The Prophetic Voice of Principlism? Or, Can the Scientific Voice Ever Prophecy?
Matthew Vest, PhD, Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities, Ohio State University
In ancient Greece, much of medicine extended directly from divine prophecy, testifying to the core relationship between caring and knowing. In contemporary times, this relationship inevitably has changed, yet prophetic knowing alongside other forms of knowing are perhaps closer to medicine and the puzzles surrounding medicine than every before. Modern medicine’s prognostications—via clinical judgement, statistics, genetics, patient data, and more—surely resemble a form of prophecy, at least in terms of knowing the future. Whether we envision prophecy as a transcendent form of knowledge from the divine, or more generally as a form of knowing particularly vital or suited to our time, prophecy and knowing remain vitally interwoven.
Alongside the many changes in medicine from antiquity to modernity, so, too, our philosophical ways of knowing have changed. In particular, this paper seeks to trace some of these key changes by following the work of Francois Jullien. Jullien is particularly insightful amidst the linguistic turn (especially in Greek and English) from “beauty” to “the beautiful,” and within this from Plato forward one can detect strong privileging of substantive vs. descriptive, the abstract vs. concrete, or of definition vs. designation. In terms of ethics and bioethics, I will engage some implications of this abstracting turn in reference to good actions vs. the Good—be “the Good” a supreme idea or ultimate divinity—before turning to a core methodology in bioethics, principlism. I propose that principlism presents a paradox of knowing for seeming to align with American pragmatic ideas, yet the deeper impetus of principlism remains true to monopolizing tendencies in Western philosophy where common morality serves as a reservoir of meaning for principlism, with the end result of rendering bioethics more politics than ethics. If this is the case, what are we to expect of ethical knowing that speaks prophetically (or not) to our time?
Further, this paper engages a therapeutic, non–Western approach to philosophy that approaches ethics in harmony with Jullien’s insights on beauty that present significant implications for problems such as physician burnout, proximity to trauma, and even our understanding of sin within a traditional Christian framework.
Alongside the many changes in medicine from antiquity to modernity, so, too, our philosophical ways of knowing have changed. In particular, this paper seeks to trace some of these key changes by following the work of Francois Jullien. Jullien is particularly insightful amidst the linguistic turn (especially in Greek and English) from “beauty” to “the beautiful,” and within this from Plato forward one can detect strong privileging of substantive vs. descriptive, the abstract vs. concrete, or of definition vs. designation. In terms of ethics and bioethics, I will engage some implications of this abstracting turn in reference to good actions vs. the Good—be “the Good” a supreme idea or ultimate divinity—before turning to a core methodology in bioethics, principlism. I propose that principlism presents a paradox of knowing for seeming to align with American pragmatic ideas, yet the deeper impetus of principlism remains true to monopolizing tendencies in Western philosophy where common morality serves as a reservoir of meaning for principlism, with the end result of rendering bioethics more politics than ethics. If this is the case, what are we to expect of ethical knowing that speaks prophetically (or not) to our time?
Further, this paper engages a therapeutic, non–Western approach to philosophy that approaches ethics in harmony with Jullien’s insights on beauty that present significant implications for problems such as physician burnout, proximity to trauma, and even our understanding of sin within a traditional Christian framework.