MISTAKES ABOUT INTENTION IN THE LAW OF BIOETHICS

• Published in: Law and contemporary problems Vol. 75; no. 4; pp. 53 - 75
• Main Author: Moreland, Michael P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Durham Duke University School of Law 2012; Duke University, School of Law
• Subjects: Assisted suicide; Bioethics; Christian ethics; Christian theology; Double effect; Ethical aspects; Ethics; Evaluation; Hauerwas, Stanley; Hobbes, Thomas; Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679; Informed consent; Intent (Law); Ireland; Law; Legal ethics; Libraries; Moral philosophy; Morality; Nation state; Physicians; Religion; Religion and politics; Religions; Theology; Tort law; Torts; Trust; Voluntary euthanasia
• ISSN: 0023-9186; 1945-2322

My goal in this article is to bring the work of Stanley Hauerwas to bear on the law of bioethics, which I will accomplish through a discussion of how debates over intention in moral philosophy, moral theology, and law have shaped -- and confused -- bioethics. Writing about Stanley Hauerwas on law and bioethics may strike those who know Hauerwas's work as an odd project -- just as Peter Geach noted in his essay The Religion of Thomas HObbes that perhaps he had chosen to write on an empty subject, much like G.K. Chesterton's Lord Darnaway put such titles as The Snakes of Ireland and The Religion of Frederick the Great on the spines of the dummy books in his library. So also one might think about "Hauerwas on bioethics and law," for one of Hauerwas's (mostly salutary, to my view) contributions to theological bioethics has been his persistent refusal to acquiesce to the overly professionalized and bureaucratic set of concerns that dominate the field of bioethics today. If that is true of "bioethics," it is even more so with "law" on account of Hauerwas's suspicion of the modern nation-state and its dominant political and legal forms. Adapted from the source document.