La filosofía moral en la bioética. Etsi ethos non daretur?
| Autor | Adriano Pessina |
| Cargo | Centro di Ateneo di Bioetica. Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. Milano (Italy) |
| Páginas | 169-178 |
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In order to understand why bioethics today is destined to be absorbed by biopolitics and biojuridics, or at best to survive as case studies in medical ethics, it is necessary to highlight its inability to break away from some of the arid theoretics of modern philosophy, from which it had initially sought emancipation, calling into question the axiological neutrality of experimental sciences and perceiving the problematicity of a separation and opposition between the so-called two cultures, namely humanistic and scientific.
Although theoretically deficient, Potter’s image of the bridge expressed a real need, perceived, moreover, with greater speculative vigour by Hans Jonas: subjecting to ethical assessment both the purposes and the profound transformations of the experience brought about by technology and technical sciences. Moreover, exiting modernity would have meant coming to terms with the practical-theoretical failure of Kantian formalism and reopening, precisely as Jonas had attempted, the ontological discussion on nature and man: a necessary, though not sufficient condition, in order to govern the processes of transformation of the organic and to understand the boundaries between possibility and moral licitness. Bioethics, however, has never been emancipated from modernity neither as regards a genuine semantic idolatry of subjectivity and autonomy, nor in terms of the ethical and political horizon. In fact, if in the modern era appeal was made to the formula of reasoning "Etsi Deus non daretur" for the purpose of overcoming the religious confiict and its plural forms, with the aim of detecting non-denominational ethics, independent from any metaphysical system, bioethics today seeks to argue "Etsi ethos not daretur", that is, denying the existence of only one philosophical ethics, which should therefore be replaced with procedures and negotiation models that avoid any claim to truthfulness1.
As regards this theoretical passage which, so to speak, leads from autonomous ethics -which still claimed to have a universal scope of a normative nature- to autonomous bioethics -or, secular and laical, as it likes to be defined- which denies the possibility of an ethics of content but retains the universality of the procedures feigning axiological neutrality, however, sufficient thought has not been given to this. Distracted by the debate on secular bioethics and Catholic bioethics, on the so called paradigms of the quality and sanctity of life, insufficient attention has been paid to the progressive consolidation of a theoretical model which has denied the possibility of a universal ethics of content to proceed, more or less consciously, towards the construction of procedural universalism that, in some way in continuity with Kantian formalism, has in fact inaugurated a form of universal biopolitics as an expression of economic liberalism.
The theoretical path, which is behind the progressive unification of European legislation in the field of bioethics, may be briefiy traced back to the thoroughly modern postulate, that it is not possible to formulate an ethical theory that is both universal and a claim to veracity. In fact this assumption, or prejudice, fuses in a single line the double issue that has always infiuenced ethical problems: that is, the possibility of establishing in non-arbitrary terms what should be done as well as making the truth of moral evaluation operational in public life. It means, to use the interesting wording proposed by the philosopher of the last century Erminio Juvalta, reconciling a justification requirement -demonstrating why an action should or should not be done- with an executive requirement -ensuring that people actually do what needs to be done2-. As is evident, these are two needs that refer to two different fields: the justification requirement must be met by philosophical knowledge, while the executive one relates to education, politics and law.
Bioethics, from its very beginning, which now dates back more than forty years, has always felt with special emphasis the need to maintain within itself these
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two elements: on the one hand to clarify and evaluate the ethical implications of scientific and technological activities3and on the other to make them operational in order to govern human actions. But this connection of levels has also given rise to confusion, because it is obvious that the argumentative cogency that pertains to the plane of philosophical knowledge does not immediately translate into operational cogency, as the dimension of the freedom of the moral agents remains open. Whereas in philosophy the justification requirement is met "solely and exclusively" if one can prove what is good to do, on the other hand, on the executive level, the need is met if certain behaviour is determined, and this occurs either thanks to persuasion of the moral agents interested in a particular action or by means of the law and its sanctions.
The very claim to have "effective" bioethics, that is capable of substantially improving human actions has, however, resulted in placing the question of truth second in order: effective, in fact, is not a synonym for true and effectiveness can also be achieved by negotiation procedures based on simple agreement between moral agents. In this way, bioethics has launched itself headlong into the biopolitical and bijuridical logic that had already conditioned the modern thought which had arisen in the aftermath of the wars of religion. In other words, the confusion of levels has favoured the rooting of the theoretical presupposition which, given the various conceptions of life, would make it impossible to formulate a framework of universally binding human values that is in itself recognisable even from different perspectives. In this way, ethical pluralism that was waiting for a theoretical solution from the philosophy of human action, has been transformed into the assertion of the incommensurability of morals, both theoretical and practical and has sought its actual resolution through the levels of politics and law.
Success, in terms of consensus and dissemination, of the refiections of John Rawls as regards political theories and Ugo Tristram Engelhardt Jr. As regards bioethical considerations, can therefore be interpreted as a parable of the return of a certain line of "modernity "conditioned by the secularised empire of economic and political liberalism. The bioethical debate today is in actual fact developing on the basis of two "dogmas" which infiuence outcomes: the first concerns the belief that we are in a pluralistic context that can not and must not be surpassed; the second is that possible ethical confiicts can be resolved by agreements and procedures that have preliminarily put within parenthesis the last visions of life, religious beliefs and any reference to normative truth. The first dogma tends to unite or erroneously confuse, a fact -that should nevertheless be adequately described- with a theory: the existence of ethical pluralism is a historical and sociological thesis, which can not and should not be solved neither on the argumentative nor on a regulatory level; it is a thesis of a philosophical nature. The second dogma, which is closely linked to the first, is that the agreement can not occur on the basis of the recognition of the goodness and dutifulness of a particular action but, on the contrary that it is for the agreement to define an action as good and dutiful. As can be noted, precisely the second dogma therefore tends to reduce the possible confiictual dimension described in the first: with the demolishing of customs a pragmatic and not theoretical reconciliation would be possible, on the basis, however, of the philosophical turning point in the twentieth century that has put a kind of enmity between ethical theory and the theory of truth. Even in bioethics after a season of theoretical oscillations, the paradigm of ethics without truth is therefore confirmed.
In the light of this brief reconstruction of the prerequisites of the procedural turning point of bioethics, one needs to ask whether these dogmas are truly able to preserve and protect ethical pluralism or if, on the contrary, they are creating the conditions for "univocal" thought with a totalitarian and globalising vocation. Nevertheless, before entering into this topic it is necessary to demonstrate why the incommensurability of
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morals is a dogmatic assertion that does not stand up to careful critical evaluation and a phenomenology of customs not conditioned by the thesis to be demonstrated.
In contemporary bioethical debate we witness the revival of an ancient dilemma regarding the source of moral criteria, those which actually govern human action. Now, first and foremost it should be remembered that the original meaning of the word ethics, and -its Latin translation- moral, refers to what sociologically are "customs", that is, a set of behaviour and beliefs, subject to praise and condemnation by which men order personal and public life. Therefore, ethics and morality are first of all a "cultural environment" governing human action, as well as a branch of philosophy. Moral philosophy comes into being when there is a distancing from customs, giving rise to critical refiection, with a view to assessing whether what is...
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