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Bioethics: An Ecumenical Dialogue(Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1999), pp. 25-42. Philip M. Cohen,“Toward a Methodology of Reform Jewish Bioethics,” CCAR Journal 52:3(Summer, 2005), pp. 3-21, calls the approaches of these authors“nonhalakhic.” In my response to Cohen(“Halachah , Aggadah , and Reform Jewish Bioethics: A Response,” note 14, above), I argue that both Green and Freedman work well within the parameters of halakhic discourse.

20. See Newman(note 1, above), p. 37:“Finally, in no sense do I wish to suggest, given the subjective nature of interpretation as I have described it, that Jewish ethicists should quit reading Jewish texts. Rather, it has been my assumption that what makes contemporary Jewish ethics Jewish is its attempt to develop positions which carry forward the views contained within that long textual tradition.”

21.See, especially, the following: Daniel Gordis ,“Wanted: The Ethical in Jewish Bioethics,” Judaism 38(1989), pp. 28-40; Irving Greenberg ,“Toward a Covenantal Ethic of Medicine,” in Levi Maier, ed., Jewish Values in Bioethics(New York: Human Sciences Press, 1986), pp. 124-149; David H. Ellenson,“How to Draw Guidance from a Heritage: Jewish Approaches to Mortal Choices,” in Barry S. Kogan, ed., 4 Time to be Born and a Time to Die: The Ethics of Choice(New York : Aldine de Gruyter, 1991), pp. 219-232; Peter Knobel(see note 18, above), and Philip M. Cohen(see note 19, above).

22. Irving Greenberg , of course, is an exception to this rule. He regards himself as an Orthodox rabbi, whether or not the preponderance of today’s Orthodox Jews would accept him as such. At any rate, he does not formally identify with one of the liberal Jewish groupings.

23.“Formalism” is a term of art in legal theory. It is generally used to denote the theory that legal decision is determined more or less exclusively by the process of logical deduction from preexisting legal materials. Formalists hold that legal decisions are constrained and determined by the law’s rules and systemic procedures, which yield a uniquely correct answer to every legal question. Not all legal method is“formalist.” In particular, as we shall see, analogy requires a crucial non-formalist component, since the argument that a particular analogy is compelling demands a judgment that itself is not the product of logical or formal necessity. The real target of these critics’ ire, it seems to me, is legalism, the very idea that answers should be sought by any sort of legal method.