ABSTRACT
I have described in general terms both the objective of the bioethical enterprise and the means by which that objective is supposed to be attained; and I have stated that bioethics, understood in terms of that objective, is a futile undertaking. Bioethicists set out to discover the answers to moral questions that philosophy itself gives; but philosophy as such, I have said, does not give answers to moral questions; and all these philosophers do is disguise the answers they want to give-that is to say, their own moral opinions-as the verdict of philosophical enquiry. In the present chapter I shall enlarge upon and defend this claim with respect to a specific piece of bioethical reasoning. In form, the argument I shall take is typical of the ones bioethicists construct when they set out to resolve moral issues; and in content, it involves the conception these philosophers present as the basis for almost all of their conclusions-that of the value of life.
