ABSTRACT
In this chapter we outline the background and usefulness of what came later to be called the ‘normative practice approach’ or ‘normative approach to practices’. The first steps towards this new approach were taken at the end of the 1980s by a group of Dutch physicians, scientists and philosophers who wondered what Dooyeweerd’s philosophy might mean for medical practice and in particular for medical ethics. Their conversations should be set against a broader background: several philosophers of Christian inspiration were studying contemporary worldview pluralism, relativism and cultural diversity. They were affiliated with institutions like VU University (Amsterdam), the Institute for Christian Studies (Toronto), Calvin University (Grand Rapids) and Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena). Richard Mouw and Sander Griffioen, for example, wondered in Pluralisms and Horizons (1993) whether the increasing diversity in belief, worldview, behaviour and communal life – not only in a secularising Western society but also in the global world – has to be understood as a deviation from fixed, universal norms or as expression of legitimate pluralism. If we want to assess plurality more favourably, how would that fit in with the idea of a cosmic order with internal structural principles that underlie all of reality?
