Jean-Yves Goffi

Ce livre présente cinq entretiens avec des philosophes pionniers dans le champ de la bioéthique francophone, Anne Fagot-Largeault et Jean-Yves Goff i (France), Gilbert Hottois et Jean-Noël Missa (Belgique) et Marie-Hélène Parizeau (Québec), cinq personnalités de renom, connues pour leur trajectoire exceptionnelle. Les entretiens menés avec ces auteurs au sujet de leurs oeuvres, de leurs expériences dans des comités de bioéthique et des différents débats soulevés ces dernières années nous permettent de connaître leur travail, mais aussi de faire une incursion dans le développement fulgurant de la bio-médecine et des biotechnologies des cinquante dernières années. Les conséquences de ces applications, les problèmes éthiques générés, les jugements favorables et défavorables à l'égard des changements sociaux qui se sont produits et le bouleversement d'idées qui s'en est suivi, sont autant d'aspects abordés dans ces entretiens. L'utilisation du langage courant exige un effort de synthèse important; aussi ces entretiens sous la forme d'une conversation, offrent-ils au lecteur une large vision panoramique, rigoureuse et concise de l'évolution de la bioéthique francophone.

French ethics of technology has followed a most peculiar path. Generally speaking, French philosophers of technology have dismissed the methodology of Applied Ethics as widely practiced. As a result, the most notorious thinkers have been those who have expressed the most considerable reservations about the “technical phenomenon.” I here attempt to establish that the most promising attempts to overcome this situation do not rise from social philosophy, but from a long-standing French tradition in the field of philosophy of life, supported by an overriding project of integration of technology into culture.

Goffi and Roux are interested in what makes some thought experiments work, while others do not work. They do not attempt to draw an a priori line between two types of thought experiments, but rather ask the following question: inasmuch as thought experiments are arguments, and notwithstanding the fact that some of them might involve the contemplation of an imaginary scenario, how is it that some of them work, while others do not? Taking inspiration from a counterfactual thought experiment presented by Nicholas Rescher, they treat thought experiments as argumentative procedures resembling tests of consistency, which invite the experimenter to seek the weakest link in her body of beliefs. Equipped with this method, they examine two well-known successful thought experiments (Galileo’s two bodies strapped together, and Thomson’s violinist) and discuss Mach’s notion of thought experiments. Thus they reach the hypothesis that successful thought experiments respect the three following conditions: they do not deal with things, but with beliefs; they mobilise a set of beliefs shared by the interlocutors; and this set of beliefs has a hierarchical structure. Using once again examples written at different periods and taken from various disciplines (Descartes’ receding bodies, Aristotle’s weaving shuttles), Goffi and Roux argue that each of those conditions is individually necessary for a thought experiment to work. They finally conclude on the limits and consequences of their approach.

On se propose de fédérer les questions relevant de la bioéthique, des générations futures et de l’éthique environnementale autour du thème de la communauté morale. On examinera certains problèmes théoriques posés par l’élargissement de celle-ci. On soutiendra qu’il n’est possible d’y faire face qu’en se ralliant à une forme d’anthropocentrisme. Toutefois, il s’agit d’un anthropocentrisme méta-axiologique, pas d’un anthropocentrisme normatif: il ne saurait être question de soutenir que les intérêts des être humains ont, toujours et partout, priorité sur les intérêts des autres créatures.

Il s'agit de déterminer le statut des normes chez les nouveaux casuistes . On indique d'abord quelles sont les circonstances de cette nouvelle casuistique ; on suggère ensuite qu'elle exporte dans le domaine de l'éthique certaines thèses de T. Kuhn, comme le « modèle déductiviste », qu'elle prétend détrôner, s'alimentait au schéma Hempel-Oppenheim de l'explication scientifique. On suggère enfin que les nouveaux casuistes procèdent, de façon plus ou moins radicale, à une naturalisation des normes.It is intented to investigate about the status of norms in the thought of the new casuists . First, the circumstances of the new casuistry are set out; then it is suggested that the new casuists have integrated in their argument concepts from T. Kuhn, just as the “deductivist model” they so sharply criticize integrates concepts from C.G. Hempel and P. Oppenheim. With regard to the initial question, it is shown that the new casuists uphold a kind of norms-naturalizing constructivism

As it is commonly used, the concept of dignity applies to people as well as to groups of people. It is sometimes supposed to encapsulate such widely different notions as privacy, physical or mental integrity and personality. There is something puzzling in such a situation. This article argues, firstly, that the concept of dignity is best understood when applying ‹only› to autonomy, perfectibility and rationality. Belonging to the language of morals, the concept of dignity has something strongly prescriptive built into it: its function is to justify prohibitions in our ways of dealing with persons. But if interpreted as depending on the actual possession of some capacities, it fails to do its job, because it applies to too few people; and if interpreted as expressing an essence, it fails because it gives way to some form of discrimination. It is suggested that a two-level use of the notion of dignity could improve things, albeit at the cost of trivialising the notion