Public Reason and Bioethics

1. Rawls puts forward a proposal of political philosophy suitable for a pluralistic society where members try to establish and make persistent a stable social cooperation. The proposal is very sophisticated and takes into consideration numerous elements of a complex society. First of all, it is worth pointing out that the model of society proposed by Rawls is a liberal society, based on the ideal of free and equal citizens. Let's see the Rawlsian basic principle of liberty: «Each person has an equal claim to a fully adequate scheme of basic rights and liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme for all». The basic liberties specified by Rawls are freedom of political speech, assembly and participation; freedom of thought and conscience; freedom of association; freedom of the person; and freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure as associated with the rule of law. Let's take the principle as non problematic as such, and as something we presuppose in the debate. There are still problems of application. First, there is the problem of establishing whether the content of basic liberties is well represented by the extension indicated by Rawls. Second, even if we accept this list, these freedoms are abstract, and, therefore, there is still the problem of determining the scope of each of these liberties. We can think about numerous examples that arise in the public debate. Do, for example, some statements on the policy concerning immigrants count as protected by the freedom of political speech, or are they excluded? In what follows in the paper, I will focus on examples in the domain of bioethics. At this point, the important distinction is that between comprehensive doctrines and political views. Comprehensive doctrines are those that include the full metaphysical and religious premises to which one can appeal, in order to find support for a specific moral question. These are highly controversial