ABSTRACT
In the first chapter of this book, I introduced bioethics as an interdisciplinary enterprise, and pointed out that all bioethical judgments are mixed judgments. The validity of judgments in bioethics depends on the soundness of judgments that must be legitimised within other disciplines. Moreover, all bioethical discussions depend on moral-philosophical presuppositions, since the relevant ethical starting point always calls for moral-philosophical legitimation. In bioethical discussions, however, presuppositions from a variety of backgrounds – philosophy, cultural studies and many others – often play a crucial role. Since bioethics is concerned with the moral aspects of the way we deal with life, philosophies of nature and the concept of human nature are particularly relevant. For this reason, the current chapter will address a cross section of topics that are at play in bioethical debates. The first of these topics will be moral status (3.1), which is relevant in both animal and environmental ethics and in all considerations of the beginning and end of human life. The discussion of moral status thematises some questions that have already come up in the previous chapter. Subsequently, several questions concerning the notions of nature and life (3.2) will be discussed. Then, I shall address bioethical discussions about the nature of human beings and culture (3.3), subsuming, for the purposes of this chapter, theology and religion under culture. Finally, the discussion will turn to central distinctions with respect to responsibility (3.4), a notion relevant for almost all bioethical domains. Since every one of these discussions is concerned with themes that play a huge role in the history of philosophy and the humanities, the aim cannot be to offer a complete overview of all of these topics, but only to address their relevance to bioethics.
