The New Bioethicist

Speaking in this interview with Crux magazine:

In a place like Britain, where most people do not identify as Christian, the tools of philosophy-that is to say, natural reason-are especially valuable in helping people make sense of the Church’s teaching on moral issues. Before you begin to talk about the theology of the body, you might first need to talk about the teleology of the body. In order to mention faith, you first have to convince people that reason is not in conflict with it.

In this regard, I have often found the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas particularly valuable, for he recognizes that natural reason can bring us to the “preambles of faith.”

Catholic bioethics has been particularly good, you might say, at identifying moral absolutes. But what we are less good at is dealing with issues where there isn’t a firm red line and where determining the right course of action demands a rigorous exercise of the virtue of prudence. Now, to say that is already to invite some measure of confusion. “Prudence” in our ordinary language tends to suggest caution, but the virtue of prudence, or practical wisdom (phronēsis in Aristotle’s Greek), is really about discerning and acting in accordance with the particulars of a given situation. Sometimes that means caution, at other times a more welcoming approach.

It’s important that Catholic bioethics, and the moral life more generally, is not just about condemning everything.

At the same time, it is important to recognize that as Catholics, prudence cannot be reduced simply to a matter of weighing up consequences - we are not utilitarians or proportionalists! We have a firm foundation, and that is the inviolable dignity of the human person, who is body and soul, and who furthermore is given the possibility of union with God through Jesus Christ. In that way, the Church, and the Academy in particular, has a unique perspective to contribute to wider debates in bioethics. We do not simply study social effects of such technologies, but also seek to understand what it means to be a human person made in God’s image.

It is also a good sign that academics and practitioners are increasingly interested in the application of virtue ethics to contemporary issues in healthcare.

The Pontifical Academy for Life is in a good position to continue bearing witness to the Church’s moral teaching on settled matters to the wider world, even as it probes new areas of bioethical reflection.