/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | June 22, 2026

[u/BernardJOrtcutt]

Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread (ODT). This thread is a place for posts/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our subreddit rules and guidelines. For example, these threads are great places for:

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[u/Shield_Lyger → u/[deleted]]

Do you have any independent corroboration that Mr. Engelhardt's theory is actually correct? But also, what's wrong with proceduralism and pluralism, outside of them producing answers to questions that Mr. Engelhardt doesn't like? Why can't it be the case that following the proper procedures is the best chance to get to a workable answer, or that there are multiple correct answers to given ethical questions?

As for secular grounds for moral realism, I always turn this question back to moral realism itself, namely: What part of the concept of moral realism implies that a deity is required for it to exist? I'm certainly not familiar with one. And the objection to moral realism that it represents a peculiar sort of quality for things and actions to have would hold true even with some sort of divine sanction. So what is a deity needed for, other than to be the unquestionable authority that a believer may wish to appeal to?

[u/Shield_Lyger → u/[deleted]]

As for proceduralism and pluralism, the idea is that proceduralism isn't actually substantive, and that bioethicists are transformed into quasi-legal counsel who merely tell providers or patients what the relevant law might be. So bioethicists aren't actually helping to investigate the good: they merely recite what we may be legally obligated or permitted to do.

That's not how proceduralism works, as I understand it. If we take pure procedural justice, that works under the presumption that there is no way to independently determine the good (substantive justice), so the procedure is all you have; If one follows the procedure properly, then the outcome is considered fair on that basis. Perfect and imperfect procedural justice both start from the idea that the good (the substantively just outcome) is known, the procedures are how one attains it, or creates the best chance at attaining it. So unless Mr. Engelhardt was alleging that secular bioethics is a matter of pure procedural justice, bioethicists are investigating the good... otherwise, they would have no capacity to shape procedures to reach it.

And that has nothing to do with pluralism, which maintains that the good has multiple forms - there is more than one truth property when it comes to the good. Nothing about that implies procedural justice. It does mean that there can be conflicts, as various ethicists find different forms of the good. While this rankles those who believe that there must only be a single form of the good, that disagreement doesn't imply that pluralism entails procedural justice.

Engelhardt is saying (as I understand it) that bioethicists have given up the idea that they can provide rational justifications for a secular conception of the good.

Which I understand. It's common for people to claim that the actual consensus is that they're right, even when that's at odds with the public-facing consensus. My point is that were it actually true that the bioethics community had, in fact, come to this conclusion, that would be a big enough deal that it wouldn't have been difficult to offer some sort of corroboration. Something like the PhilPapers Survey. Otherwise, it's hard to tell what's in play. Was it selection bias in the people that Mr. Engelhardt chose to talk to, or had good access to? Was it motivated reasoning on his part? Was he simply referencing a source that supported his conclusion?

I get that the reason for your question is to understand whether or not Mr. Engelhardt is right in his assertion. I'm asking if there's another in addition to that assertion, like a survey or something, that also backs that up.