Death, Dying, and Language Games

Abstract As the authors in this number of Christian Bioethics recognize, language choice and emphasis shape moral judgments and medical expectations. The first two articles, for example, engage with the diagnosis of death and support for dying patients. Adam Omelianchuk explores challenges for equating brain death with the death of the patient, while Mariele Courtois integrates insights from the medieval Christian ars moriendi tradition into perinatal hospice better to support families of dying infants. The second brace of articles critique post-modern language games and the limits of secular bioethics. This dialogue begins with Dominic Robin, Kyle Karches and Tyler Tate critically engaging with Matthew Vest’s recent book: Ethics Lost in Modernity: Reflections on Wittgenstein and Bioethics. Robin argues for an expanded moral vision that appreciates bioethics as a practice focused less on principles (e.g., autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice) and more on what he terms the “rhetorical spaces” shaping perceptions of medical ethical application. Karches and Tate, in turn, argue that Christians ought to see through the limits of secular bioethics, while patiently reorienting medical practice toward Christ. Here, Vest is provided with the opportunity to have the final word, engaging with these two thoughtful critiques and drawing out ways that secular bioethics hides unjustified moral content in its rhetorical phrasing of moral principles, social duties, and patient responsibilities.