Ethicists differ considerably in their reasons for using empirical data. This paper presents a brief overview of four traditional approaches to the use of empirical data: “the prescriptive applied ethicists,” “the theorists,” “the critical applied ethicists,” and “the particularists.” The main aim of this paper is to introduce a fifth approach of more recent date (i.e. “integrated empirical ethics”) and to offer some methodological directives for research in integrated empirical ethics. All five approaches are presented in a table for heuristic (...) purposes. The table consists of eight columns: “view on distinction descriptive-prescriptive sciences,” “location of moral authority,” “central goal(s),” “types of normativity,” “use of empirical data,” “method,” “interaction empirical data and moral theory,” and “cooperation with descriptive sciences.” Ethicists can use the table in order to identify their own approach. Reflection on these issues prior to starting research in empirical ethics should lead to harmonization of the different scientific disciplines and effective planning of the final research design. Integrated empirical ethics (IEE) refers to studies in which ethicists and descriptive scientists cooperate together continuously and intensively. Both disciplines try to integrate moral theory and empirical data in order to reach a normative conclusion with respect to a specific social practice. IEE is not wholly prescriptive or wholly descriptive since IEE assumes an interdepence between facts and values and between the empirical and the normative. The paper ends with three suggestions for consideration on some of the future challenges of integrated empirical ethics. (shrink)

Since its origin, bioethics has attracted the collaboration of few social scientists, and social scientific methods of gathering empirical data have remained unfamiliar to ethicists. Recently, however, the clouded relations between the empirical and normative perspectives on bioethics appear to be changing. Three reasons explain why there was no easy and consistent input of empirical evidence into bioethics. Firstly, interdisciplinary dialogue runs the risk of communication problems and divergent objectives. Secondly, the social sciences were absent partners since the beginning of (...) bioethics. Thirdly, the meta‐ethical distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ created a ‘natural’ border between the disciplines. Now, bioethics tends to accommodate more empirical research. Three hypotheses explain this emergence. Firstly, dissatisfaction with a foundationalist interpretation of applied ethics created a stimulus to incorporate empirical research in bioethics. Secondly, clinical ethicists became engaged in empirical research due to their strong integration in the medical setting. Thirdly, the rise of the evidence‐based paradigm had an influence on the practice of bioethics. However, a problematic relationship cannot simply and easily evolve into a perfect interaction. A new and positive climate for empirical approaches has arisen, but the original difficulties have not disappeared. (shrink)

Objectives: The objective of this research is to analyse the evolution and nature of published empirical research in the fields of medical ethics and bioethics.Design: Retrospective quantitative study of nine peer reviewed journals in the field of bioethics and medical ethics .Results: In total, 4029 articles published between 1990 and 2003 were retrieved from the journals studied. Over this period, 435 studies used an empirical design. The highest percentage of empirical research articles appeared in Nursing Ethics , followed by the (...) Journal of Medical Ethics and the Journal of Clinical Ethics . These three journals account for 84.1% of all empirical research in bioethics published in this period. The results of the χ2 test for two independent samples for the entire dataset indicate that the period 1997–2003 presented a higher number of empirical studies than did the period 1990–1996 . This increase is statistically significant . Most empirical studies employed a quantitative paradigm . The main topic of research was prolongation of life and euthanasia .Conclusions: We conclude that the proportion of empirical research in the nine journals increased steadily from 5.4% in 1990 to 15.4% in 2003. It is likely that the importance of empirical methods in medical ethics and bioethics will continue to increase. (shrink)

Observers who note the increasing popularity of bioethics discussions often complain that the social sciences are poorly represented in discussions about things like abortion and stem-cell research. Critics say that bioethicists should be incorporating the methods and findings of social scientists, and should move towards making the discipline more empirically oriented. This way, critics argue, bioethics will remain relevant, and truly reflect the needs of actual people. Such recommendations ignore the diversity of viewpoints in bioethics, however. Bioethics can gain much (...) from the methods and findings from ethnographies and similar research. But it is misleading to suggest that bioethicists are unaware of this potential benefit. Not only that, bioethicists are justified in having doubts about the utility of the social science approach in some cases. This is not because there is some inherent superiority in non-empirical approaches to moral argument. Rather, the doubts concern the nature of the facts that the sciences would provide. Perhaps the larger point is that disagreements about the relationship between facts and normative arguments should be seen as part of the normal inquiry in bioethics, not evidence that reform is needed. (shrink)

This article seeks to establish that the social sciences have an important contribution to make to the study of ethics. The discussion is framed around three questions: (i) what theoretical work can the social sciences contribute to the understanding of ethics? (ii) what empirical work can the social sciences contribute to the understanding of ethics? And (iii) how does this theoretical and empirical work combine, to enhance the understanding of how ethics, as a field of analysis and debate, is socially (...) constituted and situated? Through these questions the argument goes beyond the now commonly cited objection to the over‐simplistic division between normative and descriptive ethics (that assigns the social sciences the ‘handmaiden’ role of simply providing the ‘facts’). In extending this argument, this article seeks to establish, more firmly and in more detail, that: (a) the social sciences have a longstanding theoretical interest analysing the role that a concern with ethics plays in explanations of social change, social organisation and social action; (b) the explanations that are based on the empirical investigations conducted by social scientists exemplify the interplay of epistemological and methodological analyses so that our understanding of particular substantive issues is extended beyond the conventional questions raised by ethicists, and (c) through this combination of theoretical and empirical work, social scientists go beyond the specific ethical questions of particular practices to enquire further into the social processes that lie behind the very designation of certain matters as being ‘ethical issues’. (shrink)

Infertility treatment is a speciality that has attracted considerable attention both from the public and bioethicists. The focus of this attention has mainly been on the dramatic dilemmas created by theses technologies. Relatively little is known, however, about how clinicians approach and resolve ethical issues on an everyday basis. The central aim of this study is to gain insight into these neglected aspects of practice. It was found that, for the clinicians, the process by which ethical decisions were made was (...) of key importance. It will be argued that this focus on the process of decision-making is more than just empty proceduralism but is based on and facilitates certain substantive ethical principles. In conclusion, suggestions as to how ethical decision-making processes can be supported and improved in infertility practice will be made. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article attempts to show a way in which social science research can contribute in a meaningful and equitable way to philosophical bioethics. It builds on the social science critique of bioethics present in the work of authors such as Renée Fox, Barry Hoffmaster and Charles Bosk, proposing the characteristics of a critical bioethics that would take social science seriously. The social science critique claims that traditional philosophical bioethics gives a dominant role to idealised, rational thought, and tends to (...) exclude social and cultural factors, relegating them to the status of irrelevancies. Another problem is the way in which bioethics assumes social reality divides down the same lines/categories as philosophical theories. Critical bioethics requires bioethicists to root their enquires in empirical research, to challenge theories using evidence, to be reflexive and to be sceptical about the claims of other bioethicists, scientists and clinicians. The aim is to produce a rigorous normative analysis of lived moral experience. (shrink)

There has long been tension between bioethicists whose work focuses on classical philosophical inquiry and those who perform empirical studies on bioethical issues. While many have argued that empirical research merely illuminates current practices and cannot inform normative ethics, others assert that research-based work has significant implications for refining our ethical norms. In this essay, I present a novel construct for classifying empirical research in bioethics into four hierarchical categories: Lay of the Land, Ideal Versus Reality, Improving Care, and Changing (...) Ethical Norms. Through explaining these four categories and providing examples of publications in each stratum, I define how empirical research informs normative ethics. I conclude by demonstrating how philosophical inquiry and empirical research can work cooperatively to further normative ethics. (shrink)

This paper analyses the concept of empirical ethics as well as three meta-ethical fallacies that empirical ethics is said to face: the is-ought problem, the naturalistic fallacy and violation of the fact-value distinction. Moreover, it answers the question of whether empirical ethics (necessarily) commits these three basic meta-ethical fallacies.

This article discusses the relation between empirical and normative approaches in bioethics. The issue of dwarf tossing, while admittedly unusual, is chosen as a point of departure because it challenges the reader to look with fresh eyes upon several central bioethical themes, including human dignity, autonomy, and the protection of vulnerable people. After an overview of current approaches to the integration of empirical and normative ethics, we consider five ways that the empirical and normative can be brought together to speak (...) to the problem of dwarf tossing: prescriptive applied ethics, theoretical ethics, critical applied ethics, particularist ethics and integrated empirical ethics. We defend a position of critical applied ethics that allows for a two-way relation between empirical and normative theories. Against efforts fully to integrate the normative and the empirical into one synthesis, we propose that the two should stand in tension and relation to one another. The approach we endorse acknowledges that a social practice can and should be judged both by the gathering of empirical data and by normative ethics. Critical applied ethics uses a five stage process that includes: (a) determination of the problem, (b) description of the problem, (c) empirical study of effects and alternatives, (d) normative weighing and (e) evaluation of the effects of a decision. In each stage, we explore the perspective from both the empirical (sociological) and the normative ethical point of view. We conclude by applying our five-stage critical applied ethics to the example of dwarf tossing. (shrink)

In this article, we present a dialogical approach to empirical ethics, based upon hermeneutic ethics and responsive evaluation. Hermeneutic ethics regards experience as the concrete source of moral wisdom. In order to gain a good understanding of moral issues, concrete detailed experiences and perspectives need to be exchanged. Within hermeneutic ethics dialogue is seen as a vehicle for moral learning and developing normative conclusions. Dialogue stands for a specific view on moral epistemology and methodological criteria for moral inquiry. Responsive evaluation (...) involves a structured way of setting up dialogical learning processes, by eliciting stories of participants, exchanging experiences in (homogeneous and heterogeneous) groups and drawing normative conclusions for practice. By combining these traditions we develop both a theoretical and a practical approach to empirical ethics, in which ethical issues are addressed and shaped together with stakeholders in practice. Stakeholders' experiences are not only used as a source for reflection by the ethicist; stakeholders are involved in the process of reflection and analysis, which takes place in a dialogue between participants in practice, facilitated by the ethicist. This dialogical approach to empirical ethics may give rise to questions such as: What contribution does the ethicist make? What role does ethical theory play? What is the relationship between empirical research and ethical theory in the dialogical process? In this article, these questions will be addressed by reflecting upon a project in empirical ethics that was set up in a dialogical way. The aim of this project was to develop and implement normative guidelines with and within practice, in order to improve the practice concerning coercion and compulsion in psychiatry. (shrink)

Social scientists often lament the fact that philosophically trained ethicists pay limited attention to the insights they generate. This paper presents an overview of tendencies in sociological and anthropological studies of morality, ethics and bioethics, and suggests that a lack in philosophical interest might be related to a tendency among social scientists to employ either a deficit model (social science perspectives accommodate the sense of context that philosophical ethics lacks), a replacement model (social scientists have finally found the “right way” (...) of doing ethics), or a dismissal model (ethics should be abandoned all together as a misconstrued veil of power). Increased awareness of differences in styles of reasoning and objects of research interest might help to overcome the hostility, and an anthropological project is presented as an invitation to a dialogue informed by awareness of such differences. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of clinical ethics committees (CECs) in infertility clinics in the UK, focusing on whether they usefully support infertility clinicians' ethical decision-making. The overall aim of the study reported here was to investigate how infertility clinicians approached and handled ethical problems in their everyday practice and this paper reports on one aspect of these data – what they thought about the use of CECs. This paper gives an overview of what arrangements there are for such committees (...) in infertility clinics; considers why the clinicians used CECs; and examines how these committees provided a useful function in the infertility setting and contributed to making ‘good’ ethical decisions. Finally, the paper examines how the form of ethics support can be developed and strengthened, and concludes with recommendations for a particular model of CECs in infertility units – a designated CEC for each infertility unit. (shrink)