Ethics and the details of life

The chapter examines debates in bioethics through the concept of forms of life and argues for an approach grounded in the details of ordinary experience. The author begins by contrasting two dominant positions: those who analyze intimate spheres of life through abstract moral theories centered on interests and autonomy, and those who appeal to a fixed form of human life rooted in natural law. Rejecting both views, he develops a Wittgensteinian perspective in which normativity is internal to practices, attitudes, and forms of living. The chapter then critically examines the model of formation associated with Aristotelian and McDowellian accounts of second nature. Drawing on Stanley Cavell and Veena Das, the author argues instead that forms of life emerge through the ongoing domestication of the vulnerabilities of life disclosed in the details of ordinary experience.