The 1996 Conference of the Canadian Bioethics Society: Reflections
In their introduction to Catholic Perspectives on Medical Morals, the editors, Pellegrino, Langan and Harvey, point out that until recently Catholic medical morals had the field to itself. In the last twenty-five years or so, however, biomedical ethics has become the domain of secular philosophers. The current methodology is characterized as strongly utilitarian, pragmatic and eclectic, and as more attractive than theological ethics to a secular, pluralistic society.1 The writers are speaking about the situation in the United States, but they could be speaking equally well about Canada. The focus of this article is the absence at the conference of any public reference to the transcendent in human experience and the consequences of this for public debate. It is a personal reaction and must, therefore, be subjective and reflect only a part of what was there to be sampled. It is not concerned with the caliber of what, in some cases, passed for philosophy or ethics. Indeed, the vast majority of the