Ethics Lost in Modernity

Reflections on Wittgenstein and Bioethics

Matthew Vest

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781666747188, 9781666747195
• eBook ISBN: 9781666747201
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Ethics Lost in Modernity: Reflections on Wittgenstein and Bioethics turns to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein as a guide to understand the immense success--yet great danger--of bioethics. Matthew Vest traces the story of bioethics since its inception in the late 1960s as a way to uncover a number of hidden assumptions within modern ethics that relies upon scientific theorizing as the fundamental way of thinking. Autonomy and utilitarianism, in particular, are two nearly unquestioned goals of scientific theorizing that are easily accessible, but at what cost? Vest argues that such an ethics enacts a thin moral calculation that runs the risk of enslaving ethics to scientism. Far from the depth of religious ethos and practices of virtue, modern ethics is lost amidst thin ethical theories, enacting a language game that instrumentalizes ethics in service of technological, bureaucratic, and professional end goals. He proposes that true moral living is far from anti-science, but rather is envisioned best when ethics and science are balanced with keen insights from ancient sacred cosmology.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Abbreviations
• Part I: Dilemmas in the Spirit of Scientific Theorizing
• Part II: Critiquing Scientific Theorizing
• Part III: Escaping the Ethical Fly Bottle
• Bibliography