Guest editorial: On method and resolution in philosophical bioethics.

A large tranche of contemporary bioethical inquiry is self-consciously focused on purpose and methodology. Bioethics is a field of disparate disciplines, and it is not always clear what role the philosopher plays in the wider scheme. Even when philosophical reflections can, in principle, find application in the real world (and often, in bioethics, there is too heady a degree of abstraction for this), there can be difficulty in finding sound resolution between the competing perspectives. Where fundamentals differ, we face apparent deadlock, with theorists seemingly able only to talk across each other. Perspectives on this vary. For example, some will argue that the philosopher’s role is purely reflective and need have no practical resonance whatsoever. Others may say that philosophers are not equipped to engage with empirical questions or, when they do, they do so on flawed understandings of ‘‘the real world’’; bad science or science fiction replaces brute fact and emotional, social, and empirical reality. Some may seek to strike a balance by trying to engage the questions within a political framing, allowing both for normative and real-world concerns. Others still will suggest that bioethics is dominated by a particular normative perspective that detaches it so far from defensible morality and practical reality that a gestalt shift is needed. What becomes clear, even from these brief reflections, is the great unlikelihood of finding a methodology for bioethics. It comprises too many analysts from too many backgrounds. This permits a richness in analysis and great scope for multidisciplinarity, but it puts beyond reach a unitary method or approach. Having said this, it is clear that there must be better and worse ways of doing any of the range of activities that occur within bioethics, meaning a call for investigations into methodology is neither hollow nor futile. Matti Häyry’s recently published book Rationality and the Genetic Challenge—Making People Better? is a good example of methodological self-awareness in philosophical bioethics. In this work, Häyry examines some of the most pressing questions in ‘‘genethics’’ and advocates a methodology that has application both there and more widely within bioethics. In essence, he seeks a means of categorizing alternative moral approaches, which he classifies as distinct ‘‘rationalities,’’ and then urges theorists to act as ‘‘polite bystanders’’ engaged in a ‘‘non-confrontational’’ form of reasoning. In so doing, analysts are invited not to contest the fundamental underpinning of any position, but rather to recognize it and check the theory’s internal consistency and coherence as a method that is applicable to the real world. Häyry primarily uses six noted authors as case studies: Jonathan Glover, John Harris, Leon Kass, Michael Sandel, Jürgen Habermas, and Ronald