Engelhardt’s Secular Bioethics And Its Contemporary Enlightenment

In the context of post-modern moral pluralism,traditional moral rationality cannot provide a perfect argument for an only legitimate and substantive global bioethics in the face of the moral adaptability of emerging medical technology,the conflict of pluralistic morality and the questioning of doctor authority by patient rights movement.In response,Engelhardt suggests that people need to construct a common,non-substantive and procedural moral framework for different moral communities based on the principle of permission.Engelhardt’s secular bioethics provides a new research perspective for the development of contemporary bioethics,and a systematic study of Engelhardt’s secular bioethics provides an important inspiration for the construction and practice of contemporary bioethics in China.The formation of Engelhardt’s secular bioethics not only has a profound social background,but also has its main ideological origin and personal basic conditions.The reality background of Engelhardt’s secular bioethics is the moral pluralism of post-modern society,the progress of bio-medical technology and the movement of patients’ rights.Kant’s liberalism,Hartmann’s axiology and European medical humanism are the ideological origins of Engelhardt’s secular bioethics.At the same time,Engelhardt’s unique religious belief,medical and philosophical education and practice experience have an important impact on the formation of his worldly ethics.Engelhardt’s secular bioethics includes basic concepts,main principles and practical application.First,Engelhardt put forward the basic concept of secular bioethics.From moral friends and moral strangers to moral communities,from religious bioethics to secular bioethics,Engelhardt has made basic definitions.Secondly,Engelhardt puts forward four principles,namely,the principle of permission,the principle of doing good,the principle of possession and the principle of political authority,and explores their connotations and relationships.Thirdly,Engelhardt focuses on life choice,medical reality,the doctor-patient relationship and the distribution of health care,and studies the concrete application of worldly bioethics from these four practical fields.Engelhardt’s secular bioethics has distinctive theoretical qualities,manifesting itself in a procedural minimal morality,a rights-based moral theory,and the values of freedom and tolerance.The rationality of Engelhardt’s secular bioethics lies in facing up to the pluralistic situation of post-modern morality,paying attention to the humanistic concern of bioethics and advocating the construction of moral community based on self-cultural understanding.But because of cultural differences and Engelhardt’s own religious belief,his secular bioethics inevitably has theological idealism.At the same time,because it exaggerated the differences between moral strangers and blurred the ethical decision-making standards,the established procedural morality could not take into account the emptiness of content.Therefore,we must dialectically treat Engelhardt’s secular bioethics,the good and discard the dregs,in the construction of Chinese bioethics in the new era,we should grasp the development direction of multicultural bioethics,adhere to the people-oriented value attitude,and construct the local bioethics suitable for Chinese characteristics.