 The relation between bioethics and moral theory is a complicated one. To start, we have philosophers as major contributors to the field of bioethics, and to many philosophers, their discipline is almost by definition a theoretical one. So when asked to consider the role of moral theorizing in bioethics, a natural position of such philosophers is that moral theory has a crucial, if not indispensable, role. At the same time, there are those who call into question the “applied ethics” model of bioethics. Roughly, on this model, one moral theory or other (e.g., utilitarianism, Kantian deontology, virtue theory) is imposed upon the applied ethics problem at hand, in the hopes of producing a resolution. Such a model, according to its detractors, overplays the separation of the theoretical from the applied. Still further, there are those such as Will Kymlicka (1993 [1996]) who hold that moral theory should not have a place in the making of public policy on bioethical  issues.[1]