会正义和人类尊严的肯定。所有这些都促使人们批判性地重新思考世俗生命伦理学的意义和力量。
