Policing the Borders of Bioethics – ”Rawlsian” Public Reason as a Disciplinary Tool

This paper discusses the use of public reason requirements as a tool for boundary work within academic philosophical bioethics. The concept of ”public reason” as a requirement for legitimate interventions in policy debates in liberal democracies has been received into bioethics from political philosophy. The version of public reason requirements that is most often referred to in bioethics is the version developed by John Rawls. However, the concept that has been received, its scope, and the way in which it is applied have arguably changed through the reception process. The relation between the original Rawlsian concept, and the ”Rawlsian” concept that is used in bioethics is therefore not straightforward. The paper first analyzes some of the changes that have happened in the reception process and then moves on to a discussion about the use of public reason as a boundary setting tool demarcating proper bioethics activity. It is argued that this boundary setting is problematic philosophically, since it relies on a misapplication of the public reason requirements as they have been developed in political philosophy; and that it is also performatively self-defeating in any context where religious arguments de facto play a role in public, democratic policy-making discourse.