In this essay I consider whether the political perspective of third wave science studies – ‘elective modernism’ – offers a suitable framework for understanding the policy-making contributions that (bio)ethical experts might make. The question arises as a consequence of the fact that I have taken inspiration from the third wave in order to develop an account of (bio)ethical expertise. I offer a précis of this work and a brief summary of elective modernism before considering their relation. The view I set (...) out suggests that elective modernism is a political philosophy and that although its use in relation to the use of scientific expertise in political and policy-making process has implications for the role of (bio)ethical expertise it does not, in the final analysis, provide an account that is appropriate for this latter form of specialist expertise. Nevertheless, it is an informative perspective, and one that can help us make sense of the political uses of (bio)ethical expertise. (shrink)

In the last two decades, stem cell-based brain organoids have been developed to study disease mechanisms in various neurological, psychiatric, and developmental disorders. Simultaneously, there hav...

Informed consent honors the autonomous decisions of patients, and family consent places importance on decisions made by their families. However, there is little understanding of the relationship between these two medical decision-making approaches. Both approaches exist in Japan as part of its truth disclosure policy. What is the status of family consent in the United States, from which Japan introduced informed consent? This paper compares the situation in the United States with that in Japan, where family consent has been combined (...) with informed consent. It then explains the history of policy development through which family consent was added to informed consent in the United States. Based on this analysis, the paper suggests that the relationship between informed consent and family consent in the United States was established on the basis of a family model that places more importance on trust-based relationships than it does on blood ties. (shrink)

Bioethics can be considered as a topic, an academic discipline, a field of study, an enterprise in persuasion. The historical specificity of the forms bioethics takes is significant, and raises questions about some of these approaches. Bioethics can also be considered as a governance practice, with distinctive institutions and structures. The forms this practice takes are also to a degree country specific, as the paper illustrates by drawing on the author’s UK experience. However, the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics can (...) provide a starting point for comparisons provided that this does not exclude sensitivity to the socio-political context. Bioethics governance practices are explained by various legitimating narratives. These include response to scandal, the need to restrain irresponsible science, the accommodation of pluralist views, and the resistance to the relativist idea that all opinions count equally in bioethics. Each approach raises interesting questions and shows that bioethics should be studied as a governance practice as a complement to other approaches. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultants represent a multidisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners with varied training backgrounds, who are integrated into a medical environment to assist in the provision of ethically supportable care. Little has been written about the degree to which such consultants are accountable for the patient care outcome of the advice given. We propose a model for examining degrees of internally motivated accountability that range from restricted to unbounded accountability, and support balanced accountability as a goal for practice. Finally, (...) we explore implications of this model for training of clinical ethics consultants from diverse academic backgrounds, including those disciplines that do not have a formal code of ethics relating to clinical practice. (shrink)

This research examines the ethical dimensions of ethical thought aimed at reflecting fundamentals or leading principles of the production and reproduction of knowledge in science and tertiary education. To achieve research goals, the author of this article evaluates the key assumption that statements in the ethics of science and education are transcendental but do not require a reference to a transcendental or metaphysical subject. The author adheres to the stances by Wittgenstein and Moore and defines ethics in terms of the (...) general inquiry into what is good. The ways of forming ethical statements are compared with the main provisions of Merton’s theory of scientific ethos and its effects on the understanding patterns of the production and reproduction of knowledge. A comparison of general types of ethical inquiry and the theory of scientific ethos helps to present the theory of scientific ethos in terms of middle-range ethical theory. The comparison of transcendental statements in ethics and the points of the theory of scientific ethos is related to the issues of the philosophy of education. The relation is due to the exploring the forms and bases of reproduction of scientific society through tertiary education. The production of knowledge in science generates forms of judgments while education reproduces their ethically acceptable patterns of obtaining and applying. As a result, ethical transcendentalism without reference to a transcendental subject inevitably emphasizes the dialogical design of teaching. This design includes diversification of norms and values in science. Diversity as such ensures collective methods of decision-making and opposes any authoritarianism in education. (shrink)

This discussion note offers a preliminary analysis of what recent developments in human germline gene editing tell us about the effectiveness of speculative and anticipatory modes of techno-ethics. It argues that the benefits of speculative discussions are difficult to detect thus far, and that pushing the focal point of ethical discourse well ahead of the current state of technology may prematurely undermine existing norms long before a broad consensus would justify moving beyond them.

In this issue, McCarthy, Homan and Rozier make the case for re-stablishing the relationship between theological and secular bioethics. I find MHR to be quite...

Blumenthal-Barby (2024) argues that the concept of personhood should not be used in bioethics, and part of her justification is that personhood is not consistent with the public’s values. In this c...

Volume 19, Issue 7, July 2019, Page 32-34.