Towards a Vision of Thick Conversation: Explorations in Bioethics and Interfaith Deliberation

This article suggests that we, as a political community, allow some normative thickness into our public deliberation by ensuring that space is available for thick convictions to be drawn on, appealed to, and brought into political and public conversation. Through an exploration of bioethical deliberation as undertaken in the Kass Council and interfaith interaction as encouraged through Scriptural Reasoning and the Interfaith Youth Core, it paints a picture of normatively thick conversation that encourages participants to honor differences and to learn from other participants through those differences, with the hope that such rich and deep interaction might benefit our communities of belief and society in general.