Bioethics, Whose Crowd, and What Ideology

ing embrace of strong advocacy Bioethics, as a proper role for those in bioethics. To be sure, one's moral Our Crowd, convictions should be pursued and advocated; no problem and Ideology there. But this needs always to be done in a way that takes the enterprise of bioethics seriously: fairly and carefully stating opposing positions, looking always for their best exemplifications; avoiding the kind of courtroom, daytimeTV-show polemic and bombast that have come to pass for civil discourse in our society; and to be acutely aware of one's own ideological bias, lying like a snake in the grass below one's arguments and supposedly rational convictions-step on that snake sometimes. Third, cause trouble now and then with one's own crowd. Say something nice (and liberal) about bioethics in the journals Commentary and First Things. Submit an attack on abortion and euthanasia to the Australian journal Bioethics. Send the Hastings Center Report a paper in favor of physician paternalism. Invite Jeremy Rifkin to be part of a study group on biotechnology at the Institute of Medicine. If we are lucky and do our work well, the director of NIH may someday emulate his French counterpart and think us a potential menace. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson probably already have such thoughts. But that's too easy. ? e brace of strong advocacy i ethics, as a proper role for those in bio

Bioethics · Environmental ethics · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Ethics in medical practice · Law · Philosophy

• The Moral Organization of the Professions

  Open Access•Raymond G De Vries, Raymond De Vries et al.•Current Sociology•2009

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