We have four jobs in philosophy or closely adjacent areas at Baylor, with most of the deadlines coming in mid-October:
Dear Colleagues,
What is sex and why is it important? Does marriage have a basic rationale? How should couples manage their fertility, and when and how should pregnancy be achieved? How should we respond to 'embryo adoption', teenage pregnancy, population growth or decline, HIV/AIDS and other STIs, same-sex attraction?These are some of the issues explored in the Anscombe Bioethics Centre's new book Fertility & Gender: Issues in Reproductive and Sexual Ethics - see http://anscombebioethics.bigcartel.com/product/fertility-and-gender for more information and to order. Contributors from the fields of philosophy, theology, psychology and economic science include Bishop Anthony Fisher, John Berry, Kevin Flannery, Mary Geach, Luke Gormally, Dermot Grenham, Paul Mankowski, Anthony McCarthy, Kevin O'Reilly, David Paton, Alexander Pruss, Philip Sutton and Helen Watt. The book offers an original contribution to a range of discussions in the sensitive and important area of sexual/reproductive ethics.For a list of other Anscombe Centre publications, see our Bookshop at http://anscombebioethics.bigcartel.com. You may also be interested in a conference the Anscombe Centre is holding on 8 September 2011 on Human Embryo Research: Law, Ethics and Public Policy. See our website at http://www.bioethics.org.uk/static_content.php?key_id=conferences&page_id=news_and_events for more information and to make an 'early bird' discounted booking (available until 30 June).With all good wishes,Dr Helen WattSenior Research FellowThe Anscombe Bioethics Centre, Oxford
It is considered in bad taste to bring God into contemporary bioethics discussions. Why? Well, one reason is that if one does so, one's argument will be irrelevant to atheists and agnostics. But note that in the American public, the percentage of people who accept the existence of God is significantly greater than the percentage who are Kantians, or utilitarians, or virtue ethicists, etc. Thus, say, an argument in favor of cloning based mainly on the premise that God exists (I don't know of any such argument off-hand) will be relevant to a much greater percentage of people than an argument for the same conclusion based on Kantianism. Moreover, while among academics there are significantly more atheists and agnostics, it still may be that the claim that God exists is at least as widespread as a belief in Kantianism, or in utilitarianism, or in virtue ethics.
Another reason it's in bad taste is that it allegedly brings faith into what should be a reasoned discussion. But this presupposes that the existence of God cannot be argued for rationally, a claim that is false (clearly false if we use as our standard of rationality the level of compellingness of arguments in applied ethics). Now one might with greater plausibility claim that no argument for the existence of God will be compelling to all, or even to a majority, of intellectuals. But it is in perfectly good taste to give serious bioethics arguments based on premises that are not compelling to the majority of intellectuals. Thus, one can give Kantian, utilitarian or virtue ethics arguments.
A third, though very pragmatic (but so is the first), reason is contingencies involving legal issues about church and state in the U.S., and cultural hangups connected with this. For better or worse, it is likely that the Supreme Court would see a law grounded in the existence of God, even if the law included a preamble giving a very powerful rational argument for the existence of God, as violating the separation of church and state.
I have theistic friends whom I respect highly and who try very hard to avoid making use of the existence of God in their work in applied ethics. While I think such work is very important both intellectually and practically, I also think there is a danger of distortion in bioethics if one confines oneself to working in this way. When one does have to do non-theistic work in bioethics, one should think of it as a way of tying one hand behind one's back, because that's what the rules of the game call for, not because that's what is appropriate to the enterprise of truth-seeking. For when we are talking about appropriate treatment of the beginning and end of life, it is plausible that the question of the relation between life and God is highly relevant. Some people think that the way science can explain all kinds of facts without invoking God is an argument against the existence of God. That's a bad argument. But if ethics, especially the ethics that deals with the beginning and end of life, could do without God, that should be quite surprising to a theist.
In the above, I talked of mere theism. I have a strong suspicion that, at least in our fallen state, more than mere theism is relevant. John Paul II somewhere said that we can only understand man through Christ. If that's right, then non-Christian bioethics is doomed to incompleteness. And incompleteness in a philosophical enterprise runs the danger of leading to distortion, through onesidedness.
