Abstract
When new laws are being considered to regulate emerging technologies, it is common to engage in a formal consultation process to assess community views, especially in sensitive areas where views may differ widely. However, it is not clear how we should assess the responses to such consultation. If the respondents with the most extreme views, at either end of the political or ethical spectrum, speak in large numbers or strong language, their submissions surely cannot be added up and given the weight of the majority in determining the course of future action. The ‘silent majority’ of the community may not participate in the consultation process at all. Even if they do participate more fully, it will often not be possible to find a compromise solution that offers something to everyone.
Professor Charlesworth considered these issues in his ground-breaking book, Bioethics in a Liberal Society (Charlesworth M, Bioethics in a liberal society. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993). He said that there are some issues on which community consensus on a core set of values will not be possible. To move forward, a liberal society must accept that there will be a range of views but however discordant those views appear to be, it may still be possible to identify matters on which there is agreement. Those matters may then form the basis of a policy that is widely accepted, even if it is not what the individual participants would have chosen initially. This approach may be illustrated by examining recent community consultation in Australia concerning research involving human embryos.
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- 1.
These statements are quoted from Charlesworth 1993, pp. 1–2. Later chapters of the book focus on ‘Ending life’, ‘Beginning life’, and ‘Distributing health care resources’, but he mentions ‘new procreative technologies’ and ‘genetic intervention in human life’ in his Introduction to the book, and in some passages. He has also written extensively about issues arising in this area in other publications; for example, his Boyer Lectures, Life, Genes and Ethics (Charlesworth 1989).
- 2.
In this context, Charlesworth refers to ‘some Christians who seem to think they have the right to use the law to enforce Christian morality on divorce, abortion, contraception, assisted procreation, suicide …’—Charlesworth 1993, p. 3.
- 3.
Compare Charlesworth, note 2 above.
- 4.
Charlesworth pointed out that this was only one ‘feminist’ concern about reproductive for women; he discussed ‘the variety of different voices of women’ on many occasions; e.g. Charlesworth 1993, note 1 above, pp. 89 ff, citing Carol Gilligan.
- 5.
A majority of respondents to a Roy Morgan survey in Australia in 2014 approved of capital punishment for deadly terrorist acts (52.5% total – 55% of the men who responded; in Queensland, the overall majority was 57%; in Western Australia, 59% and in Tasmania 63%): ‘Small majority of Australians favour the death penalty for deadly terrorist acts in Australia’: http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/5814-death-penalty-for-terrorist-acts-september-19-2014-201409190533
- 6.
- 7.
Committee members later reflected on the process of their deliberations: Skene et al. (2008).
- 8.
Charlesworth 1989 (Boyer Lectures). This reflection is accompanied by Charlesworth’s comment: ‘The Gilbert and Sullivan song has it that everyone is born either a little liberal or a little conservative, but I almost think that people are also born either ethical absolutists or ethical consequentialists’—ibid, p 22.
- 9.
The description of the ethical approach of the committee in this and the next paragraph paraphrases or is based on Kerridge’s writing, especially in Skene et al. 2008, p. 135.
- 10.
References
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Skene, L. (2019). Community Consultation in a Liberal Society. In: Wong, P., Bloor, S., Hutchings, P., Bilimoria, P. (eds) Considering Religions, Rights and Bioethics: For Max Charlesworth. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 30. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18148-2_5
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