Interaction between Peter Singer and Christian ethics, to the extent that it has happened at all, has been unproductive and often antagonistic. Singer sees himself as leading a 'Copernican Revolution' against a sanctity of life ethic, while many Christians associate his work with a 'culture of death'. Charles Camosy shows that this polarized understanding of the two positions is a mistake. While their conclusions about abortion and euthanasia may differ, there is surprising overlap in Christian and Singerite arguments, and disagreements (...) are interesting and fruitful. Furthermore, it turns out that Christians and Singerites can even make common cause, for instance in matters such as global poverty and the dignity of non-human animals. Peter Singer and Christian ethics are far closer than almost anyone has imagined, and this book is valuable to those who are interested in fresh thinking about the relationship between religious and secular ethics. (shrink)

Timothy Murphy has done those of us in the field of bioethics a great service by being forthright about how irreligious centers of power work against theology and theologians. This has opened the door to direct and honest conversation about some facts that were previously known but rarely discussed publicly. Now, eight years after Murphy’s important article appeared in the American Journal of Bioethics, there is room to engage the facts and arguments surrounding the role for theology in the field. (...) It is important, first of all, to agree that if theology is to be excluded while other normative traditions included this must be defended on the basis of a coherent set of defensible claims, not merely raw assertions and power plays. Once the field comes to terms with the fact that no coherent set of defensible claims exist which can justify excluding theology from the field, this will create the conditions for the possibility of the kind of intellectual solidarity which can transform bioethics into a field that is at once much more diverse and inclusive while also of its very nature interested in robust debate which includes references first principles and metaphysical foundations. (shrink)

The debate over surgical abortion is certainly one of the most divisive in ethical discourse and for many it seems interminable. However, this paper argues that a primary reason for this is confusion with regard to what issues are actually under dispute. When looking at an entrenched and articulate figure on one side of the debate, Peter Singer, and comparing his views with those of his opponents, one finds that the disputed issue is actually quite a narrow one: the moral (...) status of potential persons. Finding this common ground clears the conceptual space for a fruitful argument: the thesis of which is that most, including Singer, who argue that potential persons do not have full personal moral status fail to make the necessary distinction between natural potential and practical potential. (shrink)

In the Summer 2017 NCBQ, Joshua Evans strongly criticized arguments made by Charles Camosy about the possibility of a prenatal child being a material mortal threat to her mother. Here Camosy demonstrates that the formal/material debate remains open for non-dissenting Catholic moral theologians. He also shows that his reference to just-war theory is used to discuss innocence; it is not evidence of a particular methodology. Despite Evans’s claim to the contrary, Camosy notes multiple examples where he affirms the uniqueness of (...) pregnancy and the special duty of parents to children. He argues for full deference to the magisterium in matters where doctrine has been defined and urges solid theological grounding for teachings on abortion when the mother’s life is at risk, especially given the profound personal and political issues at stake. (shrink)

This chapter opens with a discussion on Kevin Smith, Star Wars and terrorism. Terrorism means something only within a specific way of thinking about right and wrong, or, more generally, an ethical theory or framework. One very popular and powerful ethical framework is utilitarianism, which views the moral life as about producing the greatest good for the greatest number, maximizing pleasure over pain or happiness over unhappiness. The chapter describes many terrorist attacks and highlights that workers building Death Star II (...) are different from the innocents of Gaza, Hiroshima, Alderaan, and Madrid in that these workers were actively contributing to the evil intention and military goals of the enemy. The chapter further points out that the ability to challenge the dominant cultural lens through which most of us look at the world and ask critical questions of our own “side” is as rare today as it is important. (shrink)

Academic medical ethics must be a bulwark against a disturbing trend toward post-truth cultures. Activism of course has its place in massive cultural debates like abortion. The fact that so many people care so deeply about these debates is part of what makes them so important. But especially when coming from clinicians, academics, and others to whom we entrust the care of our public discourse, interventions into the debates must be disciplined by a thoroughgoing commitment to engage with the available (...) data to back up the central claims even when those claims seem like common sense—perhaps especially when they seem like common sense. (shrink)

There is perhaps no more important value than fundamental human equality. And yet, despite large percentages of people affirming the value, the resources available to explain and defend the basis for such equality are few and far between. In his newest book, Charles Camosy provides a thoughtful defense of human dignity. Telling personal stories like those of Jahi McMath, Terri Schiavo, and Alfie Evans, Camosy, a noted bioethicist and theologian, uses an engaging style to show how the influence of secularized (...) medicine is undermining fundamental human equality in the broader culture. And in a disturbing final chapter, Camosy sounds the alarm about the next population to fall if we stay on our current trajectory: dozens of millions of human beings with dementia. Heeding this alarm, Camosy argues, means doing two things. First, making urgent and genuine attempts to dialogue with a secularized culture which cannot see how it is undermining one of its most foundational values. Second, religious communities which hold the Imago Dei sacred must mobilize their existing institutions (and create new ones) to care for a new set of human beings our throwaway culture may deem nonpersons. (shrink)

Attempts to find cures for neurological diseases include research proposals to create better neural organoids and neural chimeras. The primary ethical issues involved here are not so much about neural organoids, but chimeric research. Embryonic chimeras are created with human neural information such that a nonhuman animal would grow human neural components. The older frameworks surrounding animal ethics in medical research are ethically impoverished and thus are not suited to evaluating this emerging research. Consequently, we need more discussion of newer, (...) more comprehensive frameworks that accept and provide for what is necessary for an animal to be the kind of thing that it is. Our success in finding a cure for neurological diseases will dramatically affect the lives of dozens of millions of human beings. But it is precisely when the stakes are highest that we need to be most careful about not discarding important ethical boundaries. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 12, Page 9-12, December 2011.