ONE MORAL PRINCIPLE OR MANY!

Abstract

From the very beginning of the bioethical debate, this new (sub-) discipline emphasized its independence from the big normative theories, like utilitarianism and Kantianism. Of course, there have been very influential bioethicists, like Engelhardt or Singer, who have explicated their normative ethical theories systematically and have shown which moral principle formed the basis for their moral judgements. But the mainstream in bioethics wanted to evade an explicit normative framework (Jonsen 1998: 325–351). The most popular approaches in bioethics tried to avoid the impression that their normative judgments are dependent on only one normative ethical theory. Instead, approaches became popular which could hope to deal with moral problems without needing a philosophical foundation for their normative basic assumptions. In that context we could mention a casuistic approach (Jonsen and Toulmin 1988), a common morality approach (Gert 1998 and 2004; Gert, Culver and Clouser 1997) or the very popular four principles approach of Beauchamp and Childress. These approaches hope to find the normative basis for moral evaluations in well established practices or in widely shared moral standards. Respect for autonomy, informed consent or the duty to avoid harm, seem to be moral principles that are morally acceptable by everybody, independent of other convictions concerning morality, religion, politics or metaphysics. The normative force of such principles seems to be easily defensible and no great effort to provide a foundation for those principles seems to be necessary. The meta-ethical presuppositions behind such an approach often form