Re: Virtue Ethics, Deontological Ethics, and Biotechnology

Have you ever read 'Enough' by Bill McKibben? He is a Christian
environmentalist (don't we all pray for the time when that will be
redundant!) who lays down some pretty interesting reasons for
opposing much gen-tech enthusiasm. And he's not at all anti-science.
Disputable as some of it was, I found myself mostly in agreement with
his motivations by the end of the book. He's got lots of books to sell
at http://www.billmckibben.com/books.html
I think I read somewhere that he's Methodist. Or at least protestant,
anyway.

By the way, who is Hauerwas? (I'm an anabaptist and I've never heard
of him.) --- Okay, now I've googled him, wow -- the things I learn here.
Lee C. Camp "Mere Discipleship" is another critic of nationalism (and
I think from a non-anabaptist tradition).

--merv

David Opderbeck wrote:

> I'm starting work on a paper that will examine a virtue ethics
> approach to biotechnology patent law. I'm getting reasonably
> well-versed in virtue ethics from secular and Catholic social theory
> perspectives, but I'm also trying to dig up evangelical perspectives.
> It seems there is some tension between deontological and virtue
> approaches within evangelicalism -- or maybe that's just my
> misperception based on early stage research. Anyway, I'd be grateful
> if anyone here is aware of any good sources from an evangelical /
> protestant perspective. (I'm aware of Hauerwas and the anabaptist
> tradition).
>
> Thanks.
Received on Fri May 12 23:49:42 2006