University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.
Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
J Med Philos. 2021 Apr 2;46(2):169-187. doi: 10.1093/jmp/jhaa037.
The proper role, if any, for religion-based arguments is a live and sometimes heated issue within the field of bioethics. The issue attracts heat primarily because bioethical analyses influence the outcomes of controversial court cases and help shape legislation in sensitive biopolicy areas. A problem for religious bioethicists who seek to influence biopolicy is that there is now widespread academic and public acceptance, at least within liberal democracies, that the state should not base its policies on any particular religion's metaphysical claims or esoteric moral system. In response, bioethicists motivated by religious concerns have adopted two identifiable strategies. Sometimes they rely on slippery-slope arguments that, sometimes at least, have empirically testable premises. A more questionable response is the manipulation and misuse of secular-sounding moral language, such as references to "human dignity," and the plights of groups of people labeled "vulnerable."
宗教论点的适当角色（如果有的话）是生物伦理学领域中一个活跃且有时激烈的问题。这个问题之所以引起关注，主要是因为生物伦理分析会影响有争议的法庭案件的结果，并有助于在敏感的生物政策领域塑造立法。对于试图影响生物政策的宗教生物伦理学家来说，一个问题是，现在至少在自由民主国家中，学术界和公众普遍接受，国家的政策不应基于任何特定宗教的形而上学主张或深奥的道德体系。作为回应，出于宗教关切的生物伦理学家采取了两种可识别的策略。有时他们依赖滑坡论证，这些论证至少在某些情况下具有可经验检验的前提。更值得怀疑的反应是对世俗 sounding 道德语言的操纵和滥用，例如提到“人类尊严”以及被标记为“弱势群体”的人群的困境。
