Principles, Rules, Duties, and Babel: Bioethics in the Face of Postmodernity

Abstract

As the papers in this issue reveal, the field of bioethics encompasses a number of different intellectual endeavors. In some contexts bioethics is a way to establish the moral foundations of health care public policy. In others it is invoked to resolve controversies in clinical medicine. From the clinic to the public forum bioethics has been concerned with determining what moral claims can be justified. The problem is how in a secular, morally pluralistic context to develop a model of justification.