Bioethics as Interreligious Dialogue
Annemarie Starr, MA, PhD Student, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, MO
If the modern secular framework entails a thick or at least substantial system of metaphysical commitments or convictions/beliefs, then it can be classed in the same category as the other content-rich metaphysical frameworks that are commonly called religion. Religio, the Latin term from which “religion” is derived, signifies something more akin to a practice and a virtue than what the modern term conveys; as Peter Harrison argues, the term “religion” as a modern construct represents no natural kind. It serves to delineate all that is not scientific, objective, or provable, neglecting to acknowledge the deep structural and practical differences between what are classed as “world religions.” While the term “religion” is defined by its supposed opposite (“science”), Harrison subverts the exclusive claim of “the secular” to objectivity or neutrality by proposing that it is just as “religious” as the faith traditions it would dismiss. Matthew Vest similarly argues that the mythos upon which science’s authority rests is a religious one, one based on “faith” and immersed in a tradition-informed set of practices. Without wading too deeply into the matter of proving that the secular belief in neutrality is religious myth, let us consider one of its potential implications: in bioethical discourse, “the secular” must stand on even footing with “the religious” in what could be called “interreligious dialogue.” The upshot of this claim is this: if “the secular” is in fact religious, then all our dialogue is interreligious dialogue. How might methods employed in interreligious dialogues inform a bioethics dialogue which views itself as interreligious ‘all the way down’?
Historically, common concerns over violence and emergent threats to world peace have motivated many an effort to cultivate a sense of moral unity between the religions; the language of human rights allows for a thin ethical consensus for the purpose of peace-making. Institutional, parliamentary, and contemplative/interpersonal approaches have been met with varying degrees of success in bringing together persons of diverse convictions for the sake of mutual understanding. Surveying these approaches and their merits/shortcomings, I propose four essential virtues of interreligious dialogue: justice, good-will, humility, and love of Wisdom. What can bioethics (as essentially interreligious) learn from the methods of interreligious dialogue? Bioethical interlocutors would do well to adopt these virtues of interreligious dialogue; additionally, bioethicists might imagine a bioethics which embraces a greater variety of modes of expression or fosters communion through a hagiography—sharing and reflecting on moral exemplars from diverse traditions.
The question which I pose is: can “the secular” engage in interreligious dialogue? I propose that “the secular” cannot engage in such an activity without significantly revising itself. Secular bioethical discourse’s denial of its essentially interreligious nature renders it deaf and blind to these methodological avenues, precisely because it professes the myth of the opposition of faith and reason. Understanding himself as neither brother nor stranger of but rather as master over the religious, the secular bioethicist will inevitably fail to comprehend Thomas Merton’s realization at the corner of Fourth and Walnut: “I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.”
Historically, common concerns over violence and emergent threats to world peace have motivated many an effort to cultivate a sense of moral unity between the religions; the language of human rights allows for a thin ethical consensus for the purpose of peace-making. Institutional, parliamentary, and contemplative/interpersonal approaches have been met with varying degrees of success in bringing together persons of diverse convictions for the sake of mutual understanding. Surveying these approaches and their merits/shortcomings, I propose four essential virtues of interreligious dialogue: justice, good-will, humility, and love of Wisdom. What can bioethics (as essentially interreligious) learn from the methods of interreligious dialogue? Bioethical interlocutors would do well to adopt these virtues of interreligious dialogue; additionally, bioethicists might imagine a bioethics which embraces a greater variety of modes of expression or fosters communion through a hagiography—sharing and reflecting on moral exemplars from diverse traditions.
The question which I pose is: can “the secular” engage in interreligious dialogue? I propose that “the secular” cannot engage in such an activity without significantly revising itself. Secular bioethical discourse’s denial of its essentially interreligious nature renders it deaf and blind to these methodological avenues, precisely because it professes the myth of the opposition of faith and reason. Understanding himself as neither brother nor stranger of but rather as master over the religious, the secular bioethicist will inevitably fail to comprehend Thomas Merton’s realization at the corner of Fourth and Walnut: “I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.”