Moral Discernment in Bioethics

We might perhaps think that if we could convince Evandro Agazzi the validity of the above reasoning on the status of the human embryo, he would conclude that we must therefore always respect the life and integrity of every human embryo.

In the article just quoted, the author recalls the distinction introduced by D. Ross (cf. 1930) between absolute and prima facie duties. He explains that “A prima facie duty is what imposes on us a moral obligation, but may, in a given concrete situation, yield to other duties or rights that would be considered as mor­ally more obliging” (Agazzi 2007).

In another text he proposes another similar distinction: one between the under­standing of values as “sacred” and conceiving them as “excellent.” Comparing the concept of excellence to that of sacredness (or absolute), he explains that

[T]he character of excellence [...] can be defined by saying that a given value represents a good of exceptional importance and therefore must be protected and promoted in every possible way, but at the same time may be subject to certain restrictions for a good reason (consisting essentially in the necessity of making such a value compatible with other val­ues, those being also “excellent”) (Agazzi 2011).

Here we cannot do an in-depth analysis of this complex and central issue of moral philosophy. In a way, we are faced with the classic debate about the existence of moral absolutes, which developed also within the Catholic Moral Theology.

In the case of the positive moral precepts, prudence always has the task of verifying that they apply in a specific situation, for example, in view of other duties which may be more important or urgent. But the negative moral precepts, those prohibiting certain concrete actions or kinds of behavior as intrinsically evil, do not allow for any legitimate exception (Johannes Paulus 1993).

As I said before, Agazzi clearly states that morality involves the perception of what is allowed, prohibited or dutiful. Indeed, the experience of morality, of moral value is the experience of having to do or not do, irrespective of personal desire or sentiment. The choice of the action to take or avoid should not consist merely in opting for a value subjectively considered superior to others. Such a choice would not present itself with the character of moral obligation, which is characteristic of many moral choices, especially when it comes to “negative duty” (not to do this).

When we speak about “moral absolutes” we do not refer to absolute values but rather to the experience of the “absolute duty” not to act in a way that contradicts a value considered important. It is the absoluteness of the moral experience, the experience of the obligation in freedom: if I am convinced that this action is mor­ally wrong, I can choose it, but I cannot make it a good choice (cf. De Finance 1984; Miranda 2001).

Agazzi refers to bioethics as public ethics: “All this is true as long as we do not forget that bioethics is basically a form of public ethics and, therefore, it cannot claim to morally bind the individual conscience, which maintains its indestructible freedom” (Agazzi 2011).

In my opinion bioethics should not be considered solely, or even primarily, a public ethics. In addition to its social and normative application (which gave rise to the so called “bio-law” jurisprudence), bioethics should try to illuminate the individual consciousness (doctors, patients, researchers...). The clinical bioethical committees have precisely this function.

Anyway, I think that even in the public sphere, if a person is convinced that a certain behavior should not be allowed by society because it goes against some inviolable good, he or she can (and perhaps should) speak out loud and clear. That person may give her reasons and may also act against the mainstream, trying to persuade others and possibly even to provoke legal changes. These are the individ­uals who, opposing vigorously certain aspects of the predominant ethos, provoke profound changes for a better society. Take, for example, the cultural and legal struggle against slavery carried out in the United States, in the mid-nineteenth cen­tury, by people like Abraham Lincoln; or in the twentieth century by of Martin Luther King, fighting against the discrimination of black people in that country.

What would have happened if those people had simply accepted that behavior and those laws because they knew that they were considered good for the majority, according to their “excellent” values?

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