Transcript Conscience - Marist College

Morality Strand –
BIOETHICS
John Kleinsman
“I may be wrong, but I’m never in
doubt.”
Marshall McLuhan
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Science asks, “Can we?”
Law asks, “May we?”
Morality asks, “Should we?”
Curtis Harris
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What is bioethics?
“Our attempt to know and understand
how we are to live and what we are to do
(or not to do) to be (or not to be) …”
E. Dunn
Particularly in regard to …
… guiding moral choices in a medical and
biological context and in providing
principles by which conflicts in the
decision making process may be resolved.
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BIOETHICS
“The critical examination, from an ethical
perspective, of developments and issues at
both the heart and the cutting edge of
technology, medicine, and biology in their
application to life.”
Term “bioethics” was first used in 1971
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What is bioethics?
A “prism” through which we look so as to
separate out the various issues relating to
healthcare and other issues surrounding life
and death.
SCIENCE
HISTORY
TRADITION
OF CHURCH TEACHING
CULTURE
SOCIAL
SCIENCES
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Christian Ethics
“Christian ethics does not and cannot add to
human ethical self-understanding as such
any material content that is, in principle,
strange or foreign” to humankind as we
experience ourselves.
Rather, Christianity offers a world view that
informs our reasoning, a world view which is
a continuing check on and challenge to our
tendency to make policies and choices in
light of cultural enthusiasms that sink into
and take possession of our pre-discursive
selves.”
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"Every culture carries with it one or
more basic ways of interpreting the
world, of saying what is important in
life, what questions are the most urgent,
what values are paramount. From this
... background, we come to the
exploration of [issues] with a certain
agenda, a certain list of priorities, a
certain number of already formed
convictions ..."
Aidan Nichols.
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The Christian narrative exists in a
tournament of narratives.
We may think that we are in the grasp of
a particular worldview or narrative when
in fact we have been captured by another.
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A key task of ethics/morality,
therefore, is to focus on the
adequacy of the various starting
points or assumptions that
underpin particular worldviews
as well as particular ethical
theories, rather than starting by
challenging the conclusions
about various issues
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Freedom of Choice
The fault line that runs through our
culture … is the sacrificing of the full
truth about the human person in the
name of freedom construed as personal
autonomy.”
Cardinal Francis George
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Rights Based Framework
“What possible business is it of any ethics
committee? Why should they have to
apply to a bunch of interfering medicos
for permission”?
Michael Laws commenting on request by gay couple to
be surrogate parents
“The state has no place in person’s
private bedrooms.”
Richard Fisher, Director of Fertility Associates
on proposed changes to regulation of assisted
reproduction in New Zealand
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… There is a tendency to grant to the
individual conscience the prerogative of
independently determining the criteria
of good and evil and then acting
accordingly. Such an outlook is quite
congenial to an individualistic ethic,
wherein each individual is faced with his
own truth, different from the truth of
others.”
Veritatis Splendor #32
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CONSCIENCE
“Conscience does not close us within an
insurmountable and impenetrable solitude,
but opens us to the call, to the voice of God.
It is the sacred place where God speaks to
each of us.”
Veritatis Splendor #57
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“Conscience carves out an internal
space, a critical distance from the
turmoil of one’s own wants and desires,
that allows room for other
considerations to be reflected in
decisions and actions. This is not an
‘isolated’ or … an ‘empty’ space. Rather
it is created in the thick of our
involvement with the world around us
…”
Neil Brown, Conscience and Mature Sexuality
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CONSCIENCE – con-scientia
literally: knowing - with …
We need to challenge an individualistic
understanding of conscience that is
characterised by the view that “acting in
good conscience” amounts to doing what
a person strongly feels is the right thing
for him or her.
Conviction alone does not make for good
conscience.
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CONSCIENCE & COMMUNITY
True conscience is fostered in a community
that practices and shows unconditional love
rather than one which emphasises rules.
Christian conscience, by definition, implies
connectedness with (the values of) a
Christian community
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Conscience as Relational
Conscience is the recognition of an
absolute call to love
 True conscience is fostered in community
– with others
 Keeps before us our relationships to God,
neighbour, self & creation
 It involves the responsibilities we
encounter from relationships; obligation is
located in the demand of the other rather
than in law
 Involves knowing with our whole selves

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In order to properly grapple with the issues
generated by biotechnology “we need to
confront questions largely lost from view in the
modern world – questions about the moral
status of nature, and about the proper stance
of human beings towards the given world.
Since these questions verge on theology,
modern philosophers and political theorists
tend to shrink from them. But our new powers
of biotechnology make them unavoidable.”
Sandel, M.J. (2007). The case against perfection: Ethics in the
age of genetic engineering. Cambridge, Massachusetts and
London: The Belknap Press of Havard University Press, pp. 918
10.
What is our proper stance towards
the created world?
 What does it mean to show respect?
 What are the limits and where do
they lie?

The notion of respect that is an integral
part of a relational paradigm suggests
that there are some things that we
should never do – the “other” presents
a limit to our wills
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THE GIFT OF LIFE
"Life is a gift. Each one of us is unique, known by
name, and loved by the One who fashioned us.
Unfortunately, there is a very loud, consistent, and
powerful message coming to us from our world
that leads us to believe that we must prove our
belovedness by how we look, by what we have,
and by what we can accomplish. We become
preoccupied with 'making it' in this life, and we are
very slow to grasp the liberating truth of our
origins and our finality."
Henri Nouwen. Adam: God's Beloved. HarperCollins Religious:
Blackburn Victoria , 1997.
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