The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss Dennehy's (1986) explication of the Catholic view of Bioethics. In general, it is a view that postulates eugenic ambitions as being derived from the antitheistic motives characteristic of secular humanism and several logical errors in the ontological perspective of this philosophy.
Bioethics: The Catholic Perspective
Dennehy characterizes the advocates of the "biological revolution" (this revolution comprises our current state-of-the-art biological knowledge and technology and its capability for genetic manipulation of the species) as primarily composed of secular humanists; by this he means that these advocates are mostly those people who believe that biological knowledge offers a means of "perfecting" human society by ridding it of its evil and other faults. Dennehy equates these advocates with those of the sociopolitical theorists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century who believed that economic and social institutions could be engineered to bring about the same goal of perfecting mankind.
Dennehy goes on to note that the Myth of Prometheus (who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man) can be used to reflect the true spiritual motive underlying the belief that man can be perfected by something other than God, be that something economic/social institutions or biological knowledge and know-how. The motive to which Dennehy is referring is that in which learning is pursued not for wisdom or knowledge but rather for the egoistic purpose of becoming god-like. It is a motive arising out of a desire to usurp the creative abilities and powers of the Divine.
Dennehy's analogy of the Myth of Prometheus to this motive of secular humanism is not a Ludite exhortation. Rather, he acknowledges that the Promethean myth contains an element wherein human dignity is affirmed through man's seeking after knowledge and states that he has no quarrel with such a ques...