As early-career neuroethicists, we come to the field of neuroethics at a unique moment: we are well-situated to consider nearly two decades of neuroethics scholarship and identify challenges that have persisted across time. But we are also looking squarely ahead, embarking on the next generation of exciting and productive neuroethics scholarship. In this article, we both reflect backwards and turn our gaze forward. First, we highlight criticisms of neuroethics, both from scholars within the field and outside it, that have focused (...) on speculation and lack of skepticism; the dearth of consideration of broader social issues such as justice and equality, both with regard to who speaks for neuroethics as a field and who benefits from its recommendations and findings; and the insufficient focus on the practical impact of our ethical work. Second, we embrace the concept of “translational neuroethics” to outline a vision for neuroethics that is integrated, inclusive, and impactful. Integration can help us identify more pertinent, real-world issues, and move away from speculation; inclusivity can help ensure that the questions we attend to are not merely relevant to a single subgroup but aim toward just distribution of benefits; and impact can help us think beyond guidelines and recommendations to focus on implementation. Our goal is for this call to action to help shape neuroethics into a discipline that develops rigorous research agendas through relationships with interdisciplinary partners, that is broadly inclusive and attends to issues beyond novel neurotechnologies, and that is devoted to the translation of scholarship into practice. (shrink)

As automation in artificial intelligence is increasing, we will need to automate a growing amount of ethical decision making. However, ethical decision- making raises novel challenges for engineers, ethicists and policymakers, who will have to explore new ways to realize this task. The presented work focuses on the development and formalization of models that aim at ensuring a correct ethical behaviour of artificial intelligent agents, in a provable way, extending and implementing a logic-based proving calculus that is based on argumentation (...) reasoning with support and attack arguments. This leads to a formal theoretical framework of ethical competence that could be implemented in artificial intelligent systems in order to best formalize certain parameters of ethical decision-making to ensure safety and justified trust. (shrink)

Precision medicine relies on data and biospecimens from participants who willingly offer their personal information on the promise that this act will ultimately result in knowledge that will improv...

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 80-82.

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 76-78.

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 97-99.

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 86-88.

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 78-80.

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 100-101.

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 71-73.

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 89-91.

BackgroundEmpirical research can become relevant for bioethics in at least two ways. First, by informing the development or refinement of ethical recommendations. Second, by evaluating how ethical recommendations are translated into practice. This study aims to investigate the scope and objectives of empirical studies evaluating how ethical recommendations are translated into practice. MethodsA sample of the latest 400 publications from four bioethics journals was created and screened. All publications were included if they met one of the following three criteria: (1) (...) evaluative empirical research, (2) non-evaluative empirical research and (3) borderline cases. For all publications categorized as evaluative empirical research we analyzed which objects (norms and recommendations) had been evaluated.Results234 studies were included of which 54% (n = 126) were categorized as non-evaluative empirical studies, 36% (n = 84) as evaluative empirical studies, and 10% (n = 24) as borderline cases. The object of evaluation were aspirational norms in 5 of the 84 included evaluative empirical studies, more specific norms in 14 (16%) studies and concrete best practices in 65 (77%) studies. The specific best practices can be grouped under five broader categories: ethical procedures, ethical institutions, clinical or research practices, educational programs, and legal regulations.ConclusionsThis mapping study shows that empirical evaluative studies can be found at all stages in the translational process from theory to best practices. Our study suggests two intertwined dimensions for structuring the field of evaluative/translational empirical studies in bioethics: First, three broader categories of evaluation objects and second five categories for types of best practices.Trial registration: The methodology used was described in a study protocol that was registered publicly on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/r6h4y/). (shrink)

BackgroundThis is the first qualitative study to investigate how researchers, who do empirical work in bioethics, relate to objectives of empirical research in bioethics (ERiB). We explore reasons that make some objectives more acceptable, while others are deemed less acceptable.MethodsUsing qualitative exploratory study design, we interviewed bioethics researchers, who were selected to represent different types of scholars working in the field. The interview data of 25 participants were analyzed in this paper using thematic analysis. ResultsFrom the eight objectives presented to (...) the study participants, understanding the context of a bioethical issue and identifying ethical issues in practice received unanimous agreement. Participants also supported other objectives of ERiB but with varying degrees of agreement. The most contested objectives were striving to draw normative recommendations and developing and justifying moral principles. The is-ought gap was not considered an obstacle to ERiB, but rather a warning sign to critically reflect on the normative implications of empirical results.ConclusionsOur results show that the most contested objectives are also the more ambitious ones, whereas the least contested ones focus on producing empirical results. The potential of empirical research to be useful for bioethics was mostly based on the reasoning pattern that empirical data can provide a testing ground for elements of normative theory. Even though empirical research can inform many parts of bioethical inquiry, normative expertise is recommended to guide ERiB. The acceptability of ambitious objectives for ERiB boils down to finding firm ground for the integration of empirical facts in normative inquiry. (shrink)

Decades of public investment in molecular technologies and data integration techniques have fueled promises of precision medicine (PM) as a novel, targeted, and data-driven approach that takes into...

There are increasing pressures for bioethics to emphasise ‘translation’. Against this backdrop, we defend ‘speculative bioethics’. We explore speculation as an important tool and line of bioethical inquiry. Further, we examine the relationship between speculation and translational bioethics and posit that speculation can support translational work. First, speculative research might be conducted as ethical analysis of contemporary issues through a new lens, in which case it supports translational work. Second, speculation might be a first step prior to translational work on (...) a topic. Finally, speculative bioethics might constitute different content altogether, without translational objectives. For each conception of speculative bioethics, important methodological aspects determine whether it constitutes good bioethics research. We conclude that whether speculative bioethics is compatible with translational bioethics—and to what extent—depends on whether it is being employed as tool or content. Applying standards of impact uniformly across bioethics may inappropriately limit speculative bioethics. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 83-85.

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 92-94.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted many issues that can occur due to lack of translation between the spheres of bioethics and clinical practice. In this paper, we examine how mothers and newborn infants were inappropriately separated during the initial stages of the pandemic due to inconsistent application of ethical principles in determining policy. One of the significant challenges that translational bioethics face is the complexity regarding its implementation into the health service environment. As outlined in the literature, it may be postulated (...) that responsibility for translating bioethics from philosophical concepts into practice is the duty of those training in philosophical theory and reasoning. However, the use of bioethics in informing clinical practice is not just the case of needing a translator but rather requires an interpreter in the widest sense: professionals attuned to both bioethics and clinical practice, who can communicate with both groups effectively. A two-way dialogue needs to be more cohesively established to ensure clinical practice is guided by ethical principles and to focus academic debate towards the pragmatic issues that require ethical exploration. Utilising the translational bioethics model described by Bærøe and applying it to our perinatal COVID case study, we examine how an integrated translational bioethics approach could have prevented the harm and disruption to mother–infant dyads during the initial phase of the pandemic in 2020. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 73-75.