Judgment is central to engineering, medicine, the sciences and many other practical activities. For example, one who otherwise knows what engineers know but lacks engineering judgment may be an expert of sorts, a handy resource much like a reference book or database, but cannot be a competent engineer. Though often overlooked or at least passed over in silence, the central place of judgment in engineering, the sciences, and the like should be obvious once pointed out. It is important here because (...) it helps to explain where ethics fits into these disciplines. There is no good engineering, no good science, and so on without good judgment and no good judgment in these disciplines without ethics. Doing even a minimally decent job of teaching one of these disciplines necessarily includes teaching its ethics; teaching the ethics is teaching the discipline (or at least a large part of it). (shrink)

. The interaction between law and morality in Jewish law in the areas of feticide and killing a terminally ill individual. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 76-84.

To paraphrase Lewis Carroll’s poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter” from his Through the Looking Glass, “The time has come to talk of many things.” Not as the Walrus did in the nursery rhyme, “of sho...

Since the publication of the first edition of Tom Beauchamp and James Childress’s Principles of Biomedical Ethics there has been much debate about what a proper method in medical ethics should look like. The main rival for Beauchamp and Childress’s account, principlism, has consistently been casuistry, an account that recommends argument by analogy from paradigm cases. Admirably, Beauchamp and Childress have modified their own view in successive editions of Principles of Biomedical Ethics in order to address the concerns proponents of (...) casuistry and others have had about principlism. Given these adjustments to their view, some have claimed that principlism and casuistry no longer count as distinct methods. Even so, many still consider these two conceptions of bioethical methodologies as rivals. Both accounts of the relationship between casuistry and principlism are wrong. These two conceptions of methodology in biomedical ethics are significantly different, but the differences are not the ones pointed out by those who still claim that they are distinct positions. In this article, I explain where the real similarities and differences lie between these two views. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is that of investigating the concept of “person” in the context of Italian law on informed consent and advance healthcare directives. The following paper will first consider the importance of the concept of “person” within bioethics; secondly it will exhibit how there are different levels of bioethics, and that on the discussion level of laws and regulations, concepts worthy of metaphysical and value references cannot be used, because they must be shared by everyone in a (...) pluralistic society. I’ll then move on to discuss the law on informed consent and advance healthcare directives; first I’ll discuss the references to the Italian Constitution, showing that the implied concept of “person” is closely linked to the concepts of “equality” and “autonomy”, and finally I’ll discuss the particular case of minors and the protection that the law provides them. (shrink)

This essay explores the dialectics of theory and practice in terms of argumentation theory. Adapting Jonsen and Toulmin's (1988) notion of a Theory-Practice spectrum, it conceives Theory and Practice as extreme ends of a continuum and discourses as falling at various points along the continuum. Every theoritical discourse has essential practical aspects, and every practical discourse has essential theoretical aspects. Practices are theorized to varying degrees but every practice is thorized to some degree. Reflective discourse, which is discourse about practice, (...) moves to and fro along the Theory-Practice continuum. Reflective discourse involves argumentation. Practical argumentation connects theory to practice; it appeals to general warrants, which may be simple or may tap into elaborate conceptual structures, in order to establish grounds for practical judgments. A practical discipline is a relatively coherent intellectual-professional enterprise that cultivates a field of social practice by engaging within itself and with practitioners in a reflective discourse. The argumentation of a practical discipline, like ordinary practical reflection, moves to and fro along the Theory-Practice continuum but in more methodical steps informed by systematic methodological reflection on the reflective process itself. (shrink)

There has been increasing interest in developing practical, non-theoretical tools for analyzing ethical problems in public health, biomedicine, and other scientific disciplines so that professionals can make and justify ethical decisions in their own research or practice. Tools for ethical decisionmaking, together with case studies on ethics, are often used in graduate education programs and in continuing professional education. Students can benefit from opportunities to further develop their analytical skills, to recognize ethical issues, and to develop their moral sensitivity. One (...) practical approach for illustrating and facilitating ethical analysis uses cases with contrary facts and circumstances, an approach which complements rather than replaces theoretical approaches to moral reasoning. Cases with contrary facts and circumstances are presented in two or more alternative ways so that the facts, circumstances, or framing of one version runs counter to that of the other version (s). Cases with contrary facts, together with practical steps for identifying and analyzing ethical issues, are likely to be useful tools for illustrating and facilitating ethics analysis and stimulating the moral imagination. (shrink)

Israel Scheffler views moral education as having two major objectives: inculcating minimum standards of decent conduct and developing rationality in moral deliberation and judgment. The latter is to be achieved by engaging students in discussions of moral issues in such a way that they come to appreciate and follow standards of rational deliberation and judgment – standards that Scheffler explicates primarily in terms of impartiality. This paper argues that the conception of rational moral deliberation and discussion underlying Scheffler's approach to (...) moral education is inadequate, and suggests an alternative conception that gives far more prominence to the problem of interpreting the meaning of substantive moral concepts and determining how they apply to particular cases. (shrink)

In this paper, classical pragmatism is used as a method, not as a substantial ethical theory, to develop “moral pragmatics.” Moral pragmatics offers a constructive approach for making progress where traditional ethical theories converge, and it innovates ethical deliberation. Assuming widespread agreement that real moral problems need practical solutions, the paper addresses two related problems: the missing link between ethical theories and moral practice, and the question of who is in charge of finding such solutions. It argues that “conscience” can (...) create a link between ethical knowledge and moral practice, and that this partly discharges “the ethicist” from the task of solving problems that are not really, or not only, hers. Two specific methodological innovations are suggested that go beyond admonitions to render ethics sensitive to context. Instead, a reevaluation of “casuistry” and a sensitivity for “finding the right words” give an idea of how to achieve this goal. (shrink)

In this paper, we present and defend the theoretical framework of an empirical model to describe people’s fundamental moral attitudes (FMAs) to animals, the stratification of FMAs in society and the role of FMAs in judgment on the culling of healthy animals in an animal disease epidemic. We used philosophical animal ethics theories to understand the moral basis of FMA convictions. Moreover, these theories provide us with a moral language for communication between animal ethics, FMAs, and public debates. We defend (...) that FMA is a two-layered concept. The first layer consists of deeply felt convictions about animals. The second layer consists of convictions derived from the first layer to serve as arguments in a debate on animal issues. In a debate, the latter convictions are variable, depending on the animal issue in a specific context, time, and place. This variability facilitates finding common ground in an animal issue between actors with opposing convictions. (shrink)

A barrier to the development and refinement of ethics education in and across health professional schools is that there is not an agreed upon instrument or method for assessment in ethics education. The most widely used ethics education assessment instrument is the Defining Issues Test (DIT) I & II. This instrument is not specific to the health professions. But it has been modified for use in, and influenced the development of other instruments in, the health professions. The DIT contains certain (...) philosophical assumptions (“Kohlbergian” or “neo-Kohlbergian”) that have been criticized in recent years. It is also expensive for large institutions to use. The purpose of this article is to offer a rubric—which the authors have named the Health Professional Ethics Rubric—for the assessment of several learning outcomes related to ethics education in health science centers. This rubric is not open to the same philosophical critiques as the DIT and other such instruments. This rubric is also practical to use. This article includes the rubric being advocated, which was developed by faculty and administrators at a large academic health science center as a part of a campus-wide ethics education initiative. The process of developing the rubric is described, as well as certain limitations and plans for revision. (shrink)

This paper analyses the way in which discourse and argumentation may vary depending on participants’ educational level and gender. Men and women from three different educational levels (literacy, advanced level and university students) participated in discussion groups that debated about women and work, the sharing of housework and the way in which girls and boys are educated. The results showed important differences depending on participants’ educational level and gender. In general, the main differences were related to educational level, while gender (...) tended to interact with educational level, as a moderating factor. (shrink)

Medical-legal partnerships — collaborative endeavors between health care clinicians and lawyers to more effectively address issues impacting health care — have proliferated over the past decade. The goal of this interdisciplinary approach is to improve the health outcomes and quality of life of patients and families, recognizing the many non-medical influences on health care and thus the value of an interdisciplinary team to enhance health. There are currently over 180 MLPs at over 200 hospitals and health centers in the United (...) States, with increasing federal interest and potential legislative support of this model.This article examines the unique, interrelated, and often similar ethical issues that confront the clinical and legal partners involved in MLPs. We contend that the ethical precepts of the clinical and legal professions should be seen as opportunities, not barriers, to further the interdisciplinary nature of MLPs. (shrink)

Drawing on Lennart Nordenfelt’s distinction between the four distinct senses of dignity, I elucidate the meaning of dignity in the context of research involving human subjects. I acknowledge that different interpretations of the personal senses of dignity may be acceptable in human subject research, but that inherent dignity (Menschenwürde) is not open to interpretation in the same way. In order to map out the grounds for interpreting dignity, I examine the unique application of the principle of respect for dignity in (...) Canada’s research ethics guidelines. These guidelines are unique because they consider dignity to be a foundational concept and the protection of the dignity of research subjects is regarded as a measure that prevents “the impoverishment of humanity as a whole”. While the conception of humanity invoked here is incomplete, Canada’s research ethics guidelines nevertheless represent a more European approach to biomedical policy. Finally, in order to correct a pervasive blind spot in contemporary policy on research involving human subjects, I sketch a functional model for attributing inherent dignity that avoids the untenable connotations of speciesism. (shrink)

Genome Canada has funded a research project to evaluate the usefulness of different forms of ethical analysis for assessing the moral weight of public opinion in the governance of genomics. This paper will describe a role of public consultation for ethical analysis and a contribution of ethical analysis to public consultation and the governance of genomics/biotechnology. Public consultation increases the robustness of ethical analysis with a more diverse and rich accounts experiences. Consultation must be carefully and respectfully designed to generate (...) sufficiently diverse and rich accounts of moral experiences. Since dominant groupstend to define ethical or policy issues in a manner that excludes some interests or perspectives, it is important to identify the range of interests that diverse publics hold before defining the issue and scope of a consultation. Similarly, a heavy policy focus and pressures to commercialize products risk oversimplification of the discussion and the premature foreclosure of ethical dialogue. Consequently, a significant contribution of ethical dialogue strengthened by social analysis is to consider the context and non-policy use of power to govern genomics and to sustain social debate on enduring ethical issues. (shrink)

The central question addressed in this paper is about the ethics of engaging with educational development in countries perceived as undemocratic or as failing to respect human rights. More particularly, it examines the nature of the arguments that are brought to bear on this issue. It suggests that these are essentially consequentialist in character and hence fall prey to many of the limitations of such consequentialism, including the unpredictability of what will unfold, the indeterminacy of the consequences and the complex (...) balance sheet of benefits and loss that might be anticipated. The paper also suggests some unease about the way judgements of the acceptability or otherwise of political processes are made across international boundaries and the presumptions of a ‘democratic’ western perspective. The observation of these complexities of principle and fact take the argument into the territory of case-based ethical judgement and the world of casuistry. (shrink)

Departing from frequent use of moral conflict cases in business ethics teaching and research, the paper suggests an elaboration of a moral conflict approach within business ethics, both conceptually and philosophically. The conceptual elaboration borrows from social science conflict research terminology, while the philosophical elaboration presents casuistry as a kind of practical, inductive argumentation with a focus on paradigmatic examples.

Medical Ethics has many unsung heros and heroines. Here we celebrate one of these and on telling part of her story hope to place modern medical ethics and bioethics in the UK more centrally within its historical and human contex.

Descartes's approach to practical judgments about what is beneficial or harmful, or what to pursue or avoid, is almost exactly the opposite of his approach to theoretical judgments about the true nature of things. Instead of the cautious skepticism for which Descartes is known, throughout his ethical writings he recommends developing the habit of making firm judgments and resolutely carrying them out, no matter how doubtful and uncertain they may be. Descartes, strikingly, takes irresolution to be the source of remorse (...) and repentance, of vice, and of a weak soul. In order to explain its dangerousness, this essay offers an analysis of irresolution as a failure of the will to determine itself to follow a judgment in the face of ignorance or uncertainty. This analysis connects irresolution to weakness of will and explains why Descartes regards resolution as an essential component of virtue. (shrink)

C a s e studies have a wide variety of uses in ethics courses,from increasing ethical sensitivity to developing moral reasoning skills. This article focuses on ways to avoid 2 potential pitfalls of using typical case studies: lack of theoretical background and lackof suficient detail. Thefirst part explains how a personal ethics experience can be discussed as early as thefirst day of class in a way that sets the tone and expectations of an ethics course despite students' lack of exposure (...) to ethical principles. Second, is an explanation of how a film can be used as an extended case that is rich enough in detail to sustain discussions about ethical theory over several weeks. (shrink)

The recent rapprochement between Science and Technology Studies and Political Science is induced by the broadened understanding of political action. The debate concerning the nature of ``the political'' produces an important question concerning the possibilities of an issue- or object-oriented focus for understanding political action. The purpose of this article is to contribute to this debate through an analysis of how relations between material and social entities are continuously recontextualized and decontextualized in social and political interaction. The authors discuss established (...) approaches to explain the concept of virtualization. Virtualization is then used in a case study on the implementation of manure regulation in East Fryslân, the Netherlands, to illustrate how cases or issues are virtualized in political decision making, which produces initial presumptions that carry conclusive weight. The authors conclude that a broad understanding of the political in both STS and PS can only be sustained through an understanding of how relations between social and material entities are continuously decontextualized and recontextualized in political and social interaction. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to the application questions of a case study method known as casuistry. In its long tradition, it focuses on an influential variant of the early modern period and reconstructs its functionality. In the course of reading recent receptions, it is noted that some studies speak of a “casuistic revival” in moral case deliberation in health care. As a result of this revival, casuistry has been modified in such a way that it guides case discussions in practice (...) with the help of a tripartite methodology. However, as it turns out, casuistry, a case comparison method of ethical judgement based on reasoning logic, is less suitable for moral case deliberations in direct patient care. This stems from the fact that casuistry is a detailed procedure of ethical learning beneficial to institutionalized ethics committees or similar forms of ethics consultation in health care. (shrink)

Typically people make ethical judgments with reference to unchanging principles, standards, rights, and values. This essay argues that such an ahistorical approach to ethics should be supplemented by a due regard for history. Invoking precedents by authors such as Jonsen and Toulmin, McIntyre, Niebuhr, Weber, De Tocqueville, Machiavelli and others, this essay explores several important ways in which a due regard for history can and should shape the practice of business ethics. Thus a due regard for history helps us both (...) to cultivate fitting appreciation of cultural mores and to understand how current problems and issues have developed as they have; it helps us to gauge current responsibilities with respect legacies of problems inherited from the past; it helps us to develop a lively sense of what is possible in the present, given current contingencies and past experiences; and it moves us to rethink the practice of ethical auditing: not just as a backward-looking effort to gauge compliance but as a forward-looking way of learning from actual experiences and developing fitting responses. (shrink)

A request that an ethics committee or consultant analyze the ethical issues in a case, delineate ethical options, or make a recommendation need not automatically but often does elicit legal information. In a recent book in which ethics consultants described cases on which they had worked, almost all cited a legal case or statute that had shaped the consultation process. During a period of just a few months, case consultation done under the auspices of one university hospital ethics committee involved (...) interpretation of statutes on living wills, durable powers of attorney, competency, confidentiality, guardianship, AIDS testing, and disability. At another hospital, 30% of ethics consultations were thought to involve legal issues. Attorneys at a third hospital estimated that virtually every case involves legal issues. The notion that ethics consultation is an “amalgam” of medicine, ethics, interpersonal skills, and law is gaining currency. Ethics consultation has become a channel through which law enters the clinical setting. (shrink)

Composed of scientific and technical experts and lay members, thousands of research ethics committees—Institutional Review Boards in the United States—must identify and assess the potential risks to human research subjects, and balance those risks against the potential benefits of the research. IRBs handle risk and its uncertainty by adopting a version of the precautionary principle. To assess scientific merit, IRBs use a tacit ``sanguinity principle,'' which treats uncertainty as inevitable, even desirable, in scientific progress. In balancing human subjects risks and (...) scientific benefits, IRBs use uncertainty as a boundary-ordering device that allows the mediation of the science and ethics aspects of their decisions. One effect is the entangling of methodological and ethical review. Some have suggested these should be more clearly separated, but decisions by research ethics committees depend in part on the negotiating space created by incommensurable approaches to uncertainty. (shrink)

This paper gives an introduction to the interdisciplinary special section. Against the historical and ethical background of reproductive technologies, it explores future scenarios of human reproduction and analyzes ways of mutual engagement between fictional and academic endeavors. The underlying idea is that we can make use of human reproduction scenarios in at least two ways: we can use them to critique technologies by imagining terrible consequences for humanity but also to defend positions that favor scientific and technological development.

IRBs and REBs use specialized language. A process of definition and re-definition of the situation occurs. That process of interpretation can usefully be considered from the perspective of interpretive social science models involving Symbolic Interaction, Semiotics and Hermeneutics. Seven examples are provided to flesh out the nuances of contextual decision making and the “casuistic” aspects of a balanced approach to complex problems. While many decisions are relatively unproblematic and can follow a template, it is not possible simply to apply a (...) fixed and mechanical approach. Hence, a socialization process occurs in which committee members must learn the actual application of the rules as opposed to the formal requirements. A “tightrope” between overly rigid and overly lax interpretations must be crossed and the more we understand the process of semiosis and the semiotic context the more likely it will be that truly ethical decisions will be “accomplished.” The lack of adequate survey data makes it all the more important to have good theoretical understanding of process. (shrink)

Reasoners compare problems to prior cases to draw conclusions about a problem and guide decision making. All Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) employs some methods for generalizing from cases to support indexing and relevance assessment and evidences two basic inference methods: constraining search by tracing a solution from a past case or evaluating a case by comparing it to past cases. Across domains and tasks, however, humans reason with cases in subtly different ways evidencing different mixes of and mechanisms for these components.In (...) recent CBR research in Artificial Intelligence (AI), five paradigmatic approaches have emerged: statistically-oriented, model-based, planning/design-oriented, exemplar-based, and adversarial or precedent-based. The paradigms differ in the assumptions they make about domain models, the extent to which they support symbolic case comparison, and the kinds of inferences for which they employ cases. (shrink)

This paper represents the first installment of alarger project devoted to the relevance of pragmatism forbioethics. One self-consciously pragmatist move would be toreturn to the classical pragmatist canon of Peirce, James andDewey in search of substantive doctrines or methodologicalapproaches that might be applied to current bioethicalcontroversies. Another pragmatist (or neopragmatist) move wouldbe to subject the regnant principlist paradigm to Richard Rorty'ssubversive assaults on foundationalism in epistemology andethics. A third pragmatist method, dubbed ``freestandingpragmatism'' by its proponents, embraces a ``pragmatist'' approachto practical (...) reasoning without discernable moorings either to theclassical canon or to Rorty's neopragmatism. This thirdpragmatist approach to method in practical ethics is the subjectof this article. I begin with an examination of freestandingpragmatism in the theory of judicial decision making. I arguethat this version of legal pragmatism – so described on account ofits commitments to contextualism, instrumentalism, eclecticism,and freedom from grand theory – bears a striking resemblance tomuch self-described pragmatist work in bioethics today. Ifurther argue that if this is what we mean by ``pragmatism,'' thenin a certain sense ``we are all pragmatists now.''. (shrink)

Organisational Ethics could be more effectively taught if organisational agency could be better distinguished from activity in other group entities, and defended against criticisms. Some criticisms come from the side of what is called “methodological individualism”. These critics argue that, strictly speaking, only individuals really exist and act, and organisations are not individuals, real things, or agents. Other criticisms come from fear of the possible use of alleged “corporate personhood” to argue for a possible radical expansion of corporate rights e.g. (...) to claim a right to vote. Others say that if corporate businesses were persons, and judged as such, they would be sociopaths (Bakan 2004). Large corporate businesses are one kind of organisation, and if organisations were allowed to claim to be full persons, this would mean that the latter criticisms were valid. The proposed account goes between the horns of the above dilemma: impersonal aggregates or full persons. It avoids both the reductive individualism and expansive, full personhood account. It gives grounds for attributing and distributing praise and blame to organisations as whole complex entities, and to their parts. Primarily, responsibility belongs to Board incumbents within them, on the basis of their goals; their direction of the acts of the other main internal role incumbents, managers and staff, and enablers, in the role structure; their own ethical decision methods; the impact of their acts on external stakeholders like end-users, other players in the practice or local community, and on the state. These factors are picked out on the basis of a theory of meaning Aristotle’s theory of analogy of attribution, some architectonic features of his Philosophical Anthropology; and Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics (NAVE). The paper expounds a quasi-person model of organisations, (QPM), previously described in this journal (Ardagh 2011, 2012, 2013). This model identifies functional similarities at three levels, between capacities within natural persons (NPs) on the one hand and the roles/ incumbents within the structure of organisational artificial/quasi-persons (APs on the other). In each entity, we find an architectonic direction, sub-ordered operational entities, and enablers (a DOE structure) in a communicative structure or reporting chain of authority. The common elements between natural persons (NP) and artificial persons (AP) and their ethically relevant attributes are captured in an acronym –GRAEOS. Both persons and organisations have a “top” entity capable of having/choosing worthwhile ethically permissible goals, G; of architectonically directing the use of capacities/repertoires or incumbents in designed architectonic roles, R, within a DOE-type structure, well or badly; of using ethical decision making procedures, E; of execution of good choices for the person or organisation in action, A, with good or bad impacts on others, or with others, O, in the context practice or domain; and of having good relations with the law and the state, S. Application to the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, and public sector organisations, is briefly discussed to illustrate the potential to deal with short or long case study narratives. (shrink)

In the Proceedings that emerged from the Second International Workshop on the Assessment of Animal Welfare at Farm and Group Level, Sandoe, Christiansen, & Appleby challenged participants to ponder four fundamental questions:a. What is the baseline standard for morally acceptable animal welfare?b. What is a good animal life?c. What farming purposes are legitimate?d. What kinds of compromises are acceptable in a less-than-perfect world?Continued reflection on those questions warrants examination of the shape of our modern agricultural ethic. It also calls for (...) a reexamination of recent work by Nussbaum on extending the capabilities approach to animals and the interface of Nussbaum's work with Rollin's scholarship on telos . The resources of narrative ethics are summoned to navigate the above-mentioned questions and to explore how Nussbaum's approach and Rollin's notion of animals' natures relate to the main storyline associated with developments in agriculture. (shrink)

Reproductive counseling includes counseling of prospective parents by obstetricians, clinical geneticists, and genetic counselors regarding, for example, the use of assisted reproductive technologies, prenatal testing, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Two different views on wisdom and the goal of reproductive counseling are analyzed. According to the first view, the goal of reproductive counseling is to help prospective parents reach a wise decision. A specific course of action is recommended by the counselor in contrast to other possible alternatives. According to the second (...) view, the goal of reproductive counseling is not to help prospective parents reach a wise decision but to help them reach their own decision wisely. It is the prospective parents who should make the decision, and it is their value commitments that should be decisive. It is argued that the second approach is to be preferred to the first. It combines respect for autonomy with a recognition of the need for assistance in decision-making. Both the first and second views relate the goal of reproductive counseling to wisdom. A problem is, however, what wisdom more precisely means — there are many different views. A casuistic view of wisdom is investigated. This view roughly defines wisdom as practical prudence in dealing with particular cases. What characterizes a casuistic decision-making method is elaborated in more detail. Applied to the second view, a casuistic view of wisdom implies that the counselor should encourage prospective parents to take into consideration the nature of the particular problem at hand, the context of the problem, their own individual identities, their personal value commitments, and various alternative perspectives, values and arguments. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationships that various applied ethics bear to each other, both in particular disciplines and more generally. The introductory section lays out the challenge of coming up with such an account and, drawing a parallel with the philosophy of science, offers that applied ethics may either be unified or disunified. The second section develops one simple account through which applied ethics are unified, vis-à-vis ethical theory. However, this is not taken to be a satisfying answer, for reasons (...) explained. In the third section, specific applied ethics are explored: biomedical ethics; business ethics; environmental ethics; and neuroethics. These are chosen not to be comprehensive, but rather for their traditions or other illustrative purposes. The final section draws together the results of the preceding analysis and defends a disunity conception of applied ethics. (shrink)

Bioethics mediation is increasingly used as a method in clinical ethics cases. My goal in this paper is to examine the implicit theoretical assumptions of the bioethics mediation method developed by Dubler and Liebman. According to them, the distinguishing feature of bioethics mediation is that the method is useful in most cases of clinical ethics in which conflict is the main issue, which implies that there is either no real ethical issue or if there were, they are not the key (...) to finding a resolution. I question the tacit assumption of non-normativity of the mediation method in bioethics by examining the various senses in which bioethics mediation might be non-normative or neutral. The major normative assumption of the mediation method is the existence of common morality. In addition, the four-principle formulation of the theory articulated by Beauchamp and Childress implicitly provides the normative content for the method. Full acknowledgement of the theoretical and normative assumptions of bioethics mediation helps clinical ethicists better understand the nature of their job. In addition, the need for a robust philosophical background even in what appears to be a purely practical method of mediation cannot be overemphasized. Acknowledgement of the normative nature of bioethics mediation method necessitates a more critical attitude of the bioethics mediators towards the norms they usually take for granted uncritically as valid. (shrink)

In Bioethics and Secular Humanism: The Search for a Common Morality, Tristram Engelhardt examines various possibilities of finding common ground for moral discourse among people from different traditions and concludes their futility. In this paper I will argue that many of the assumptions on which Engelhardt bases his conclusion about the impossibility of a content-full secular bioethics are problematic. By starting with the notion of moral strangers, there is no possibility, by definition, for a content-full moral discourse among moral strangers. (...) It means that there is circularity in starting the inquiry with a definition of moral strangers, which implies that they do not share enough moral background or commitment to an authority to allow for reaching a moral agreement, and concluding that content-full morality is impossible among moral strangers. I argue that assuming traditions as solid and immutable structures that insulate people across their boundaries is problematic. Another questionable assumption in Engelhardt’s work is the idea that religious and philosophical traditions provide content-full moralities. As the cardinal assumption in Engelhardt’s review of the various alternatives for a content-full moral discourse among moral strangers, I analyze his foundationalist account of moral reasoning and knowledge and indicate the possibility of other ways of moral knowledge, besides the foundationalist one. Then, I examine Engelhardt’s view concerning the futility of attempts at justifying a content-full secular bioethics, and indicate how the assumptions have shaped Engelhardt’s critique of the alternatives for the possibility of content-full secular bioethics. (shrink)

(1991). Everything is what it is. Inquiry: Vol. 34, No. 4, pp. 525-538.

This essay draws on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work to argue for a practice-oriented concept of expertise. We propose that conceptualizing types of expertise as having a family resemblance, relative to the problems such expertise addresses, escapes certain limitations of defining expertise as primarily epistemic. Recognizing the pragmatic purchase on actual problems a Wittgensteinian approach provides to discussions of expertise, we seek to understand the nature of expertise in situations where the people who need to make a difficult decision do not possess (...) or have access to the epistemic status that traditionally confers expertise. These are situations where people need to answer difficult questions that, while they may be informed by expertise in the epistemic register, are ultimately decided by expertise that weighs certified knowledge against the intractable characteristics of a particular situation. We suggest that there is not—even deep down on a conceptual level—only one kind of expertise, but multiple kinds of expertise that resonate with diverse kinds of problems. (shrink)

Argues that the path to the good life does not consist in working toward some abstract concept of the good, but rather by ameliorating the problems of the practices and institutions that make up our practical life.

This article explores the implications of what it means to moralize about future technological innovations. Specifically, I have been invited to comment on three papers that attempt to think about what seems to be an impending social reality: the availability of life-like sex robots. In response, I explore what it means to moralize about future technological innovations from a secular perspective, i.e., a perspective grounded in an immanent, socio-historically contingent view. I review the arguments of Nancy Jecker, Mark Howard and (...) Robert Sparrow, and Wang Jue and respond to their arguments concerning the permissible limits of human-robot sexual interaction. I argue that we are in a poor epistemic position regarding what the actual future human response will be towards sex robots and how it affects society generally. Given this poor epistemic position, I argue that moralizing about future trends like human-robot sex is difficult because we do not have the relevant facts to work with. Furthermore, I remain skeptical as to policy recommendations based on socio-historically contingent moral viewpoints both because they do not carry in principle moral authority to say what future others may or may not do with their property and they may not even appeal to future secular others, insofar as secular morality is plural and consistently develops anew. (shrink)

Bioethics has increasingly become a standard part of medical school education and the training of healthcare professionals more generally. This is a promising development, as it has the potential to help future practitioners become more attentive to moral concerns and, perhaps, better moral reasoners. At the same time, there is growing recognition within bioethics that nonideal theory can play an important role in formulating normative recommendations. In this chapter we discuss what this shift toward nonideal theory means for ethical curricula (...) within healthcare education. In particular, we contend that more attention to the particularities of historical and social context needs to be incorporated into bioethics training. To make this argument, we focus on two examples: teaching units on race and medicine and those that focus on stigma and coercion in mental health. For both, we show how a pedagogical approach in which educators focus on social injustice could influence how practitioners engage in ethics in the clinic. This chapter, then, demonstrates what a commitment to nonideal theory can mean practically when it comes to bioethics education. (shrink)

This paper has two goals. The first is to argue that the field of bioethics in general and the literature on ideal vs. nonideal theory in particular has underemphasized a primary problem for normative theorizing: the role of conditioning principles. I define these as principles that implicitly or explicitly ground, limit, or otherwise determine the construction and function of other principles, and, as a result, profoundly impact concept formation, perception, judgment, and action, et al. The second is to demonstrate that (...) ableism is one such conditioning principle and that it undermines the field of bioethics and the practice of biomedicine from achieving the aim of justice as fairness. After briefly addressing the history and critiques of principlism in bioethics, I lay out and defend my account of conditioning principles. I then argue that ableism is one such principle and demonstrate it at work through an analysis of a storied debate between Eva Kittay, Peter Singer, and Jeff McMahan. In conclusion, I contend that the ethical and philosophical dangers of conditioning principles are too easily exacerbated by ideal theory frameworks, and I do so by demonstrating how they are especially liable to generate epistemic injustice, especially contributory and hermeneutical injustice. (shrink)

Whether collective agency is a coherent concept depends on the theory of agency that we choose to adopt. We argue that the enactive theory of agency developed by Barandiaran, Di Paolo and Rohde (2009) provides a principled way of grounding agency in biological organisms. However the importance of biological embodiment for the enactive approach might lead one to be skeptical as to whether artificial systems or collectives of individuals could instantiate genuine agency. To explore this issue we contrast the concept (...) of collective agency with multi-agent systems and multi-system agents, and argue that genuinely collective agents instantiate agency at both the collective level and at the level of the component parts. Developing the enactive model, we propose understanding agency – both at the level of the individual and of the collective – as spectra that are constituted by dimensions that vary across time. Finally, we consider whether collectives that are not merely metaphorically ‘agents’ but rather are genuinely agentive also instantiate subjectivity at the collective level. We propose that investigations using the perceptual crossing paradigm suggest that a shared lived perspective can indeed emerge but this should not be conflated with a collective first-person perspective, for which material integration in a living body may be required. (shrink)

This volume explores the ethical questions that arise in the development, creation and use of robots that are capable of semiautonomous or autonomous decision making and human-like action. It examines how ethical and moral theories can and must be applied to address the complex and critical issues of the application of these intelligent robots in society. Coverage first presents fundamental concepts and provides a general overview of ethics, artificial intelligence and robotics. Next, the book studies all principal ethical applications of (...) robots, namely medical, assistive, socialized and war roboethics. It looks at such issues as robotic surgery, children-robot and elderly-robot therapeutical/social interactions and the use of robots, especially autonomous lethal ones, in warfare. In addition, a chapter also considers Japanese roboethics as well as key intercultural and robot legislation issues. Overall, readers are provided with a thorough investigation into the moral responsibility (if any) of autonomous robots when doing harm. This volume will serve as an ideal educational source in engineering and robotics courses as well as an introductory reference for researchers in the field. (shrink)