Cargando…

Evidence-based ethics? On evidence-based practice and the "empirical turn" from normative bioethics

BACKGROUND: The increase in empirical methods of research in bioethics over the last two decades is typically perceived as a welcomed broadening of the discipline, with increased integration of social and life scientists into the field and ethics consultants into the clinical setting, however it als...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Goldenberg, Maya J
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2005
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1298300/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16277663
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-6-11
_version_ 1782126248775909376
author Goldenberg, Maya J
author_facet Goldenberg, Maya J
author_sort Goldenberg, Maya J
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The increase in empirical methods of research in bioethics over the last two decades is typically perceived as a welcomed broadening of the discipline, with increased integration of social and life scientists into the field and ethics consultants into the clinical setting, however it also represents a loss of confidence in the typical normative and analytic methods of bioethics. DISCUSSION: The recent incipiency of "Evidence-Based Ethics" attests to this phenomenon and should be rejected as a solution to the current ambivalence toward the normative resolution of moral problems in a pluralistic society. While "evidence-based" is typically read in medicine and other life and social sciences as the empirically-adequate standard of reasonable practice and a means for increasing certainty, I propose that the evidence-based movement in fact gains consensus by displacing normative discourse with aggregate or statistically-derived empirical evidence as the "bottom line". Therefore, along with wavering on the fact/value distinction, evidence-based ethics threatens bioethics' normative mandate. The appeal of the evidence-based approach is that it offers a means of negotiating the demands of moral pluralism. Rather than appealing to explicit values that are likely not shared by all, "the evidence" is proposed to adjudicate between competing claims. Quantified measures are notably more "neutral" and democratic than liberal markers like "species normal functioning". Yet the positivist notion that claims stand or fall in light of the evidence is untenable; furthermore, the legacy of positivism entails the quieting of empirically non-verifiable (or at least non-falsifiable) considerations like moral claims and judgments. As a result, evidence-based ethics proposes to operate with the implicit normativity that accompanies the production and presentation of all biomedical and scientific facts unchecked. SUMMARY: The "empirical turn" in bioethics signals a need for reconsideration of the methods used for moral evaluation and resolution, however the options should not include obscuring normative content by seemingly neutral technical measure.
format Text
id pubmed-1298300
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2005
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-12983002005-12-02 Evidence-based ethics? On evidence-based practice and the "empirical turn" from normative bioethics Goldenberg, Maya J BMC Med Ethics Debate BACKGROUND: The increase in empirical methods of research in bioethics over the last two decades is typically perceived as a welcomed broadening of the discipline, with increased integration of social and life scientists into the field and ethics consultants into the clinical setting, however it also represents a loss of confidence in the typical normative and analytic methods of bioethics. DISCUSSION: The recent incipiency of "Evidence-Based Ethics" attests to this phenomenon and should be rejected as a solution to the current ambivalence toward the normative resolution of moral problems in a pluralistic society. While "evidence-based" is typically read in medicine and other life and social sciences as the empirically-adequate standard of reasonable practice and a means for increasing certainty, I propose that the evidence-based movement in fact gains consensus by displacing normative discourse with aggregate or statistically-derived empirical evidence as the "bottom line". Therefore, along with wavering on the fact/value distinction, evidence-based ethics threatens bioethics' normative mandate. The appeal of the evidence-based approach is that it offers a means of negotiating the demands of moral pluralism. Rather than appealing to explicit values that are likely not shared by all, "the evidence" is proposed to adjudicate between competing claims. Quantified measures are notably more "neutral" and democratic than liberal markers like "species normal functioning". Yet the positivist notion that claims stand or fall in light of the evidence is untenable; furthermore, the legacy of positivism entails the quieting of empirically non-verifiable (or at least non-falsifiable) considerations like moral claims and judgments. As a result, evidence-based ethics proposes to operate with the implicit normativity that accompanies the production and presentation of all biomedical and scientific facts unchecked. SUMMARY: The "empirical turn" in bioethics signals a need for reconsideration of the methods used for moral evaluation and resolution, however the options should not include obscuring normative content by seemingly neutral technical measure. BioMed Central 2005-11-08 /pmc/articles/PMC1298300/ /pubmed/16277663 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-6-11 Text en Copyright © 2005 Goldenberg; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Debate
Goldenberg, Maya J
Evidence-based ethics? On evidence-based practice and the "empirical turn" from normative bioethics
title Evidence-based ethics? On evidence-based practice and the "empirical turn" from normative bioethics
title_full Evidence-based ethics? On evidence-based practice and the "empirical turn" from normative bioethics
title_fullStr Evidence-based ethics? On evidence-based practice and the "empirical turn" from normative bioethics
title_full_unstemmed Evidence-based ethics? On evidence-based practice and the "empirical turn" from normative bioethics
title_short Evidence-based ethics? On evidence-based practice and the "empirical turn" from normative bioethics
title_sort evidence-based ethics? on evidence-based practice and the "empirical turn" from normative bioethics
topic Debate
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1298300/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16277663
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-6-11
work_keys_str_mv AT goldenbergmayaj evidencebasedethicsonevidencebasedpracticeandtheempiricalturnfromnormativebioethics