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nonconservative extension of Anderson & Belnap's relevant logic E [5], [1]. More-
over, our approach to deontic realm is fact-sensitive. Norms and facts are partly in-
terdependent - despite Hume's and Moore's qualms and strictures. What norms are
in operation is not an issue entirely independent of what facts happen in the world.
And the other way round. There is certain solidarity between facts and norms. Facts
can abolish norms. So, we reject the sharp dichotomy between facts and norms [13]:
Many duties and permissions are contingent on facts, that is, they arise only because
(to the extent that) certain facts or circumstances exist. Otherwise, there would be
no such duty or permission (whether moral or legal) [4].
9.5
Conclusion
There is a profound disagreement between a continuous and gradual reality [deon-
tic and ontological], riddled with nuances and transitions (a reality in gray), and a
logic (an analysis and description of it) bivalent, between sheer truth and complete
falsehood, in “all-or-nothing” terms, black or white, without any gray area.
As an alternative to the 'principle of bivalence' that permeates the standard ap-
proach to reality in general, and Bioethics in particular, we maintain the 'principle
of gradualism', which argues that everything is a matter of degree and therefore a
fuzzy-logic approach is an appropriate theoretical method in Bioethics. However,
gradualness is not the same as vagueness or lack of precision. It is not “indiffer-
ence” about truth-value, but determination of a different kind: by degrees, neither
exhaustive nor strong, with transitions and edges more or less blurred. Moreover,
the fuzzy approach to the world is much more precise than that offered by their sharp
and drastic correlates -which yield a simpler and more simplistic view. Otherwise,
speech that uses fuzzy terms brings us closer and better to reality with adverbs of
intensity and decay and comparative constructions.
Nevertheless, fuzzy logic does not benefit relativism (moral or epistemological)
in any way, it highlights truth's relational character. Thereby the opposition between
'truth' and 'opinion', which has been a matter of concern in Western thought since
pre-Socratic times, is rejected as irrelevant and confusing ([18], p. 40). In a fuzzy
calculus, propositions take their truth-value in the interval
. Consequently, the
notion of 'truth' can be 'modulated', as it happens in ordinary experience and argu-
mentation, so that 'true' and 'false' have lost their static and abstract character.
9
The notions of weighing (norms and values) as well as those of comparison and
similarity (analogies) take place in a gradual manner, by means of transitions instead
of leaps or breaks. So, the fuzzy approach to Bioethics entitles us to soften the
sharp dichotomies usually stated about bioethical issues, as the well-known ones
mentioned above (actions vs. omissions; ordinary means vs. extraordinary ones;
proportionate vs. disproportionate).
[
0
,
1
]
9
The relational notion of truth is closely similar to the ontological and moral views of
Dewey's pragmatism.
