[Arthur} Caplan is a bioethicist; his titles imply an expertise in ethics. [Douglas] Hanto served as the chair of the Ethics Committee at the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. Yet what are we to make of their willingness to issue life-and-death pronouncements involving other people? Well, we know a few things about them. First, that they share an absolutist approach to egalitarianism: If all cannot benefit, then none should benefit. Second, as ethicists they presume to know how despairing patients should conduct their private affairs. And third, they appear to have few qualms about conveying to desperately ill people a message of hopelessness: Be passive, dying patients — wait your turn and take no initiative to save your own life.Does being a bioethicist entitle one to any such moral authority, edifying the rest of us about right and wrong? Is this what society should expect of its “ethics experts”?
Good questions.
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