Moral Pluralism and Christian Bioethics: On H.T. Engelhardt Jr.'s After God

This article retraces progression of Engelhardt’s work so as to place After God in broader context. In The Foundations of Bioethics, Engelhardt argues that given the moral pluralism that is at the core of postmodernity, only a merely formal morality of permission can bind moral strangers in peaceful coexistence. In The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, Engelhardt presents a bioethics that binds Orthodox Christian moral friends. After God shows itself more pessimistic about the possibility of a merely formal morality of moral friends and calls traditional Christians to wage a culture war. These reflections close with some criticisms of Engelhardt’s philosophical-theological project.