A THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL BIOETHICS - MULTICULTURALISM, POSTMODERNISM, AND THE BANKRUPTCY OF FUNDAMENTALISM

This first of two articles analyzing the justifiability of internation al bioethical codes and of cross-cultural moral judgments reviews ''mo ral fundamentalism,'' the theory that cross-cultural moral judgments a nd international bioethical codes are justified by certain ''basic'' o r ''fundamental'' moral principles that are universally accepted in al l cultures and eras. Initially propounded by the judges at the 1947 Nu remberg Tribunal, moral fundamentalism has become the received justifi cation of international bioethics, and of cross-temporal and cross-cul tural moral judgments. Yet today we are said to live in a multicultura l and postmodern world. This article assesses the challenges that mult iculturalism and postmodernism pose to fundamentalism and concludes th at these challenges render the position philosophically untenable, the reby undermining the received conception of the foundations of interna tional bioethics. The second article, which follows, offers an alterna tive model-a model of negotiated moral order-as a viable justification for international bioethics and for transcultural and transtemporal m oral judgments.