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 Bioethics
Principles, Issues, and Cases
Fourth Edition

Lewis Vaughn

New York Oxford

OX F OR D U N I V E R SI T Y PR E S S

vau03268_fm_i-xii.indd i 05/15/19 12:27 PM

viii Contents
“Cloning Human Beings: An Assessment
of the Ethical Issues Pro and Con,”
Dan W. Brock 551
Chapter 9
genetic choices 562
Genes and Genomes 562
Genetic Testing 563
In Depth: Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Tests 566
Gene Therapy 570
Fact File: Available Genetic Tests for
Cancer Risk 571
Fact File: Recent Research Breakthroughs
in Gene Therapy 574
Stem Cells 575
Applying Major Theories 577
Classic Case File: The Kingsburys 578
Key Terms 579
Summary 579
Cases for Evaluation 579
Further Reading 582
Notes 582
readings 583
“Implications of Prenatal Diagnosis for the
Human Right to Life,” Leon R. Kass 583
“Genetics and Reproductive Risk: Can Having
Children Be Immoral?” Laura M. Purdy 587
“The Morality of Screening for Disability,”
Jeff McMahan 594
“Genetic Dilemmas and the Child’s Right to an
Open Future,” Dena S. Davis 598
“Disowning Knowledge: Issues in Genetic
Testing,” Robert Wachbroit 608
“The Non-Identity Problem and Genetic
Harms—The Case of Wrongful Handicaps,”
Dan W. Brock 612
“Is Gene Therapy a Form of Eugenics?”
John Harris 616
“Genetic Enhancement,” Walter Glannon 622
vau03268_fm_i-xii.indd viii
“Genetic Interventions and the Ethics of
Enhancement of Human Beings,” Julian
Savulescu 627
“Germ-Line Gene Therapy,” LeRoy Walters and
Julie Gage Palmer 636
“What Does ‘Respect for Embryos’ Mean
in the Context of Stem Cell Research?”
Bonnie Steinbock 643
Declaration on the Production and the Scientific
and Therapeutic Use of Human Embryonic
Stem Cells, Pontifical Academy for Life 646
Chapter 10
euthanasia and physician-assisted
suicide 648
Deciding Life and Death 649
Legal Brief: Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide:
Major Developments 651
In Depth: Assisted Suicide: What Do Doctors
Think? 652
Autonomy, Mercy, and Harm 653
In Depth: Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act 655
In Depth: End-of-Life Decisions in the
Netherlands 657
Applying Major Theories 657
In Depth: Physician-Assisted Suicide and Public
Opinion 658
Classic Case File: Nancy Cruzan 659
Key Terms 660
Summary 660
Cases for Evaluation 661
Further Reading 664
Notes 665
readings 666
“Death and Dignity: A Case of Individualized
Decision Making,”
Timothy E. Quill 666
“Voluntary Active Euthanasia,” Dan W. Brock 670
“When Self-Determination Runs Amok,”
Daniel Callahan 682
05/15/19 12:27 PM

“Physician-Assisted Suicide: A Tragic View,”
John D. Arras 687
“Active and Passive Euthanasia,” James
Rachels 702
“Dying at the Right Time: Reflections on
(Un)Assisted Suicide,” John Hardwig 706
“The Philosophers’ Brief,” Ronald Dworkin, Thomas
Nagel, Robert Nozick, John Rawls, Thomas
Scanlon, and Judith Jarvis Thomson 717
“Legalizing Assisted Dying Is Dangerous
for Disabled People,” Liz Carr 725
“  ‘For Now Have I My Death’: The ‘Duty to Die’
Versus the Duty to Help the Ill Stay Alive,”
Felicia Ackerman 727
Vacco v. Quill, United States Supreme Court 738
Part 4. ​Justice and Health Care
Chapter 11
dividing up health care
resources 743
Health Care in Trouble 743
In Depth: Unequal Health Care for
Minorities 746
Fact File: U.S. Health Care 747
Theories of Justice 748
In Depth: Comparing Health Care Systems:
United States, Canada, and
Germany 749
Fact File: Poll: The Public’s Views on the ACA
(“Obamacare”) 751
A Right to Health Care 752
In Depth: Public Health and Bioethics 753
vau03268_fm_i-xii.indd ix
Contents ix
The Ethics of Rationing 754
Classic Case File: Christine deMeurers 756
Key Terms 758
Summary 758
Cases for Evaluation 759
Further Reading 761
Notes 762
readings 763
“Is There a Right to Health Care and, if So, What
Does It Encompass?,” Norman Daniels 763
“The Right to a Decent Minimum of Health
Care,” Allen E. Buchanan 770
“Rights to Health Care, Social Justice, and Fairness
in Health Care Allocations: Frustrations in the
Face of Finitude,” H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. 776
“Mirror, Mirror 2017: International Comparison
Reflects Flaws and Opportunities for Better
U.S. Health Care,” Eric C. Schneider, Dana O.
Sarnak, David Squires, et al. 784
“Public Health Ethics: Mapping the Terrain,”
James F. Childress et al. 788
“Human Rights Approach to Public Health
Policy,” D. Tarantola and S. Gruskin 799
Appendix 811
Glossary 813
Index 815
05/15/19 01:53 PM
 P R E FAC E
This fourth edition of Bioethics embodies all the features
that have made it a best-selling textbook and includes all
the most important changes and improvements that
dozens of teachers have asked for recently and over the
years. The book is, therefore, better than ever. And if it
isn’t, let even more good teachers say so and let the cor-
rections and enhancements continue. And may the book
remain, as so many teachers have said, exactly suitable to
their teaching approach.
Bioethics provides in-depth discussions of the
philosophical, medical, scientific, social, and legal
aspects of controversial bioethical issues and
combines this material with a varied collection of
thought-provoking readings. But on this foundation
are laid elements that other texts sometimes forgo:
1. An extensive introduction to ethics, bioethics,
moral principles, critical thinking, and moral
reasoning
2. Full coverage of influential moral theories,
including criteria and guidelines for evaluat-
ing them (the focus is on utilitarianism,
­Kantian ethics, natural law theory, Rawls’
contract theory, virtue ethics, the ethics of
care, and feminist ethics)
3. Detailed examinations of the classic cases
that have helped shape debate in major issues
4. Collections of current, news-making cases for
evaluation
5. Many pedagogical features to engage students
and reinforce lessons in the main text
6. Writing that strives hard for clarity and conci-
sion to convey both the excitement and com-
plexity of issues without sacrificing accuracy
topics and readings
Nine chapters cover many of the most controversial
issues in bioethics, detailing the main arguments and
vau03268_fm_i-xii.indd x
filling out the discussions with background on the
latest medical, legal, and social developments. The
main issues include paternalism and patient auton-
omy, truth-telling, confidentiality, informed consent,
research ethics, clinical trials, abortion, assisted re-
production, surrogacy, cloning, genetic testing, gene
therapy, stem cells, euthanasia, physician-assisted
suicide, and the just allocation of health care.
Every issues chapter contains five to twelve read-
ings, with each selection prefaced by a brief s­ ummary.
The a­ rticles—old standards as well as new ones—
reflect the major arguments and latest thinking in
each debate. They present a diversity of perspectives
on each topic, with pro and con positions well rep-
resented. In most cases, the relevant court rulings
are also included.
special features
A two-chapter introduction to bioethics, moral
reasoning, moral theories, and critical thinking.
These chapters are designed not only to introduce
the subject matter of bioethics but also to add co-
herence to subsequent chapter material and to
provide the student with a framework for thinking
critically about issues and cases. Chapter 1 is an in­
troduction to basic ethical concepts, the field of
bioethics, moral principles and judgments, moral
reasoning and arguments, the challenges of rela-
tivism, and the relationship between ethics and
both religion and the law. Chapter 2 explores moral
theory, shows how theories relate to moral princi-
ples and judgments, examines influential theories
(including virtue ethics, the ethics of care, and
feminist ethics), and demonstrates how they can be
applied to moral problems. It also explains how to
evaluate moral theories using plausible criteria of
adequacy.
05/15/19 12:27 PM
 Preface xi

Helpful chapter elements. Each issues chapter • Annette C. Baier, “The Need for More Than
contains: Justice”
• Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Linda L. Emanuel,
1. Analyses of the most important arguments
“Four Models of the Physician-Patient
offered by the various parties to the debate.
Relationship”
They reinforce and illustrate the lessons on
• Dax Cowart and Robert Burt, “Confronting
moral reasoning in Chapter 1.
Death: Who Chooses, Who Controls? A Di-
2. A section called “Applying Major Theories”
alogue Between Dax Cowart and Robert
showing how the moral theories can be ­applied
Burt”
to the issues. It ties the discussions of moral
• Harriet Hall, “Paternalism Revisited”
theories in Chapter 2 to the moral problems and
• Angus Chen, “Is It Time to Stop Using Race
illustrates the theories’ relevance.
in Medical Research?”
3. A section labeled “Classic Case File” that
• Liz Carr, “Legalizing Assisted Dying Is
­examines in detail a famous bioethics case. The
Dangerous for Disabled People”
stories covered in these sections include those
• Felicia Ackerman, “‘For Now I Have My
of Elizabeth Bouvia, Jerry Canterbury, Nancy
Death’: The ‘Duty to Die’ Versus the Duty to
Klein, Baby M, Nancy Cruzan, the Kingsburys,
Help the Ill Stay Alive”
Christine deMeurers, and the UCLA Schizo-
• Eric C. Schneider, Dana O. Sarnak, David
phrenia Study. These are in ­addition to many
Squires, et al., “Mirror, Mirror 2017: Interna-
other controversial cases covered elsewhere in
tional Comparison Reflects Flaws and Op-
the book—for example, the Terri Schiavo con-
portunities for Better U.S. Health Care”
troversy, the Tuskegee tragedy, the Willow-
Clarifications and Further Discussions
brook experiments, and the U.S. government’s
• Principlism and prima facie principles
human radiation studies.
• Feminist ethics
4. A bank of “Cases for Evaluation” at the end
• Abortion and Judaism
of each chapter. These are recent news stories
• Research on euthanasia in Oregon and the
followed by discussion questions. They give stu-
Netherlands
dents the chance to test their moral ­reasoning
• End-of-life decisions in the Netherlands
on challenging new scenarios that range across
(statistics)
a broad spectrum of current topics.
• Advance directives
A diverse package of pedagogical aids. Each Updates
issues chapter contains a chapter summary, sugges- • Important informed consent cases
tions for further reading, and a variety of text boxes. • U.S. abortion (statistics)
The boxes are mainly of three types: • Abortion and public opinion (survey)
• Recent breakthroughs in gene therapy
1. “In Depth”—additional information, illustra-
• Euthanasia and assisted suicide: major
tions, or analyses of matters touched on in
developments
the main text.
• Assisted suicide: What do doctors think?
2. “Fact File”—statistics on the social, medical,
(survey)
and scientific aspects of the chapter’s topic.
• Public opinion: physician-assisted suicide
3. “Legal Brief”—summaries of important court rul-
(survey)
ings or updates on the status of legislation.
• Health care: the uninsured, per capita
spending, U.S. health care quality
new to this edition
• Comparing health care systems: U.S.,
Ten New Readings Canada, Germany
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Books I and II • Public opinion: views on the ACA
• Nel Noddings, “Caring” (“Obamacare”)

vau03268_fm_i-xii.indd xi 05/16/19 02:47 PM

xii Preface
ancillaries
The Oxford University Press Ancillary Resource Center
(ARC) at www.oup-arc.com/vaughn-bioethics-4e
houses an Instructor’s Manual with Test Bank and
PowerPoint Lecture Outlines for instructor use. Stu-
dent resources are available on the companion website
at www.oup.com/us/vaughn and include self-quizzes,
flashcards, and helpful web links.
acknowledgments
This edition of the text is measurably better than
the first thanks to the good people at Oxford Uni-
versity Press—especially my editor Robert Miller
and assistant editor Alyssa Palazzo—and many
reviewers:
Keith Abney, Polytechnic State University
at San Luis Obispo
Kim Amer, DePaul University
Jami L. Anderson, University of Michigan
Carol Isaacson Barash, Boston University
Deb Bennett-Woods, Regis University
Don Berkich, Texas A&M University
Stephan Blatti, University of Memphis
William Bondeson, University of Missouri,
Columbia
Lori Brown, Eastern Michigan University
David W. Concepción, Ball State University
Catherine Coverston, Brigham Young
University
Russell DiSilvestro, Assistant Professor,
­California State University, Sacramento
John Doris, Washington University in St. Louis
Denise Dudzinski, University of Washington
School of Medicine
Craig Duncan, Ithaca College
Anne Edwards, Austin Peay State University
John Elia, University of Georgia
Christy Flanagan-Feddon, Regis University
Jacqueline Fox, University of South Carolina
School of Law
vau03268_fm_i-xii.indd xii
Leslie P. Francis, University of Utah
Devin Frank, University of Missouri–Columbia
Kathryn M. Ganske, Shenandoah University
Martin Gunderson, Macalester College
Helen Habermann, University of Arizona
Stephen Hanson, University of Louisville
Karey Harwood, North Carolina State
University
Sheila R. Hollander, University of Memphis
Scott James, University of North Carolina,
Wilmington
James Joiner, Northern Arizona University
William P. Kabasenche, Washington State
University
Susan Levin, Smith College
Margaret Levvis, Central Connecticut State
University
Burden S. Lundgren, Old Dominion University
Joan McGregor, Arizona State University
Tristram McPherson, Virginia Tech
Jonathan K. Miles, Bowling Green State
University
James Lindemann Nelson, Michigan State
University
Thomas Nenon, University of Memphis
Laura Newhart, Eastern Kentucky University
Steve Odmark, Century College
Assya Pascalev, Howard University
Viorel Pâslaru, University of Dayton
David J. Paul, Western Michigan University
Anthony Preus, Binghamton University
Susan M. Purviance, University of Toledo
Sara Schuman, Washtenaw Community College
David Schwan, Bowling Green State University
Anita Silvers, San Francisco State University
M. Josephine Snider, University of Florida
Joseph Wellbank, Northeastern University
Gladys B. White, Georgetown University
David Yount, Mesa Community College
05/15/19 12:27 PM
 Principles and Theories
1

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vau03268_ch01_001-033.indd 2 05/02/19 07:36 PM
 CHAP TER 1
Moral Reasoning in Bioethics
Any serious and rewarding exploration of bio-
ethics is bound to be a challenging journey.
What makes the trip worthwhile? As you might
expect, this entire text is a long answer to that
question. You therefore may not fully appreciate
the trek until you have already hiked far along
the trail. The short answer comes in three parts.
First, bioethics—​like ethics, its parent disci-
pline—​is about morality, and morality is about
life. Morality is part of the unavoidable, bitter-
sweet drama of being persons who think and feel
and choose. Morality concerns beliefs regarding
morally right and wrong actions and morally
good and bad persons or character. Whether we
like it or not, we seem confronted continually
with the necessity to deliberate about right and
wrong, to judge someone morally good or bad,
to agree or disagree with the moral pronounce-
ments of others, to accept or reject the moral
outlook of our culture or community, and
even to doubt or affirm the existence or nature
of moral concepts themselves. Moral issues are
thus inescapable—​including (or especially) those
that are the focus of bioethics. In the twenty-first
century, few can remain entirely untouched by
the pressing moral questions of fair distribution
of health care resources, abortion and infanti-
cide, euthanasia and assisted suicide, exploitative
research on children and populations in devel-
oping countries, human cloning and genetic en-
gineering, assisted reproduction and surrogate
parenting, prevention and treatment of HIV/
AIDS, the confidentiality and consent of patients,
the refusal of medical treatment on religious
grounds, experimentation on human embryos
and fetuses, and the just allocation of scarce life-
saving organs.
vau03268_ch01_001-033.indd 3
Second, it would be difficult to imagine moral
issues more important—​more closely gathered
around the line between life and death, health
and illness, pain and relief, hope and despair—​
than those addressed by bioethics. Whatever
our view of these questions, there is little doubt
that they matter immensely. Whatever answers
we give will surely have weight, however they fall.
Third, as a systematic study of such ques-
tions, bioethics holds out the possibility of an-
swers. The answers may or may not be to our
liking; they may confirm or confute our precon-
ceived notions; they may take us far or not far
enough. But, as the following pages will show,
the trail has more light than shadow—​ and
thinking critically and carefully about the prob-
lems can help us see our way forward.
ethics and bioethics
Morality is about people’s moral judgments,
principles, rules, standards, and theories—​a ll of
which help direct conduct, mark out moral prac­
tices, and provide the yardsticks for measuring
moral worth. We use morality to refer gener-
ally to these aspects of our lives (as in “Morality
is essential”) or more specifically to the beliefs
or practices of particular groups or persons (as
in “American morality” or “Kant’s morality”).
Moral, of course, pertains to morality as just
­defined, though it is also sometimes employed
as a synonym for right or good, just as immoral
is often meant to be equivalent to wrong or bad.
Ethics, as used in this text, is not synonymous with
morality. Ethics is the study of morality using the
tools and methods of philosophy. Philosophy is
a discipline that systematically examines life’s
05/02/19 07:36 PM
4 PA R T 1: P R I N C I P L E S A N D T H E O R I E S
big questions through critical reasoning, logical
argument, and careful reflection. Thus ethics—​
also known as moral philosophy—​is a reasoned
way of delving into the meaning and import of
moral concepts and issues and of evaluating the
merits of moral judgments and standards. (As
with morality and moral, we may use ethics to
say such things as “Kant’s ethics” or may use
ethical or unethical to mean right or wrong,
good or bad.) Ethics seeks to know whether an
action is right or wrong, what moral standards
should guide our conduct, whether moral prin-
ciples can be justified, what moral virtues are
worth cultivating and why, what ultimate ends
people should pursue in life, whether there are
good reasons for accepting a particular moral
theory, and what the meaning is of such notions
as right, wrong, good, and bad. Whenever we try
to reason carefully about such things, we enter
the realm of ethics: We do ethics.
Science offers another way to study morality,
and we must carefully distinguish this approach
from that of moral philosophy. Descriptive
ethics is the study of morality using the meth-
odology of science. Its purpose is to investigate
the empirical facts of morality—​the actual be-
liefs, behaviors, and practices that constitute
people’s moral experience. Those who carry out
these inquiries (usually anthropologists, sociol-
ogists, historians, and psychologists) want to
know, among other things, what moral beliefs a
person or group has, what caused the subjects to
have them, and how the beliefs influence behav-
ior or social interaction. Very generally, the dif-
ference between ethics and descriptive ethics is
this: In ethics we ask, as Socrates did, How ought
we to live? In descriptive ethics we ask, How do
we in fact live?
Ethics is a big subject, so we should not be
surprised that it has three main branches, each
dealing with more or less separate but related
sets of ethical questions. Normative ethics is the
search for, and justification of, moral standards,
or norms. Most often the standards are moral
principles, rules, virtues, and theories, and the
lofty aim of this branch is to establish rationally
vau03268_ch01_001-033.indd 4
some or all of these as proper guides for our ac-
tions and judgments. In normative ethics, we
ask questions like these: What moral principles,
if any, should inform our moral judgments?
What role should virtues play in our lives? Is the
principle of autonomy justified? Are there any
exceptions to the moral principle of “do not
kill”? How should we resolve conflicts between
moral norms? Is contractarianism a good moral
theory? Is utilitarianism a better theory?
A branch that deals with much deeper ethical
issues is metaethics. Metaethics is the study of
the meaning and justification of basic moral be-
liefs. In normative ethics we might ask whether
an action is right or whether a person is good,
but in metaethics we would more likely ask what
it means for an action to be right or for a person
to be good. For example, does right mean has the
best consequences, or produces the most happi-
ness, or commanded by God? It is the business of
metaethics to explore these and other equally
fundamental questions: What, if anything, is
the difference between moral and nonmoral be-
liefs? Are there such things as moral facts? If so,
what sort of things are they, and how can they
be known? Can moral statements be true or
false—​or are they just expressions of emotions
or attitudes without any truth value? Can moral
norms be justified or proven?
The third main branch is applied ethics, the
use of moral norms and concepts to resolve
practical moral issues. Here, the usual challenge
is to employ moral principles, theories, argu-
ments, or analyses to try to answer moral ques-
tions that confront people every day. Many such
questions relate to a particular professional field
such as law, business, or journalism, so we have
specialized subfields of applied ethics like legal
ethics, business ethics, and journalistic ethics.
Probably the largest and most energetic subfield
is bioethics.
Bioethics is applied ethics focused on health
care, medical science, and medical technology.
(Biomedical ethics is often used as a synonym,
and medical ethics is a related but narrower term
used most often to refer to ethical problems in
05/02/19 07:36 PM

medical practice.) Ranging far and wide, bio-
ethics seeks answers to a vast array of tough
ethical questions: Is abortion ever morally per-
missible? Is a woman justified in having an abor-
tion if prenatal genetic testing reveals that her
fetus has a developmental defect? Should people
be allowed to select embryos by the embryos’ sex
or other genetic characteristics? Should human
embryos be used in medical research? Should
human cloning be prohibited? Should physicians,
nurses, physicians’ assistants, and other health
care professionals always be truthful with patients
whatever the consequences? Should severely im-
paired newborns be given life-prolonging treat-
ment or be allowed to die? Should people in
persistent vegetative states be removed from life
support? Should physicians help terminally ill
­patients commit suicide? Is it morally right to con­
duct medical research on patients without their
consent if the research would save lives? Should
human stem-cell research be banned? How
should we decide who gets life-saving organ trans­
plants when usable organs are scarce and many
patients who do not get transplants will die?
Should animals be used in biomedical research?
The ethical and technical scope of bioethics is
wide. Bioethical questions and deliberations
now fall to nonexpert and expert alike—​to pa-
tients, families, and others as well as to philoso-
phers, health care professionals, lawyers, judges,
scientists, clergy, and public policy specialists.
Though the heart of bioethics is moral philoso-
phy, fully informed bioethics cannot be done
without a good understanding of the relevant
nonmoral facts and issues, especially the medi-
cal, scientific, technological, and legal ones.
ethics and the moral life
Morality then is a normative, or evaluative, enter-
prise. It concerns moral norms or standards that
help us decide the rightness of actions, judge the
goodness of persons or character, and prescribe the
form of moral conduct. There are, of course, other
sorts of norms we apply in life—​nonmoral norms.
Aesthetic norms help us make value judg­ments
vau03268_ch01_001-033.indd 5
Chapter 1: Moral Reasoning in Bioethics 5
about art; norms of etiquette about polite social
behavior; grammatical norms about correct use
of language; prudential norms about what is in
one’s interests; and legal norms about lawful and
unlawful acts. But moral norms differ from these
nonmoral kinds. Some of the features they are
thought to possess include the following.
Normative Dominance. In our moral practice,
moral norms are presumed to dominate other
kinds of norms, to take precedence over them.
Philosophers call this characteristic of moral
norms overridingness because moral consider-
ations so often seem to override other factors.
A maxim of prudence, for example, may suggest
that you should steal if you can avoid getting
caught, but a moral prohibition against stealing
would overrule such a principle. An aesthetic (or
pragmatic) norm implying that homeless people
should be thrown in jail for blocking the view of
a beautiful public mural would have to yield to
moral principles demanding more humane treat-
ment of the homeless. A law mandating brutal
actions against a minority group would conflict
with moral principles of justice and would there-
fore be deemed illegitimate. We usually think
that immoral laws are defective, that they need to
be changed, or that, in rare cases, they should be
defied through acts of civil disobedience.
Universality. Moral norms (but not exclusively
moral norms) have universality: Moral princi-
ples or judgments apply in all relevantly similar
situations. If it is wrong for you to tell a lie in
a particular circumstance, then it is wrong for
everyone in relevantly similar circumstances to
tell a lie. Logic demands this sort of consistency.
It makes no sense to say that Maria’s doing
action A in circumstances C is morally wrong,
but John’s doing A in circumstances relevantly
similar to C is morally right. Universality, how-
ever, is not unique to moral norms; it’s a charac-
teristic of all normative spheres.
Impartiality. Implicit in moral norms is the
notion of impartiality—​the idea that everyone
05/02/19 07:36 PM
6 PA R T 1: P R I N C I P L E S A N D T H E O R I E S
should be considered equal, that everyone’s inter-
ests should count the same. From the perspective
of morality, no person is any better than any
other. Everyone should be treated the same unless
there is a morally relevant difference between
persons. We probably would be completely baf-
fled if someone seriously said something like
“murder is wrong . . . except when committed by
myself,” when there was no morally relevant dif-
ference between that person and the rest of the
world. If we took such a statement seriously at all,
we would likely not only reject it but also would
not even consider it a bona fide moral statement.
The requirement of moral impartiality pro-
hibits discrimination against people merely be-
cause they are different—​different in ways that
are not morally relevant. Two people can be dif-
ferent in many ways: skin color, weight, gender,
income, age, occupation, and so forth. But these
are not differences relevant to the way they
should be treated as persons. On the other hand,
if there are morally relevant differences between
people, then we may have good reasons to treat
them differently, and this treatment would not
be a violation of impartiality. This is how phi-
losopher James Rachels explains the point:
The requirement of impartiality, then, is at
bottom nothing more than a proscription against
arbitrariness in dealing with people. It is a rule
that forbids us from treating one person differ-
ently from another when there is no good reason
to do so. But if this explains what is wrong with
racism, it also explains why, in some special
kinds of cases, it is not racist to treat people dif-
ferently. Suppose a film director was making a
movie about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.
He would have a perfectly good reason for ruling
out Tom Cruise for the starring role. Obviously,
such casting would make no sense. Because there
would be a good reason for it, the director’s “dis-
crimination” would not be arbitrary and so
would not be open to criticism.1
Reasonableness. To participate in morality—​to
engage in the essential, unavoidable practices of
vau03268_ch01_001-033.indd 6
the moral life—​is to do moral reasoning. If our
moral judgments are to have any weight at all, if
they are to be anything more than mere per-
sonal taste or knee-jerk emotional response,
they must be backed by the best of reasons. They
must be the result of careful reflection in which
we arrive at good reasons for accepting them,
reasons that could be acknowledged as such by
any other reasoning persons.
Both logic and our commonsense moral ex-
perience demand that the thorough sifting of
reasons constitutes the main work of our moral
deliberations—​regardless of our particular moral
outlook or theory. We would think it odd, per-
haps even perverse, if someone asserted that
physician-assisted suicide is always morally
wrong—​and then said she has no reasons at all for
believing such a judgment but just does. What-
ever our views on physician-assisted suicide, we
would be justified in ignoring her judgment, for
we would have no way to distinguish it from
personal whim or wishful thinking. Likewise she
herself (if she genuinely had no good reasons for
her assertion) would be in the same boat, adrift
with a firm opinion moored to nothing solid.
Our feelings, of course, are also part of our
moral experience. When we ponder a moral
issue we care about (abortion, for example), we
may feel anger, sadness, disgust, fear, irritation,
or sympathy. Such strong emotions are normal
and often useful, helping us empathize with
others, deepening our understanding of human
suffering, and sharpening our insight into the
consequences of our moral decisions. But our
feelings can mislead us by reflecting not moral
truth but our own psychological needs, our own
personal or cultural biases, or our concern for
personal advantage. Throughout history, some
people’s feelings led them to conclude that
women should be burned for witchcraft, that
whole races should be exterminated, that black
men should be lynched, and that adherents of a
different religion were evil. Critical reasoning
can help restrain such terrible impulses. It can
help us put our feelings in proper perspective
and achieve a measure of impartiality. Most of
05/02/19 07:36 PM

I N D E P TH
MORALITY AND THE LAW
Some people confuse morality with the law, or iden-
tify the one with the other, but the two are distinct
though they may often coincide. Laws are norms
enacted or enforced by the state to protect or pro-
mote the public good. They specify which actions
are legally right or wrong. But these same actions
can also be judged morally right or wrong, and these
two kinds of judgments will not necessarily agree.
Lying to a friend about a personal matter, deliberately
trying to destroy yourself through reckless living, or
failing to save a drowning child (when you easily
could have) may be immoral—​but not illegal. Racial
bias, discrimination based on gender or sexual orien-
tation, slavery, spousal rape, and unequal treatment
of minority groups are immoral—​but, depending on
the society, they may not be illegal.
Much of the time, however, morality and the law
overlap. Often what is immoral also turns out to be
illegal. This is usually the case when immoral actions
cause substantial harm to others, whether physical
all, it can guide us to moral judgments that are
trustworthy because they are supported by the
best of reasons.
The moral life, then, is about grappling with a
distinctive class of norms marked by normative
dominance, universality, impartiality, and rea-
sonableness. As we saw earlier, these norms can
include moral principles, rules, theories, and
judgments. We should notice that we commonly
apply these norms to two distinct spheres of our
moral experience—​ to both moral obligations
and moral values.
Moral obligations concern our duty, what we
are obligated to do. That is, obligations are about
conduct, how we ought or ought not to behave.
In this sphere, we talk primarily about actions.
We may look to moral principles or rules to
guide our actions, or study a moral theory that
vau03268_ch01_001-033.indd 7
Chapter 1: Moral Reasoning in Bioethics 7
or economic. Thus murder and embezzlement are
both immoral and illegal, backed by social disapproval
and severe sanctions imposed by law. Controversy
often arises when an action is not obviously or seri-
ously harmful but is considered immoral by some who
want the practice prohibited by law. The conten-
tious notion at work is that something may be made
illegal solely on the grounds that it is immoral, re-
gardless of any physical or economic harm involved.
This view of the law is known as legal moralism, and
it sometimes underlies debates about the legalization
of abortion, euthanasia, reproductive technology,
con­traception, and other practices.
Many issues in bioethics have both a moral and
legal dimension, and it is important not to confuse
the two. Sometimes the question at hand is a moral
one (whether, for example, euthanasia is ever morally
permissible); whether a practice should be legal or
illegal then is beside the point. Sometimes the ques-
tion is about legality. And sometimes the discussion
concerns both. A person may consider physician-
assisted suicide morally acceptable but argue that it
should nevertheless be illegal because allowing the
practice to become widespread would harm both
patients and the medical profession.
purports to explain right actions, or make judg-
ments about right or wrong actions.
Moral values, on the other hand, generally
concern those things that we judge to be morally
good, bad, praiseworthy, or blameworthy. Nor-
mally we use such words to describe persons (as
in “He is a good person” or “She is to blame for
hurting them”), their character (“He is virtu-
ous”; “She is honest”), or their motives (“She did
wrong but did not mean to”). Note that we also
attribute nonmoral value to things. If we say that
a book or bicycle or vacation is good, we mean
good in a nonmoral sense. Such things in them-
selves cannot have moral value.
Strictly speaking, only actions are morally
right or wrong, but persons are morally good or
bad (or some degree of goodness or badness).
With this distinction we can acknowledge a
05/02/19 07:36 PM
8 PA R T 1: P R I N C I P L E S A N D T H E O R I E S
simple fact of the moral life: A good person can
do something wrong, and a bad person can do
something right. A Gandhi can tell a lie, and a
Hitler can save a drowning man.
In addition, we may judge an action right or
wrong depending on the motive behind it. If
John knocks a stranger down in the street to pre-
vent her from being hit by a car, we would deem
his action right (and might judge him a good
person). But if he knocks her down because he
dislikes the color of her skin, we would believe
his action wrong (and likely think him evil).
The general meaning of right and wrong seems
clear to just about everyone. But we should be
careful to differentiate degrees of meaning in
these moral terms. Right can mean either “obliga-
tory” or “permissible.” An obligatory action is one
that would be wrong not to perform. We are obli-
gated or required to do it. A permissible action is
one that is permitted. It is not wrong to perform it.
Wrong means “prohibited.” A prohibited action is
one that would be wrong to perform. We are obli-
gated or required not to do it. A supererogatory
action is one that is “above and beyond” our duty.
It is praiseworthy—​a good thing to do—​but not
required. Giving all your possessions to the poor
is generally considered a supererogatory act.
moral principles in bioethics
As noted earlier, the main work of bioethics is
trying to solve bioethical problems using the
potent resources and methods of moral phi-
losophy, which include, at a minimum, critical
­reasoning, logical argument, and conceptual
analysis. Many, perhaps most, moral philoso-
phers would be quick to point out that beyond
these tools of reason we also have the consider-
able help of moral principles. (The same could be
said about moral theories, which we explore in
the next chapter.) Certainly to be useful, moral
principles must be interpreted, often filled out
with specifics, and balanced with other moral
concerns. But both in everyday life and in bio-
ethics, moral principles are widely thought to be
indispensable to moral decision-making.
vau03268_ch01_001-033.indd 8
We can see appeals to moral principles in
countless cases. Confronted by a pain-racked,
terminally ill patient who demands to have his
life ended, his physician refuses to comply, rely-
ing on the principle that “it is wrong to inten-
tionally take a life.” Another physician makes a
different choice in similar circumstances, insist-
ing that the relevant principle is “ending the suf-
fering of a hopelessly ill patient is morally
permissible.” An infant is born anencephalic
(without a brain); it will never have a conscious
life and will die in a few days. The parents decide
to donate the infant’s organs to other children
so they might live, which involves taking the
organs right away before they deteriorate. A
critic of the parents’ decision argues that “it is
unethical to kill in order to save.” But someone
else appeals to the principle “save as many chil-
dren as possible.”2 In such ways moral principles
help guide our actions and inform our judg-
ments about right and wrong, good and evil.
As discussed in Chapter 2, moral principles
are often drawn from a moral theory, which is a
moral standard on the most general level. The
principles are derived from or supported by the
theory. Many times we simply appeal directly to
a plausible moral principle without thinking
much about its theoretical underpinnings.
Philosophers make a distinction between ab-
solute and prima facie principles (or duties). An
absolute principle applies without exceptions.
An absolute principle that we should not lie de-
mands that we never lie regardless of the cir-
cumstances or the consequences. In contrast, a
prima facie principle applies in all cases unless
an exception is warranted. Exceptions are justi-
fied when the principle conflicts with other
principles and is thereby overridden. W. D. Ross
is given credit for drawing this distinction in his
1930 book The Right and the Good.3 It is essen-
tial to his account of ethics, which has a core of
several moral principles or duties, any of which
might come into conflict.
Physicians have a prima facie duty to be truth­
ful to their patients as well as a prima facie duty
to promote their welfare. But if these duties come
05/02/19 07:36 PM

in conflict—​if, for example, telling a patient the
truth about his condition would somehow result
in his death—​a physician might decide that the
duty of truthfulness should yield to the weight-
ier duty to do good for the patient.
Moral principles are many and varied, but in
bioethics the following have traditionally been
extremely influential and particularly relevant
to the kinds of moral issues that arise in health
care, medical research, and biotechnology. In
fact, many—​perhaps most—​of the thorniest issues
in bioethics arise from conflicts among these
basic principles. In one formulation or another,
each one has been integral to major moral
theories, providing evidence that the principles
capture something essential in our moral expe-
rience. The principles are (1) autonomy, (2) non­
maleficence, (3) beneficence, (4) utility, and
(5) justice.4
Autonomy
Autonomy refers to a person’s rational capacity
for self-governance or self-determination—​ the
ability to direct one’s own life and choose for
­oneself. The principle of autonomy insists on full
­respect for autonomy. One way to express the prin-
ciple is: Autonomous persons should be allowed
to exercise their capacity for self-determination.
According to one major ethical tradition, autono-
mous persons have intrinsic worth precisely
because they have the power to make rational
decisions and moral choices. They therefore must
be treated with respect, which means not violating
their autonomy by ignoring or thwarting their
ability to choose their own paths and make their
own judgments.
The principle of respect for autonomy places
severe restraints on what can be done to an
autonomous person. There are exceptions, but in
general we are not permitted to violate people’s
autonomy just because we disagree with their
decisions, or because society might benefit, or
because the violation is for their own good. We
cannot legitimately impair someone’s autonomy
without strong justification for doing so. Con-
ducting medical experiments on patients without
vau03268_ch01_001-033.indd 9
Chapter 1: Moral Reasoning in Bioethics 9
their consent, treating competent patients against
their will, physically restraining or confining pa-
tients for no medical reason—​such practices con-
stitute obvious violations of personal autonomy.
Not all restrictions on autonomy, however,
are of the physical kind. Autonomy involves the
capacity to make personal choices, but choices
cannot be considered entirely autonomous unless
they are fully informed. When we make decisions
in ignorance—​without relevant information or
blinded by misinformation—​our autonomy is
diminished just as surely as if someone physi-
cally manipulated us. If this is correct, then we
have a plausible explanation of why lying is
generally prohibited: Lying is wrong because it
undermines personal autonomy. Enshrined in
bioethics and in the law, then, is the precept of
informed consent, which demands that patients
be allowed to freely consent to or decline treat-
ments and that they receive the information they
need to make informed judgments about them.
In many ways, autonomy is a delicate thing,
easily compromised and readily thwarted. Often
a person’s autonomy is severely undermined not
by other people but by nature, nurture, or his or
her own actions. Some drug addicts and alcohol-
ics, people with serious psychiatric illness, and
those with severe mental impairment are thought
to have drastically diminished autonomy (or to
be essentially nonautonomous). Bioethical ques-
tions then arise about what is permissible to do
to them and who will represent their interests or
make decisions regarding their care. Infants and
children are also not fully autonomous, and the
same sorts of questions are forced on parents,
guardians, and health care workers.
Like all the other major principles discussed
here, respect for autonomy is thought to be
prima facie. It can sometimes be overridden by
considerations that seem more important or
compelling—​ considerations that philosophers
and other thinkers have formulated as princi-
ples of autonomy restriction. The principles are
articulated in various ways, are applied widely
to all sorts of social and moral issues, and are
themselves the subject of debate. Chief among
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10 PA R T 1: P R I N C I P L E S A N D T H E O R I E S
these is the harm principle: a person’s autonomy
may be curtailed to prevent harm to others. To
prevent people from being victimized by thieves
and murderers, we have a justice system that
prosecutes and imprisons the perpetrators. To
discourage hospitals and health care workers
from hurting patients through carelessness or
fraud, laws and regulations limit what they can
do to people in their care. To stop someone from
spreading a deadly, contagious disease, health
officials may quarantine him against his will.
Another principle of autonomy restriction is
paternalism. Paternalism is the overriding of a
person’s actions or decision-making for her own
good. Some cases of paternalism (sometimes
called weak paternalism) seem permissible to
many people—​when, for example, seriously de-
pressed or psychotic patients are temporarily
restrained to prevent them from injuring or kill-
ing themselves. Other cases are more controver-
sial. Researchers hoping to develop a life-saving
treatment give an experimental drug to some-
one without his knowledge or consent. Or a
physician tries to spare the feelings of a compe-
tent, terminally ill patient by telling her that she
will eventually get better, even though she in-
sists on being told the truth. The paternalism in
such scenarios (known as strong paternalism) is
usually thought to be morally objectionable.
Many controversies in bioethics center on the
morality of strong paternalism.
Nonmaleficence
The principle of nonmaleficence asks us not to
intentionally or unintentionally inflict harm on
others. In bioethics, nonmaleficence is the most
widely recognized moral principle. Its aphoris-
tic expression has been embraced by practitio-
ners of medicine for centuries: “Above all, do no
harm.” A more precise formulation of the prin-
ciple is: We should not cause unnecessary injury
or harm to those in our care. In whatever form,
nonmaleficence is the bedrock precept of count-
less codes of professional conduct, institutional
regulations, and governmental rules and laws
designed to protect the welfare of patients.
vau03268_ch01_001-033.indd 10
A health care professional violates this prin-
ciple if he or she deliberately performs an action
that harms or injures a patient. If a physician
intentionally administers a drug that she knows
will induce a heart attack in a patient, she obvi-
ously violates the principle—she clearly does
something that is morally (and legally) wrong.
But she also violates it if she injures a patient
through recklessness, negligence, or inexcusable
ignorance. She may not intend to hurt anyone,
but she is guilty of the violation just the same.
Implicit in the principle of nonmaleficence is
the notion that health professionals must exer-
cise “due care.” The possibility of causing some
pain, suffering, or injury is inherent in the care
and treatment of patients, so we cannot realisti-
cally expect health professionals never to harm
anyone. But we do expect them to use due care—
to act reasonably and responsibly to minimize
the harm or the chances of causing harm. If a
physician must cause patients some harm to
effect a cure, we expect her to try to produce the
least amount of harm possible to achieve the re-
sults. And even if her treatments cause no actual
pain or injury in a particular instance, we expect
her not to use treatments that have a higher
chance of causing harm than necessary. By the
lights of the nonmaleficence principle, subjecting
patients to unnecessary risks is wrong even if no
damage is done.
Beneficence
The principle of beneficence has seemed to many
to constitute the very soul of morality—​or very
close to it. In its most general form, it says that
we should do good to others. (Benevolence is dif-
ferent, referring more to an attitude of goodwill
toward others than to a principle of right action.)
Beneficence enjoins us to advance the welfare of
others and prevent or remove harm to them.
Beneficence demands that we do more than
just avoid inflicting pain and suffering. It says
that we should actively promote the well-being of
others and prevent or remove harm to them. In
bioethics, there is little doubt that physicians,
nurses, researchers, and other professionals have
05/02/19 07:36 PM

such a duty. After all, helping others, promoting
their good, is a large part of what these profes-
sionals are obliged to do.
But not everyone thinks that we all have a
duty of active beneficence. Some argue that
though there is a general (applicable to all) duty
not to harm others, there is no general duty to
help others. They say we are not obligated to aid
the poor, feed the hungry, or tend to the sick.
Such acts are not required, but are supererogatory,
beyond the call of duty. Others contend that
though we do not have a general duty of active
beneficence, we are at least sometimes obligated
to look to the welfare of people we care about
most—​such as our parents, children, spouses,
and friends. In any case, it is clear that in cer-
tain professions—​particularly medicine, law, and
nursing—​benefiting others is often not just
supererogatory but obligatory and basic.
Utility
The principle of utility says that we should pro-
duce the most favorable balance of good over bad
(or benefit over harm) for all concerned. The prin-
ciple acknowledges that in the real world, we
cannot always just benefit others or just avoid
harming them. Often we cannot do good for
people without also bringing them some harm,
or we cannot help everyone who needs to be
helped, or we cannot help some without also
hurting or neglecting others. In such situations,
the principle says, we should do what yields the
best overall outcome—​the maximum good and
minimum evil, everyone considered. The utility
principle, then, is a supplement to, not a substi-
tute for, the principles of autonomy, beneficence,
and justice.
In ethics this maxim comes into play in sev-
eral ways. Most famously it is the defining pre-
cept of the moral theory known as utilitarianism
(discussed in Chapter 2). But it is also a stand-
alone moral principle applied everywhere in
bio­ethics to help resolve the kind of dilemmas
just mentioned. A physician, for example, must
decide whether a treatment is right for a patient,
and that decision often hinges on whether the
vau03268_ch01_001-033.indd 11
Chapter 1: Moral Reasoning in Bioethics 11
possible benefits of the treatment outweigh its
risks by an acceptable margin. Suppose a man’s
clogged artery can be successfully treated with
open-heart surgery, a procedure that carries a
considerable risk of injury and death. But imag-
ine that the artery can also be successfully
opened with a regimen of cholesterol-lowering
drugs and a low-fat diet, both of which have a
much lower chance of serious complications.
The principle of utility seems to suggest that the
latter course is best and that the former is mor-
ally impermissible.
The principle also plays a major role in the
creation and evaluation of the health policies of
institutions and society. In these large arenas,
most people aspire to fulfill the requirements of
beneficence and maleficence, but they recognize
that perfect beneficence or maleficence is im-
possible: Trade-offs and compromises must be
made, scarce resources must be allotted, help and
harm must be balanced, life and death must be
weighed—​tasks almost always informed by the
principle of utility.
Suppose, for example, we want to mandate
the immunization of all schoolchildren to pre-
vent the spread of deadly communicable dis-
eases. The cost in time and money will be great,
but such a program could save many lives.
There is a down side, however: A small number
of children—​perhaps as many as 2 for every
400,000 immunizations—​w ill die because of a
rare allergic reaction to the vaccine. It is impos-
sible to predict who will have such a reaction
(and impossible to prevent it), but it is almost
certain to occur in a few cases. If our goal is social
beneficence, what should we do? Children are
likely to die whether we institute the program
or not. Guided by the principle of utility (as well
as other principles), we may decide to proceed
with the program since many more lives would
likely be saved by it than lost because of its
implementation.
Again, suppose governmental health agencies
have enough knowledge and resources to de-
velop fully a cure for only one disease—​either a
rare heart disorder or a common form of skin
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12 PA R T 1: P R I N C I P L E S A N D T H E O R I E S
cancer. Trying to split resources between these
two is sure to prevent development of any cure
at all. The heart disorder kills 200 adults each
year; the cancer occurs in thousands of people,
causing them great pain and distress, but is
rarely fatal. How best to maximize the good? On
which disease should the government spend its
time and treasure? Answering this question
(and others like it) requires trying to apply the
utility principle—​a job often involving complex
calculations of costs and benefits and frequently
generating controversy.
Justice
In its broadest sense, justice refers to people get-
ting what is fair or what is their due. In practice,
most of us seem to have a rough idea of what
justice entails in many situations, even if we
cannot articulate exactly what it is. We know,
for example, that it is unjust for a bus driver to
make a woman sit in the back of the bus because
of her religious beliefs, or for a judicial system to
arbitrarily treat one group of citizens more
harshly than others, or for a doctor to care for
some patients but refuse to treat others just be-
cause he dislikes them.
Questions of justice arise in different spheres
of human endeavor. Retributive justice, for ex-
ample, concerns the fair meting out of punish-
ment for wrongdoing. On this matter, some
argue that justice is served only when people are
punished for past wrongs, when they get their
just deserts. Others insist that justice demands
that people be punished not because they de-
serve punishment, but because the punishment
will deter further unacceptable behavior. Dis-
tributive justice concerns the fair distribution
of society’s advantages and disadvantages—​for
example, jobs, income, welfare aid, health care,
rights, taxes, and public service. Distributive jus-
tice is a major issue in bioethics, where many of
the most intensely debated questions are about
who gets health care, what or how much they
should get, and who should pay for it.
Distributive justice is a vast topic, and many
theories have been proposed to identify and
vau03268_ch01_001-033.indd 12
justify the properties, or traits, of just distribu-
tions. A basic precept of most of these theories is
what may plausibly be regarded as the core of
the principle of justice: Equals should be treated
equally. (Recall that this is one of the defining
elements of ethics itself, impartiality.) The idea
is that people should be treated the same unless
there is a morally relevant reason for treating
them differently. We would think it unjust for
a physician or nurse to treat his white diabetic
patients more carefully than he does his black
diabetic patients—​and to do so without a sound
medical reason. We would think it unfair to
award the only available kidney to the trans-
plant candidate who belongs to the “right” po-
litical party or has the best personal relationship
with hospital administrators.
The principle of justice has been at the heart
of debates about just distribution of benefits and
burdens (including health care) for society as a
whole. The disagreements have generally not been
about the legitimacy of the principle, but about
how it should be interpreted. Different theories
of justice try to explain in what respects equals
should be treated equally.
Libertarian theories emphasize personal free-
doms and the right to pursue one’s own social
and economic well-being in a free market with-
out interference from others. Ideally the role
of government is limited to night-watchman
functions—​ the protection of society and free
economic systems from coercion and fraud. All
other social or economic benefits are the respon-
sibility of individuals. Government should not
be in the business of helping the socially or eco-
nomically disadvantaged, for that would require
violating people’s liberty by taking resources
from the haves to give to the have-nots. So uni-
versal health care is out of the question. For the
libertarian, then, people have equal intrinsic
worth, but this does not entitle them to an equal
distribution of economic advantages. Individu-
als are entitled only to what they can acquire
through their own hard work and ingenuity.
Egalitarian theories maintain that a just dis-
tribution is an equal distribution. Ideally, social
05/02/19 07:36 PM

benefits—​whether jobs, food, health care, or
some­thing else—​should be allotted so that every-
one has an equal share. Treating people equally
means making sure everyone has equal access to
certain minimal goods and services. To achieve
this level of equality, individual liberties will
have to be restricted, measures that libertari-
ans would never countenance. In a pure egali-
tarian society, universal health care would be
guaranteed.
Between strict libertarian and egalitarian views
of justice lie some theories that try to achieve a
plausible fusion of both perspectives. With a
nod toward libertarianism, these theories may
exhibit a healthy respect for individual liberty
and limit governmental interference in econo­
mic enterprises. But leaning toward egalitarian-
ism, they may also mandate that the basic needs
of the least well-off citizens be met.
In bioethics, the principle of justice and the
theories used to explain it are constantly being
marshaled to support or reject health care poli-
cies of all kinds. They are frequently used—​along
with other moral principles—​to evaluate, design,
and challenge a wide range of health care pro-
grams and strategies. They are, in other words,
far from being merely academic.
ethical relativism
The commonsense view of morality and moral
standards is this: There are moral norms or
principles that are valid or true for everyone.
This claim is known as moral objectivism, the
idea that at least some moral standards are ob-
jective. Moral objectivism, however, is distinct
from moral absolutism, the belief that objective
moral principles allow no exceptions or must be
applied the same way in all cases and cultures. A
moral objectivist can be absolutist about moral
principles, or she can avoid absolutism by ac-
cepting that moral principles are prima facie. In
any case, most people probably assume some
form of moral objectivism and would not take
seriously any claim implying that valid moral
norms can be whatever we want them to be.
vau03268_ch01_001-033.indd 13
Chapter 1: Moral Reasoning in Bioethics 13
But moral objectivism is directly challenged
by a doctrine that some find extremely appeal-
ing and that, if true, would undermine ethics
itself: ethical relativism. According to this view,
moral standards are not objective but are rela-
tive to what individuals or cultures believe.
There simply are no objective moral truths, only
relative ones. An action is morally right if en-
dorsed by a person or culture and morally wrong
if condemned by a person or culture. So eutha-
nasia is right for person A if he approves of it but
wrong for person B if she disapproves of it, and
the same would go for cultures with similarly
diverging views on the subject. In this way, moral
norms are not discovered but made; the indi-
vidual or culture makes right and wrong. Ethi-
cal relativism pertaining to individuals is known
as subjective relativism, more precisely stated as
the view that right actions are those sanctioned
by a person. Ethical relativism regarding cultures
is called cultural relativism, the view that right
actions are those sanctioned by one’s culture.
In some ways, subjective relativism is a com-
forting position. It relieves individuals of the
burden of serious critical reasoning about mo-
rality. After all, determining right and wrong is
a matter of inventorying one’s beliefs, and any
sincerely held beliefs will do. Morality is essen-
tially a matter of personal taste, which is an ex-
tremely easy thing to establish. Determining
what one’s moral views are may indeed involve
deliberation and analysis—but neither of these
is a necessary requirement for the job. Subjective
relativism also helps people short-circuit the un-
pleasantness of moral debate. The subjective
relativist’s familiar refrain—“That may be your
truth, but it’s not my truth”—has a way of stop-
ping conversations and putting an end to rea-
soned arguments.
The doctrine, however, is difficult to maintain
consistently. On issues that the relativist cares
little about (the moral rightness of gambling,
say), she may be content to point out that moral
norms are relative to each individual and that
“to each his own.” But on more momentous
topics (such as genocide in Africa or the Middle
05/02/19 07:36 PM
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no related content on Scribd:
the place to me. Do you know what I did? I went away before
daylight in order not to see them. What are, in fact, three cohorts?
And if there had been more, what should I have done with them?”[173]
This was speaking like a prudent man and one who knows himself
well. As for Atticus we ask whether he were really sincere in the
ardour that he showed for his cause when we see him obstinately
refuse to serve it. Those grand passions that confine themselves so
prudently in the breast, and never show themselves outwardly, are
with good reason suspected. Perhaps he only wished to enliven a
little that part of spectator that he had reserved for himself by taking
part, up to a certain point, in the excitement of the struggle. The wise
man of Epicurus always remains on the serene heights whence he
tranquilly enjoys the view of shipwrecks and the spectacle of human
conflicts; but he enjoys them from too far off, and the pleasure that
he feels is diminished by the distance. Atticus is more skilful and
understands his pleasure better; he goes into the midst of the fight
itself, he sees it close, and takes part in it, while always sure that he
will retire in time.
The only difficulty he found was to make everybody accept his
neutrality. This difficulty was so much the greater for him as his
conduct especially offended those whose esteem he was the most
anxious to preserve. The republican party, which he preferred, and in
which he reckoned most friends, was much less inclined to pardon
him than that of Caesar. In antiquity itself, and still more in our days,
great praise has been bestowed on that saying of Caesar at the
beginning of the civil war: “He who is not against me is for me,” and
the contrary saying of Pompey has been much blamed: “He who is
not for me is against me.” However, looking at things fairly, this
praise and this blame appear equally unreasonable. Each of the two
rivals, when he expressed himself thus, speaks in character, and their
words were suggested by their position. Caesar, however we may
judge him, came to overturn the established order, and he naturally
was grateful to those who gave him a free hand. What more could he
reasonably ask of them? In reality, those who did not hinder him
served him. But lawful order, established order, considers it has the
right to call upon every one to defend it, and to regard as enemies all
who do not respond to its appeal, for it is a generally recognized
principle that he who does not bring help to the law when openly
attacked before him, makes himself the accomplice of those who
violate it. It was, then, natural that Caesar, on arriving at Rome,
should welcome Atticus and those who had not gone to Pharsalia, as
it was also that those in Pompey’s camp should be very much
irritated against them. Atticus was not much moved by this anger: he
let them talk, those thoughtless and fiery young men who could not
console themselves for having left Rome, and who threatened to
avenge themselves on those who had remained. What did these
menaces matter to him? He was sure that he had preserved the
esteem of the two most important and most respected men of the
party, and he could oppose their testimony to all the indignation of
the rest. Cicero and Brutus, notwithstanding the strength of their
convictions, never blamed him for his conduct, and they appear to
have approved of his not taking part in public affairs. “I know the
honourable and noble character of your sentiments, said Cicero to
him one day when Atticus thought it necessary to defend himself;
there is only one difference between us, and that is, that we have
arranged our lives differently. I know not what ambition made me
desire public office, while motives in no way blameworthy have made
you seek an honourable leisure!”[174] Again, Brutus wrote to him
towards the end of his life: “I am far from blaming you, Atticus; your
age, your character, your family, everything makes you love
repose.”[175]
This good-will on the part of Brutus and Cicero is so much the
more surprising, as they knew very well the mischief such an
example might do to the cause that they defended. The republic did
not perish by the audacity of its enemies alone, but also by the
apathy of its partisans. The sad spectacle it offered for fifty years, the
public sale of dignities, the scandalous violence that took place on
the Forum every time a new law was discussed, the battles that at
each new election stained the Campus Martius with blood, those
armies of gladiators needed for self-defence, all those shameful
disorders, all those base intrigues in which the last strength of Rome
was used up, had completely discouraged honest men. They held
aloof from public life; they had no more relish for power since they
were forced to dispute it with men ready for every violence. It
required Cato’s courage to return to the Forum after having been
received with showers of stones, and having come out with torn robe
and bleeding head. Thus, the more the audacious attempted, the
more the timid let them alone, and from the time of the first
triumvirate and the consulship of Bibulus, it was evident that the
apathy of honest men would deliver the republic over to the
ambitious nobles who desired to dominate it. Cicero saw this clearly,
and in his letters never ceases his bitter railleries against those
indolent rich men, doting on their fish-ponds, who consoled
themselves for the ruin that they foresaw by thinking that they would
save at least their lampreys. In the introduction to the De Republica
he attacks with admirable energy those who, being discouraged
themselves, try to discourage others, who maintain that a man has
the right to withhold his services from his country, and to consult his
own welfare while neglecting that of his country. “Let us not listen,”
says he in finishing, “to that signal for retreat that sounds in our ears,
and would recall those who have already gone to the front.”[176]
Brutus also knew the evil of which the republic was dying, and
complained more than once of the weakness and discouragement of
the Romans. “Believe me,” he wrote, “we are too much afraid of exile,
death, and poverty.”[177] It was Atticus to whom he wrote these noble
words, and yet he does not dream of applying them to him! What
strange charm then did this man possess, what influence did his
friendship exercise, that these two great patriots have thus belied
themselves in his favour, and have so freely pardoned in him what
they condemned in others?
The more we think of it, the less can we imagine the reasons he
could give them to justify his conduct. If he had been one of those
scholars who, wedded to their researches in history or philosophy,
only dwell in the past or the future, and are not really the
contemporaries of the people with whom they live, we might have
understood his not taking part in their struggles since he held
himself aloof from their passions; but we know that, on the contrary,
he had the most lively relish for all the small agitations and obscure
intrigues of the politics of his time. He was anxious to know them, he
excelled in unravelling them, this was the regular food of his
inquisitive mind, and Cicero applied to him by choice when he
wished to know about such matters. He was not one of those gentle
and timid souls, made for reflection and solitude, who have not the
energy necessary for active life. This man of business, of clear and
decided judgment, would, on the contrary, have made an excellent
statesman. To be useful to his country he would only have needed to
employ in its service a little of that activity and intelligence he had
used to enrich himself, and Cicero was right in thinking that he had
the political temperament. And, finally, he had not even left himself
the poor resource of pretending that he sided with no party because
all parties were indifferent to him, and that, having no settled
opinions, he did not know which side to take. He had said the
contrary a hundred times in his letters to Cicero and Brutus; he had
charmed them a hundred times by the ardour of his republican zeal,
and yet he remained quiet when the opportunity came of serving this
government to which he said he was so much attached. Instead of
making a single effort to retard its fall, he was only careful not to be
crushed under its ruins. But if he did not try to defend it, did he, at
least, pay it that last respect of appearing to regret it? Did he show in
any way that, although he had not appeared in the combat, he felt
that he shared in the defeat? Did he know, while he grew old under a
power to which he was forced to submit, how to retire in a dignified
sadness which forces respect even from a conqueror? No, and it is
assuredly this that is most repugnant to us in his life; he showed an
unpleasant eagerness to accommodate himself to the new order of
things. The day after he had himself been proscribed, we see him
become the friend of the proscribers. He lavishes all the charms of
his mind on them, assiduously frequents their houses, attends all
their fêtes. However habituated we may be to see him welcome all
triumphant governments, we cannot get used to the notion that the
friend of Brutus and the confidant of Cicero should become so
quickly the familiar of Antony and Octavius. Those most disposed to
indulgence will certainly think that those illustrious friendships
created duties which he did not fulfil, and that it was a treason to the
memory of these men who had honoured him with their friendship,
to choose just their executioners as their successors.
If we are not disposed to show ourselves as indulgent towards him
as Cicero and Brutus, with still more reason shall we not partake in
the naïve enthusiasm that he inspires in Cornelius Nepos. This
indulgent biographer is only struck, in the whole life of his hero, with
the happy chance by which he escaped such great dangers. He cannot
get over his surprise when he sees him, from the time of Sulla to that
of Augustus, withdraw himself from so many civil wars, survive so
many proscriptions, and preserve himself so skilfully where so many
others perished. “If we overwhelm with praises,” says he, “the pilot
who saves his vessel from the rocks and tempests, ought we not to
consider admirable the prudence of a man who in the midst of those
violent political storms succeeded in saving himself?”[178] Admiration
is here too strong a word. We keep that for those courageous men
who made their actions agree with their principles, and who knew
how to die to defend their opinions. Their ill success does not injure
them in our esteem, and, whatever the friend of Atticus may say,
there are fortunate voyages from which less honour is drawn than
from some shipwrecks. The sole praise that he thoroughly deserves is
that which his biographer gives him with so much complacency,
namely, that he was the most adroit man of that time; but we know
that there are other forms of praise which are of more value than
this.
 CAELIUS

THE ROMAN YOUTH IN THE TIME OF CAESAR

There is perhaps no more curious figure than that of Caelius in the
history we are studying. His life has a special interest for us. He was
not, like Brutus, a brilliant exception among his contemporaries; on
the contrary, he quite belongs to his time; he lived as others lived
around him. All the young men of that time, the Curios, the
Dolabellas, resemble him. They are all, like him, corrupted early,
little concerned about their dignity, prodigal of their wealth, friends
of facile pleasures; they all throw themselves into public life as soon
as they can, with a restless ambition and great needs to satisfy, and
with few scruples and no beliefs. His history, then, is that of all the
rest, and the advantage we find in studying it is that we know at once
the whole generation of which he formed part. Now, thanks to
Cicero, this study is easy for us. Notwithstanding so many differences
in conduct and principles, Cicero always felt a singular inclination for
Caelius; he liked the conversation of this clever man who laughed at
everything, and was more at ease with him than with people like Cato
or Brutus, whose severity somewhat alarmed him. He defended him
in the law courts when a woman whom he had loved tried to ruin
him, and this speech of his is certainly one of the most interesting
that remain to us. Later, when he was obliged to go to Cilicia, he
chose him for his political correspondent. By a happy chance Caelius’
letters have come down to us with those of Cicero, and there are
none in all this collection that are more witty and more racy. Let us
collect all the details scattered through them; let us try, in collecting
them, to reproduce an account of Caelius, and by it to gain an idea of
what the Roman youth of that time was. It is not without interest to
know them, for they played an important part, and Caesar made use
of them more especially for the revolution that he wished to
accomplish.

I.

Caelius did not come of an illustrious family. He was the son of a

Roman knight of Puteoli, who had been in trade and acquired great
wealth in Africa. His father, who had all his life no other concern
than that of enriching himself, showed, as often happens, more
ambition for his son than for himself: he wished him to become a
politician, and as he saw that dignities were reached only through
eloquence, he took him betimes to Cicero, that he might make him a
great orator, if it were possible.
It was not yet the custom to confine young men to the schools of
the rhetoricians, and to be contented with exercising them in
imaginary cases. As soon as they had assumed the toga virilis, that
is, when they were about sixteen years old, no time was lost in taking
them to some statesman of reputation, whom they did not leave.
Admitted to his most intimate society, they listened to his
conversations with his friends, his disputations with his adversaries;
they saw him prepare himself in silence for the great battles of
eloquence, they followed him into the basilicas and the Forum, they
heard him pleading causes or speaking to the assembled people, and
when they had become capable of speaking themselves, they made
their first appearance at his side and under his patronage. Tacitus
much regrets this manly education, which, placing a young man
under the conditions of reality instead of retaining him among the
fictions of rhetoric, gave him a taste for real and natural eloquence
which strengthened him, by throwing him from the first into the
midst of real contests, and, according to his expression, taught him
war on the field of battle, pugnare in praelio discebant.[179] This
education, however, had its dangers. It taught him things that it is
better to be ignorant of for a long time, it familiarized him with the
scandalous and corrupt sights that public life usually offers, it gave
him a too rapid maturity and inflamed him with precocious
ambition. Must not a young man of sixteen, who thus lived in
intimacy with old and unscrupulous statesmen, and to whom were
laid bare without precaution the basest manœuvres of parties, must
he not have lost something of the generosity and sensitiveness of his
age? Was it not to be feared that this corrupting intercourse might
end by giving him a taste for intrigue, for the worship of success, an
unbridled love of power, the desire to attain a high position quickly
and by any means, and as, generally, the worst means are also the
quickest, the temptation to employ them by preference? This is what
happened to Caelius. For three entire years, three honest and
laborious years, he did not leave Cicero; but he perceived at length,
that a young man like himself, who had his political fortune to make,
would gain more with those who wished to destroy the government
than with him who wished to preserve it, and he abandoned Cicero to
attach himself to Catiline. The change was sudden, but Caelius never
took the trouble to delay about these transitions. Henceforth, we can
easily understand, his life took another turn; he became a seditious
and turbulent man, whose biting speech in the Forum and violence
in the Campus Martius were dreaded. At the election of a pontif he
struck a senator. When he was appointed quaestor, every one
accused him of having bought his votes. Not content with disturbing
the comitia at Rome, we see him stirring up a popular tumult at
Naples, we do not know why. At the same time, he did not neglect his
pleasures. The debaucheries of those noisy young men of whom he
was one, continually disturbed the public peace. It is said that the
streets of Rome were unsafe when they returned at night from their
suppers, and that, after the manner of those giddy fellows that
Plautus and Terence depict, they molested honest women whom they
met on their road. All these follies did not go on without great
expense, and the father of Caelius, although he was rich, was not of a
temper to be always paying. No doubt at this time the honest
merchant of Puteoli must have regretted his ambition for his son,
and thought it cost him dear to have wished to make him a politician.
Caelius, on his side, was not of a temper to put up with reprimands
easily; he left the paternal house, and, under pretext of being nearer
the Forum and business, rented a lodging on the Palatine, in the
house of the famous tribune Appius Clodius, for ten thousand
sesterces (£80). This was an important event in his life, for it was
there that he became acquainted with Clodia.
If we relied on the evidence of Cicero we should have a very bad
opinion of Clodia; but Cicero is a too partial witness to be altogether
just, and the furious hatred he bore the brother renders him very
much suspected when he speaks of the sister. Moreover, he partly
contradicts himself when he tells us she had kept up relations with
very honourable people, which would be very surprising if it were
true that she had committed all the crimes that he lays to her charge.
It is very difficult to believe that persons of consideration in the
republic, and persons who were careful of their reputation, would
have continued to see her if they had thought that she had poisoned
her husband, and was the mistress of her brothers. Cicero, however,
did not invent this; it was public rumour that he complacently
repeated. Many people in Rome believed it, Clodia’s enemies liked to
repeat it, and mischievous verses were made about it which were
written upon every wall. Clodia’s reputation was, then, very bad, and
it must be admitted that, notwithstanding some exaggerations, she
partly deserved it. There is nothing to show that she killed her
husband, as she was accused of doing; these accusations of poisoning
were then widespread, and were accepted with incredible levity, but
she had made him very unhappy during his life, and did not appear
very much grieved at his death. It is doubtful, also, whatever Cicero
may assert, that her brothers were her lovers, but it is unfortunately
too certain that she had a good many others. The sole excuse that can
be pleaded for her is that this way of living was then very general.
Scandals of this kind had never been more common among the great
ladies of Rome. Roman society was passing through a crisis whose
causes, which go back a long way, deserve to be considered. We must
say a few words about them, in order to account for the grave injury
that public morals had received.
In a country where the family was respected as it was at Rome,
women could not fail to have much importance. It was impossible
that their influence, which was already so great within the house,
should not attempt to show itself outside, and the honourable place
they held in private life must one day tempt them to invade public
life also. The ancient Romans, so jealous of their authority, had the
consciousness of this danger, and neglected nothing in order to
defend themselves against it. We know how they affected to treat
women; there was no sort of unkind remarks they did not make
about them; they got them attacked on the stage and mocked them
even in their political speeches:[180] but we must not mistake the
sense of these railleries and pity the objects of them too much. They
are only attacked thus because they are feared, and all these
pleasantries are not so much insults as precautions. These rough
soldiers, these rude peasants, have learnt, in living with them, how
subtle and enterprising their minds are, and in how many ways they
are more capable than themselves; consequently they take a good
deal of trouble to confine them to their households, and even that
does not suffice to reassure them; in the household itself they must
be subjugated and bridled. They affect to think and to say that they
are weak and untamed beings (indomita animalia), incapable of
governing themselves alone, and they hasten to provide for their
management. They are kept, under this pretext, in a continual state
of tutelage; they are always “under the hand” of their father, brother,
or husband; they cannot sell, buy, trade, or do anything without a
council to assist them: in acting thus the men pretend they are
protecting them, in reality it is themselves they are protecting against
them. Cato, their great enemy, ingenuously admits it in a moment of
frankness. “Remember,” Livy makes him say à propos of the lex
Oppia, “all those regulations our ancestors made to subject wives to
their husbands. Shackled as they are, you have trouble to manage
them. What will happen if you give them their liberty, if you allow
them to enjoy the same rights as yourselves? Do you think you will
then be their masters? The day they become your equals they will be
your superiors.”[181] This day arrived just about the time of which we
are treating. In the midst of the weakening of ancient usages, the
laws against women were not more respected than others. Cicero
says that the gallant lawyers furnished them with ingenious means to
free themselves from these laws without appearing to violate them.
[182]
At the same time, men were accustomed to see them take a more
important place in society, and to recognize their influence in the
government of the republic. Almost all the politicians of that time are
governed by their wives or by their mistresses, thus the innumerable
gallantries of Caesar must have passed in the eyes of many people, as
later those of Augustus did, for profound policy, as it might be
supposed that he only sought to please the women in order to lead
their husbands.
Thus, by the abolition of the old laws, and by the alteration of
ancient maxims, women had become free. Now, it is to be remarked
that, in general, the first use made of regained liberty is to abuse it.
We cannot enjoy quietly the rights of which we have been long
deprived, and the first moments of liberty bring a sort of intoxication
that it is difficult to check. This is what happened to the Roman
society of that time, and all these irregularities that we notice in the
conduct of women then are partly explained by the allurements and
intoxication of their new liberty. Those who love money, like
Terentia, Cicero’s wife, hasten to take advantage of the right of
disposing of their fortune, that has been restored to them, they
associate themselves with freedmen and agents for doubtful gains,
rob their husbands without scruple, and throw themselves into
speculations and trade, to which they bring, together with an almost
incredible rapacity, that taste for small savings and economies which
is natural to them. Those who prefer pleasure to wealth give
themselves up to all pleasures with a passionate eagerness. The less
bold take advantage of the facilities of divorce to pass from one
amour to another under cover of the law. Others do not even take
this trouble, and impudently flaunt their scandalous behaviour.
Clodia was one of the latter; but among all her vices, which she
took no care to hide, we are forced to recognize in her some good
qualities. She was not grasping; her purse was open to her friends,
and Caelius was not ashamed to dip into it. She liked clever men, and
attracted them to her house. At one time she wished to persuade
Cicero, whose talents she much admired, to give up his foolish
Terentia for her and to marry her; but Terentia, who suspected it,
succeeded in mortally embroiling them. An old scholiast says that
she danced better than it was proper for an honest woman to do.[183]
This was not the only art for which she had a taste, and it has been
thought possible to infer from a passage of Cicero that she also wrote
verses.[184] To cultivate letters, to seek out clever men, to like refined
and elegant pleasures, does not seem at first sight to be
blameworthy; on the contrary, these are among us the qualities that
a woman of society is obliged to possess or to feign. They thought
otherwise at Rome, and, as the courtesans alone had then the
privilege of following this free and accomplished life, every woman
who sought this ran the risk of being confounded with them, and of
being treated with the same rigour by public opinion; but Clodia did
not care for public opinion. She brought into her private conduct,
into her affections, the same passionateness and the same ardour
that her brother did into public life. Ready for all excesses, and not
blushing to avow them, loving and hating furiously, incapable of self-
control, and hating all restraint, she did not belie that great and
haughty family from which she was descended, and even in her vices
her blood was recognized. In a country where so much respect was
shown for ancient customs, in that classic land of decorum (the thing
and the word are Roman), Clodia took pleasure in shocking the
established customs; she went out publicly with her male friends; she
was accompanied by them in the public gardens or on the Appian
road, constructed by her great ancestor. She boldly accosted people
whom she knew; instead of timidly lowering her eyes as a well-
brought-up matron should have done, she dared to speak to them
(Cicero says that she even kissed them sometimes), and invited them
to her repasts. Grave, staid, and rigid people were indignant; but the
young, whom this freedom did not displease, were charmed, and
went to dine with Clodia.[185]
Caelius was at that time one of the fashionable young men of
Rome. Already he had a great reputation as an orator. He was
dreaded for the satirical sharpness of his speech. He was bold to
temerity, always ready to throw himself into the most perilous
enterprises. He spent his money freely, and drew after him a train of
friends and clients. Few men danced as well as he,[186] no one
surpassed him in the art of dressing with taste, and the beauty and
breadth of the purple band that bordered his toga were spoken of on
all hands in Rome. All these qualities, the serious as well as the
trivial, were of a nature to attract Clodia. Neighbourhood made their
acquaintance more easy, and she soon became the mistress of
Caelius.
Cicero, notwithstanding his reserve, permits us to guess the life
they then led. He speaks in hints of those brilliant fêtes that Clodia
gave to her lover and to the youth of Rome in her gardens on the
banks of the Tiber; but it seems that Baiae was the chief theatre of
these amours. Baiae had been for some time already the regular
rendezvous of the fashionable people of Rome and Italy. The hot-
springs that are found there in abundance served as the occasion or
pretext for these gatherings. Some invalids went there for their
health, and their presence provided an excuse for a crowd of healthy
people who went there to amuse themselves. People flocked there
from the month of April, and during the fine season a thousand light
intrigues were carried on, the report of which reached Rome. Grave
folks took great care not to be seen in this whirl of pleasure, and later
Clodius accused Cicero, as if it were a crime, simply of having passed
through it; but Caelius and Clodia were not anxious to hide
themselves; consequently they gave themselves up without restraint
to all the pleasures that were to be found in that country that Horace
calls the most beautiful in the world. All Rome talked of their races
on the shore, the brilliancy of their feasts and water-parties in boats
carrying singers and musicians. This is all that Cicero tells us, or
rather only gives us a glimpse of, for, contrary to his habit, and to our
great loss, he has for once in a way been discreet, in order not to
compromise his friend Caelius. Fortunately we can learn more about
this society and satisfy our curiosity; to do so we have only to turn
ourselves to him who was, with Lucretius, the greatest poet of that
time, Catullus. Catullus lived among these persons who were so well
worthy of study, and had relations with them which permitted him to
depict them well. Everybody knows that Lesbia whom his verses have
immortalized; but it is not so well known that Lesbia was not one of
those fictitious persons that the elegiac poets often create. Ovid tells
us that this name covered that of a Roman lady, probably a great
lady, since he will not name her, and by his way of speaking we see
clearly that everybody then knew her.[187] Apuleius, who lived much
later, is less reticent, and he tells us that Lesbia was Clodia.[188]
Catullus, then, was the lover of Clodia, and the rival of Caelius: he
also frequented that house on the Palatine, and those fine gardens on
the Tiber, and his verses complete our knowledge of that society of
which he was one of the heroes.
I said just now that Clodia did not love money with the avidity of
the women of gallantry of that time and of all times. The history of
Catullus proves this well. This young provincial of Verona, although
he belonged to an honourable family, was not very rich, and after he
had lived a life of dissipation and pleasure for some time at Rome, he
had nothing left. His poor little estate was soon deeply mortgaged.
“It is not exposed, he says gaily, either to the impetuous north wind,
or to the fury of the auster: it is a hurricane of debts that blows on it
from all sides. Oh! the horrible and pestilent wind!”[189] By the
picture that he draws of some of his friends, still poorer and more
indebted than himself, we see clearly that he could not reckon upon
them, and that his purse which was “full of spiders” had no great
help to expect from them. It was not, then, fortune or birth that
Clodia loved in Catullus, but wit and talent. What attracted him in
her, what he so passionately loved, was distinction and grace. These
are not usually the qualities of women who live like Clodia; but,
however low she might have descended, she was still a great lady.
Catullus says so in an epigram in which he compares Lesbia to a
celebrated beauty of that time—“Quintia is considered beautiful by
many men. I think her tall, fair, erect: these are her attractions; I
recognize them all. But that their union forms beauty, that I deny.
There is nothing graceful in her, and in all that vast body there is not
a spark of wit or charm. It is Lesbia who is beautiful, more beautiful
than all, and she has so much grace that there is none left for the
rest.”[190]
A woman like Clodia, who had such a decided taste for clever
people, must have been pleased to frequent the society in which
Catullus lived. We see plainly, by what he relates to us of it, that
there was none more witty and agreeable in Rome. It united writers
and politicians, poets and noblemen, differing in position and
fortune, but all friends of letters and pleasure. There were
Cornificius, Quintilius Varus, Helvius Cinna, whose verses had then
much reputation, Asinius Pollio, who was as yet only a youth of great
promise; there was above all Licinius Calvus, at once statesman and
poet, one of the most striking figures of that time, who, at twenty-
one, had attacked Vatinius with so much vigour, that Vatinius,
terrified, had turned towards his judges, saying: “If my opponent is a
great orator, it does not follow that I am guilty!” In the same group
we must place Caelius, who, by his wit and tastes, was worthy to
belong to it, and over it Cicero the protector of all this brilliant youth,
which was proud of his genius and renown, and which saluted in
him, according to the expression of Catullus, the most eloquent of
the sons of Romulus.
In these assemblies of clever men, of whom many were political
personages, politics were not excluded; they were very republican,
and from them issued the most violent epigrams against Caesar. We
know the tone in which those of Catullus are written; Calvus had
composed others which are lost, and which were, it is said, still more
cutting. Literature, however, we can well understand, held in them at
least as high a place as politics. They did not fail to laugh at bad
writers from time to time, and in order to make an example,
ceremoniously burnt the poems of Volusius. Sometimes, at the end
of the repast, when wine and laughter had heated their brains, they
sent each other poetic challenges; the tablets passed from hand to
hand, and each wrote the most incisive verses he could make. But it
was pleasure more than anything else that occupied them. All these
poets and politicians were young and amorous, and whatever
pleasure they may have found in rallying Volusius, or tearing Caesar
to pieces, they preferred to sing their loves. It is this which has made
them famous. The lyrical poetry of the Latins has nothing to compare
with those short and charming pieces that Catullus wrote for Lesbia.
Propertius mingles too much mythology with his sighs; Ovid is only
an inspired debauchee, Catullus alone has tones that touch the heart,
because he alone was mastered by a deep and sincere love. Till then
he had led a gay and dissipated life, and his heart was wearied with
passing connections; but the day that he met Lesbia he learnt the
meaning of passion. Whatever we may think of Clodia, the love of
Catullus elevates her, and we never see her in a more favourable light
than in this exquisite poetry. The verses of Catullus seem to make
real and living those fêtes that she gave to the youth of Rome, and of
which we regretted just now the absence of sufficient details; for was
it not for these charming parties, for these free and sumptuous
repasts, that he composed his finest works? It was there, no doubt,
under the groves on the banks of the Tiber, that he sang that fine
imitation of Sappho’s most fervid ode that he made for Lesbia. It
was, perhaps, on the shore of Baiae, fronting Naples and Capreae,
under that voluptuous sky, in the midst of the attractions of that
enchanted land, that for the first time were read those verses in
which so much grace is mingled with so much passion, and which are
so worthy of the exquisite landscape in the midst of which I take
pleasure in placing them:
“Let us live, let us love, my Lesbia, and laugh together at all the
reproaches of stern old age. The sun dies to be born again; but we,
when our short-lived light is once extinguished, must sleep an
eternal night without awakening. Give me a thousand kisses, a
hundred, a thousand, a hundred once more, then a thousand and a
hundred again. Afterwards, when we have embraced thousands of
times, we will confuse the reckoning to know it no longer, and leave
the jealous no pretext to envy us by letting them know how many
kisses we have given each other.”[191]
 That is a remarkable moment in Roman society, when we meet
with these polished assemblies, in which everything is talked of and
all ranks are mingled, where the writers have their place beside the
politicians, where they dare openly express their love for the arts and
treat imagination as a power. We may say, to use a quite modern
expression, that it is here that the life of society begins. There was
nothing like it among the old Romans. They lived on the Forum or in
their houses. Between the multitude and the family they knew little
of that middle point that we call society, that is to say, those elegant
and select assemblies, numerous without confusion, where we are at
once more at liberty than among unknown persons in public places,
and yet less at home than in the family circle. Before reaching this
point it was necessary to wait until Rome was civilized and literature
had won her place, which scarcely happened until the last age of the
republic. And yet we must not exaggerate. That society which then
had its beginning, seems to us at times very coarse. Catullus tells us
that at those luxurious entertainments where such fine poems were
read, there were guests who would even steal the napkins.[192] The
conversations they held were often risky, to judge by certain
epigrams of the great poet. Clodia who assembled at her house these
clever men, had singular eccentricities of conduct. The elegant
pleasures sought by a woman of society were far from satisfying her,
and she fell at last into excesses that made her former friends blush.
They themselves, those heroes of fashion, whose good taste was
vaunted on all sides, who talked with so much charm and made such
tender verses, did not behave much better than she, and were not
much more delicate. They had much to reproach themselves with
while their connection with Clodia lasted; when it ended, they
committed the unpardonable fault of not respecting the past, and of
failing in that consideration that is always due to a woman whom one
has once loved. Catullus stung with coarse epigrams her who had
inspired his finest verses. Caelius, alluding to the price paid to the
vilest courtesans, called her, in open court, the quarter of an as
(quadrantaria) woman, and this cruel epithet stuck to her. We see
that this society had still much progress to make; but it will do it
quickly, thanks to the monarchy which was about to commence.
Everything changed with Augustus. Under the new government,
these remains of coarseness which savoured of the old republic,
disappeared; men made such progress, and became so fastidious,
that the refined were not slow in laughing at Calvus and Catullus,
and that Plautus passed for a barbarian. They polish and refine
themselves, and at the same time become insipid. A courtly tone is
spread over gallant literature, and the change is so sudden, that little
more than a quarter of a century was needed for the descent from
Catullus to Ovid. The amours of Clodia and Catullus ended very
sadly. Clodia did not pride herself on being faithful, and justified her
lover only too well when he wrote to her: “A woman’s promises must
be confided to the wind, or written on running water.”[193] Catullus,
who knew he was deceived, was angry with himself for submitting to
it. He reasoned with himself, he chid himself, but he did not cure
himself. Notwithstanding all the trouble he took to gain courage, love
was the stronger. After painful struggles which rent his heart, he
returned sad and submissive to the feet of her whom he could not
help despising, and whom he yet continued to love. “I love and I
hate, said he; you ask me how that can be, I cannot tell; but I feel that
it is so, and my soul is in tortures.”[194] So much suffering and
resignation touched Clodia very slightly. She plunged deeper and
deeper in obscure amours, and the poor poet, who had no more
hope, was compelled to separate from her for ever. The rupture
between Clodia and Caelius was much more tragic. It was by a
criminal trial that their amour was ended. This time Caelius wearied
first. Clodia, who, as we have seen, usually took the first step, was not
used to such an end to her amours. Enraged at being abandoned, she
concerted with the enemies of Caelius, who were not few, and had
him accused of several crimes, and particularly of having tried to
poison her. This, it must be admitted, was a very sad morrow to the
charming fêtes of Baiae! The trial must have been very amusing, and
we may believe that the Forum that day did not lack curious hearers.
Caelius appeared accompanied by those who had been his protectors,
his friends, and his teachers, the wealthy Crassus and Cicero. They
had divided his defence between them, and Cicero specially
undertook the part regarding Clodia. Although he declared, in the
opening of his speech, “that he was not the enemy of women, and
still less of a woman who was the friend of all men,” we may well
believe that he did not miss such a good opportunity of avenging
himself for all the ill this family had done him. That day Clodia
suffered for her whole family. Never had Cicero been so sharp and
stinging; the judges must have laughed much, and Caelius was
acquitted.
Cicero had solemnly promised in his speech that his client would
alter his conduct. In fact, it was quite time for him to reform, his
youth had lasted only too long. He was then twenty-eight, and it was
really time for him to think of becoming aedile or tribune, if he
wished to play that political part that had been his father’s ambition
for him. We do not know whether, in the sequel, he rigorously
carried out all the undertakings Cicero had made in his name;
perhaps he avoided henceforth compromising himself by too open
scandals, and perhaps the ill success of his amours with Clodia had
cured him of these noisy adventures; but it is very difficult to
suppose that he became austere and lived after the manner of the old
Romans. We see that, several years later when he was aedile and
taking part in the most serious business, he found time to learn and
repeat all the scandalous tales of Rome. This is what he wrote to
Cicero, then proconsul of Cilicia:—
“Nothing new has happened except a few little adventures that, I
am sure, you will be glad to hear about. Paula Valeria, the sister of
Triarius, has divorced herself, without any reason, from her
husband, the very day he was to arrive from his province; she is
going to marry Decimus Brutus. Have you never suspected it? Since
your absence incredible things of this kind have happened. No one
would have believed that Servius Ocella was a man of intrigue, if he
had not been caught in the act twice in the space of three days. You
will ask me where? In truth it was where I should not wish it to be,
[195]
but I leave you something to learn from others. I should be glad
to think that a victorious proconsul will go and ask everybody with
what woman a man has been caught.”[196]
Evidently he who wrote this entertaining letter was never so
thoroughly converted as Cicero made believe, and it seems to me that
we still find the harebrained young fellow who made so much racket
in the streets of Rome, and the lover of Clodia, in the man of wit who
recounts so pleasantly these trifling intrigues. We may affirm, then,
without temerity that, although from this moment his private life is
unknown to us, he never entirely renounced the dissipations of his
youth, and that, magistrate and politician as he was, he continued to
the end to mix pleasure with business.
 II.

But Caelius was not only a hero of amorous adventures, and did
not content himself with the empty honour of giving the tone for
elegance of manners to the youth of Rome. He had more solid
qualities. Thanks to Cicero’s lessons he speedily became a great
orator. A short time after he had escaped from this honourable
tutelage, he made a brilliant commencement in a case in which he
was opposed to Cicero himself, and this time the disciple beat the
master. Since this success his reputation had continued to increase.
There were orators in the Forum that men of taste admired more,
and whose gifts they considered more perfect; there were none more
dreaded than he, such was the violence of his attack and the
bitterness of his raillery. He excelled in seizing the ridiculous side of
his opponents, and in making, in a very few words, those ironical and
cutting observations on them which are never forgotten. Quintilian
quotes one as a model of its kind, which well exemplifies the talent of
this terrible wit. He is speaking, in this passage, of that Antony who
had been the colleague of Cicero in his consulship, and who, in spite
of all the eulogies that the Orations against Catiline lavish on him,
was but an inferior intriguer and a coarse debauchee. After having,
according to custom, pillaged Macedonia, which he governed, he had
attacked some neighbouring tribes in order to obtain a pretext for a
triumph. He counted upon an easy victory, but as he was more taken
up with his pleasures than with the war, he was ignominiously
beaten. Caelius, who attacked him on his return, described, or rather
imagined, in his speech, one of those orgies during which the
general, while dead drunk, allowed himself to be surprised by the
enemy.
“Women, his ordinary officers, fill the banqueting-hall, stretched
on all the couches, or lying about on the ground. When they learn
that the enemy is come, half-dead with fright, they try to awaken
Antony; they shout his name, they raise him up by the neck. Some
whisper soft words in his ear, others treat him more roughly and
even strike him; but he, who recognizes their voices and touch,
stretches out his arms by habit, seizes and wishes to embrace the first
he meets with. He can neither sleep, so much they shout to awaken
him, nor wake, so drunk is he. At last, powerless to shake off this
drowsiness, he is carried off in the arms of his centurions and his
mistresses.”[197]
When a man possesses such a biting and incisive talent it is natural
for him to have an aggressive temper; nothing therefore suited
Caelius better than personal struggles. He liked and sought
disputation because he was sure to succeed in it, and because he
could make use of those violent modes of attack that could not be
resisted. He wished to be contradicted, for contradiction excited him
and gave him energy. Seneca relates that one day one of the clients of
Caelius, a man of pacific temper, and who, no doubt, had suffered
from his rudeness, confined himself during a meal to agreeing with
him. Caelius at last grew enraged because the man gave him no
opportunity for getting angry, and exclaimed: “Do contradict me that
there may be two of us.”[198] The talents of Caelius, such as I have just
depicted them, marvellously suited the time in which he lived. This
thoroughly explains the reputation that he enjoyed, and the
important position he took among his contemporaries. This fiery
debater, this pitiless wit, this vehement accuser would not have been
altogether in his place in quiet times; but in the midst of a revolution
he became a valuable auxiliary whom all parties contended for.
Caelius was moreover a statesman as well as an orator, and it is for
this that Cicero most frequently praises him. “I know no one, he told
him, who is a better politician than you.”[199] He knew men
thoroughly, he had a clear insight into situations; he decided quickly,
a quality that Cicero much appreciated in others, for it was just that
which he most lacked, and when once he had decided, he set to work
with a vigour and force that gained him the sympathies of the
multitude. At a time when power belonged to those who were bold
enough to seize it, the audacity of Caelius seemed to promise him a
brilliant political future.
Nevertheless, he had also great defects, which sometimes arose
from his very good qualities. He knew men well, a great advantage no
doubt, but in studying them it was their bad side that struck him
most. By dint of trying them in every way, his startling penetration
succeeded in laying bare some weakness. He did not reserve his
severity for his adversaries only; his best friends did not escape his
clear-sighted analysis. We see in his private correspondence that he
knew all their defects, and did not stand on ceremony in speaking of