Wittgenstein and the foundations of bioethics: reflections on scientific and religious thinking in modernity
This thesis argues that bioethics emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s not as a novel way to engage new technological or social ethical questions of life (bios), but rather as a late, post-Enlightenment secular phenomenon. In particular, bioethics seeks to adopt a methodology of theorizing on m...
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| Format: | Thesis (University of Nottingham only) |
| Language: | English |
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2018
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50902/ |
| _version_ | 1848798364456452096 |
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| author | Vest, Matthew |
| author_facet | Vest, Matthew |
| author_sort | Vest, Matthew |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This thesis argues that bioethics emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s not as a novel way to engage new technological or social ethical questions of life (bios), but rather as a late, post-Enlightenment secular phenomenon. In particular, bioethics seeks to adopt a methodology of theorizing on morality that is prominent in modern science, and this is a strategy that I contest by following Wittgenstein’s critique of scientific theorizing. Wittgenstein’s later exercises with language present a critical and clarifying way to identify the immanent and self-referential schema of principlism in bioethics. Additionally, I show how Wittgenstein’s approach to philosophy as a skillful and therapeutic activity rather than a cognitive content is informative for bioethics. Hence, I suggest that in pre-modern, traditional eras—or even in many contemporary non-Western global sectors—bioethics largely would be indistinct from religious and theological dogma and practices. I argue that the modern mind prioritizes material causality, leading to a moral techne that divides spirit from matter, vios from bios. Within such a schema, nature—and especially the medicalized human body—is managed, produced, and constructed. Furthermore, I argue that Wittgenstein gestures towards an ancient transcendent way beyond the modern division of vios and bios, and that a full vision of seeing life may be glimpsed through an apophatic epistemology that guides one towards an understanding of ethics itself as a form of apophatic and embodied knowledge. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:18:36Z |
| format | Thesis (University of Nottingham only) |
| id | nottingham-50902 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:18:36Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-509022025-02-28T12:03:36Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50902/ Wittgenstein and the foundations of bioethics: reflections on scientific and religious thinking in modernity Vest, Matthew This thesis argues that bioethics emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s not as a novel way to engage new technological or social ethical questions of life (bios), but rather as a late, post-Enlightenment secular phenomenon. In particular, bioethics seeks to adopt a methodology of theorizing on morality that is prominent in modern science, and this is a strategy that I contest by following Wittgenstein’s critique of scientific theorizing. Wittgenstein’s later exercises with language present a critical and clarifying way to identify the immanent and self-referential schema of principlism in bioethics. Additionally, I show how Wittgenstein’s approach to philosophy as a skillful and therapeutic activity rather than a cognitive content is informative for bioethics. Hence, I suggest that in pre-modern, traditional eras—or even in many contemporary non-Western global sectors—bioethics largely would be indistinct from religious and theological dogma and practices. I argue that the modern mind prioritizes material causality, leading to a moral techne that divides spirit from matter, vios from bios. Within such a schema, nature—and especially the medicalized human body—is managed, produced, and constructed. Furthermore, I argue that Wittgenstein gestures towards an ancient transcendent way beyond the modern division of vios and bios, and that a full vision of seeing life may be glimpsed through an apophatic epistemology that guides one towards an understanding of ethics itself as a form of apophatic and embodied knowledge. 2018-07-16 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50902/1/Vest_Wittgenstein_Foundations_Bioethics_10_17.pdf Vest, Matthew (2018) Wittgenstein and the foundations of bioethics: reflections on scientific and religious thinking in modernity. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. bioethics religion science wittgenstein |
| spellingShingle | bioethics religion science wittgenstein Vest, Matthew Wittgenstein and the foundations of bioethics: reflections on scientific and religious thinking in modernity |
| title | Wittgenstein and the foundations of bioethics: reflections on scientific and religious thinking in modernity |
| title_full | Wittgenstein and the foundations of bioethics: reflections on scientific and religious thinking in modernity |
| title_fullStr | Wittgenstein and the foundations of bioethics: reflections on scientific and religious thinking in modernity |
| title_full_unstemmed | Wittgenstein and the foundations of bioethics: reflections on scientific and religious thinking in modernity |
| title_short | Wittgenstein and the foundations of bioethics: reflections on scientific and religious thinking in modernity |
| title_sort | wittgenstein and the foundations of bioethics: reflections on scientific and religious thinking in modernity |
| topic | bioethics religion science wittgenstein |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50902/ |