Bioethics and Religion: The Limit of Bioethics

During 1960's and 70's, new medical technologies gave rise to new ethical problems. Treating philosophical and irreligious standpoints, bioethics tried to suggest some normative judgements concerning these problems. Bioethics is based on philosophical ethics, such as utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. Hence bioethics is rational, formal, abstract, and secular. In pluralistic societies such as America, where moral/social values and religions coexist, bioethicists have to treat new ethical problems concerning new medical technologies using universal principles. In order to maintain objectivity and remain neutral concerning religious values, bioethicists have argued that their science is secular. In bioethics. some religious virtues are presented as secular principles. Some theories of bioethics are presented as counter-arguments against Christian opinions. Christian ethic has forbidden abortion, but bioethics has dared to attack such values. For such reason, bioethics has avoided appealing to religious or spiritual values. For example, in the case of terminal care, bioethicists have discussed in detail the refusal of treatment by the dying patients and euthanasia, but they have rarely considered the patients' spiritual difficulties. In such cases, bioethics is not so useful. Patients, physicians and nurses need vocabularies to rationalize the absurdity of death. Religious or spiritual narratives can provide such vocabularies. My death or deaths of others can be supplied with meaning through such narratives. We can prepare for our death by situating our deaths in some story. We can accept the deaths of others with some narratives. But in Japan, Buddhism is polluted by commercialism, so I doubt if Buddhism can provide any meaningful narrative. Indeed when people in Japan use spiritual terminology to talk about death, most of them are not those of Buddhism