Abstract

This thesis examines how Bernard Lonergan’s structure of the human good might serve as a tool to bridge the tension between principle-based and communitarian approaches to bioethical enquiry.
The first chapter discusses one of the current mainstream tools used in clinical and medical research bioethical evaluation which is principlism. Though there are many principles and a variety of interpretations, I will focus on the four major principles as laid out by Beauchamp and Childress which are autonomy, non maleficence, justice and beneficence. In particular, this chapter investigates in some detail the principle of autonomy and its relationship with the notions of respect for persons, liberal individualism and the human rights ideology. Chapter two explores an alternative approach to bioethics based on communitarian philosophy and will draw on the works of Daniel Callahan, in particular his arguments on the common good. From the first two chapters it appears that there may be a tension between the concepts of individual good and common good that, up till now, some argue bioethicists have not been able to bridge.
The final chapter explores how Bernard Lonergan’s structure of the human good might bridge these two areas of tension by reframing the meaning and significance of rights, liberty, individual good and common good. In this way Lonergan’s method might help us grasp and respond to bioethical issues in an altogether new way.