Professor José Mª Pardo was in charge of introducing Witold Kania, professor of Philosophy at the School of Theology of the University of Silesia. University of Silesia (Katowice, Poland), who came to the University of Navarra to give the seminar "Common Morality, the search for a universal bioethics", addressed to the professors of the Schools of Theology y Ecclesiastics of Philosophy. It took place last Thursday, March 5 at classroom 1 of the Ecclesiastical Schools building.

The speaker pointed out that in our society "there is a conformity in promote the dignity of man. But when it comes to knowing the reasons, some say: 'it is better not to ask'. The declaration of human rights and the Nuremberg Code have been attempts to achieve a global ethic".

Some authors use the term common morality as the basis for all intellectual operations in the field of ethics and bioethics. 

The goal of this common morality is the promotion of human fulfillment through norms that help concrete actions to humanize coexistence. Basically, the search for a "common ethics of minimums", which would prevent human beings from killing each other. But the challenge of this search is to structure a basis of argumentation where to sustain this common morality. 

The professor of the University of Silesia stopped to analyze the argumentation of the American philosopher Tom L. Beauchamp, who bases the construction of common morality on the exercise of certain virtues (honesty, integrity, truthfulness, kindness, etc.) and on certain principles (thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not cause harm or suffering, thou shalt help people in danger, thou shalt feed the needy, etc.).

Professor Kania briefly mentioned other authors, such as William David Ross, Shelley Hulbert and Bernard Gert. For them, the common denominator is the denial of the existence of universal and absolute moral norms, valid for all and for all times: for example, thou shalt not kill the innocent. For this current, he pointed out that "denying the right to abortion or euthanasia is considered as cultural oppression".

The speaker concluded his speech by pointing out the great difficulty of dialogue with these authors, because for them the content of the virtues and norms are left, according to the circumstances of each person, to individual discretion.

In this regard, Professor José Mª Pardo recalled "the current differences between "secular bioethics" and the misnamed "Catholic" bioethics; two positions that are opposed in their anthropological foundations and in their vision of the world. Our great challenge is dialogue with the individualistic relativism that prevails in our society; but when one does not want to, dialogue is not possible.