Habermas and the question of bioethics

Abstract

In The Future of Human Nature, Jurgen Habermas raises the question of whether the embryonic genetic diagnosis and genetic modification threatens the foundations of the species ethics that underlies current understandings of morality. While morality, in the normative sense, is based on moral interactions enabling communicative action, justification, and reciprocal respect, the reification involved in the new technologies may preclude individuals to uphold a sense of the undisposability (Unverfugbarkeit) of human life and the inviolability (Unantastbarkeit) of human beings that is necessary for their own identity as well as for reciprocal relations. Engaging with liberal bioethics and Catholic approaches to bioethics, the article clarifies how Habermas's position offers a radical critique of liberal autonomy while maintaining its postmetaphysical stance. The essay argues that Habermas's approach may guide the question of rights of future generations regarding germline gene editing. But it calls for a different turn in the conversation between philosophy and theology, namely one that emphasizes the necessary attention to rights violations and injustices as a common, postmetaphysical starting point for critical theory and critical theology alike.