Moral consensus in bioethics: illusive or just elusive?

This issue of CQ was conceived in Salt Lake City, at the third annual meeting of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH). There, Presidentelect Laurie Zoloth delivered a stirring address, emphasizing the role of bioethics in responding to social deprivations and suggesting that ASBH “take a stand” on important issues where members share consensus. Not all the stirrings were pleasant. Debate erupted about the propriety of consensus statements, especially regarding possible deleterious effects on academic discourse, misappropriation of dues, and the proliferation of quasi-political factions. The roots of this controversy extend deeply into the collective psyche of contemporary bioethics. Perhaps the most conspicuous theme of twentieth-century intellectual history was the observation that moral values are historically and culturally contingent, and hence irremediably plural. Moral pathologists classified this insight as the Enlightenment’s fatal malignancy, yet it blossomed into a decorous postmodern tradition. Its legacy is a paradox that will be facing us for many years. Moral pluralism, initially viewed as a value-neutral, unintended byproduct of contingency, has transmogrified into ethics’ guiding value —the new telos for nonteleological society. Bereft of other options, many bioethicists now cite pluralism as the name of the good. On this pretext, we busy ourselves spinning off a plurality of freestanding, incompatible, and sometimes mutually intolerant pluralisms.1 This paradox is exacerbated by the persistence of nonpostmodern moral traditions that do not recognize the intrinsic goodness of pluralism. More distressingly, there is no guarantee that if left largely to their own resources (as presumably they would be in broader pluralistic settings) these wayward traditions will ever come around. The problem, then, is that moral pluralism, as a candidate for a universal moral standard, seems to be self-defeating. It can be achieved only by suppressing alternative moral visions. Where, then, will we find enough moral common ground to facilitate social progress? Into this breach the discipline of bioethics has leapt with a vengeance. Two basic responses, each reflecting a sort of transvaluation of pluralism along with other dominant Western values, seem to have emerged. Each response has several variations, and many are present in the current issue. On one hand, we have thinkers who interpret pluralism through the lens of equality. Here the ideal is to maximize life opportunities for all people and to create a secure environment in which individuals and communities can pursue cooperative ideals harmoniously and safely. This version posits a consensus-oriented meth-