LIBERALISM AND BIOMEDICAL PROGRESS: A POSITIVE VIEW

Since the very origin of this learned Society, it has appeared clear that there were two issues which were never going to be resolved by any rational and friendly discussion: God and gold. As a matter of fact, there were religious as well as atheistic or agnostic members – the former considering liberalism as fundamentally linked to religion (especially Christianity), and the latter as purely secular; and there were members that considered the gold standard as the indispensable foundation of any sound market economy, while others considered it a relic of past ages. While the issue of the gold standard faded away quite quickly, the issue of God – or, more exactly, of religion and liberalism – was doomed to stay well alive in our Society. I believe that there are good reasons for assuming that bioethical and biotechnological issues will increasingly play a similar role amongst our members and, more generally, amongst liberal intellectuals. As a matter of fact, bioethical and biotechnological issues seem to call for a deep re-consideration of some of the basic moral, political, and even economic concepts that are traditionally associated with the liberal view of man and society.