This issue of Diogenes is devoted to questions of bioethics. This subject was chosen not because bioethics is fashionable but rather because the purpose of this journal is to explore the timely and timeless questions of our era in order to understand what is at stake and to share this knowledge with our readers.

I have chosen to call my piece “Bioethics: Between the Plausible and the Thinkable” to highlight at least three themes that are taken up either directly or indirectly in the articles that follow.