: "Conservative" bioethics is informed by a rich view of human personhood, a decent respect for the well-considered views of people across the political spectrum, and a philosophy of the state carefully calibrated to ensure that imperfect people can live together in community. The deepest disagreements between conservatives and liberals are rooted in different ways of understanding the moral ideal of equality.

To understand the role of science in modern politics, we need to understand the moral and metaphysical limits of science on questions of value. The modern mastery of nature cannot guide us in knowing what to do with our new powersCwhether in war or in medicine, at the beginning of life or the end of life. This essay explores the relationship between science, ethics, and politics by looking at various controversies in health policy, especially end-of-life care and embryo research. It (...) explores how scientists sometimes defend science in the most unscientific ways, looks for common ground on the most controversial areas of science policy, and invites us to reflect more deeply and philosophically on man's relationship to and place within the natural world. (shrink)

Part I: Science and the human prospect -- The spirit of modern science -- The human difference -- Bioethics in wartime -- Part II: The ethics of progress -- The embryo question -- Our genetic condition -- The commerce of the body -- A Jewish-Catholic bioethics -- Part III: From generation to generation -- Why have children -- In whose image shall we die.