Global Bioethics: The Collapse of Consensus

This collection of essays, Global The Collapse of Consensus, deals with the issue of the repeated failure of attempts to derive a universal set of standards in bioethics. The predicament of contemporary morality, the post-modern condition, is such that we find ourselves in the position of numerous competing moralities that not only reach conflicting judgments about particular issues, but also reflect radically divergent world-views. Consensus, therefore, is impossible to achieve. The essays analyze and diagnose both the causes and results of the diversity of moral world-views in both philosophy and the practices in the world. Furthermore, some of the essays in this volume argue that the post-modern condition is actually the direct and inevitable result of the attempted philosophical-theological synthesis of the Western Christian Middle Ages. The essays of this volume attempt to resolve the difficulties, both procedural and contentful, that have arisen from the failure of various attempts to arrive at a global secular bioethics by means of rational-discursive philosophy.