Charting Moral Psychology’s Significance for Bioethics: Routes to Bioethical Progress, its Limits, and Lessons from Moral Philosophy
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Empirical moral psychology is sometimes dismissed as normatively insignificant because it plays no decisive role in settling ethical disputes. But that conclusion, even if it is valid for normative ethics, does not extend to bioethics. First, in contrast to normative ethics, bioethics can legitimately proceed from a presupposed moral framework. Within that framework, moral psychology can be shown to play four significant roles: it can improve bioethicists’ understanding of (1) the decision situation, (2) the origin and legitimacy of their moral concepts, (3) efficient options for implementing (legitimate) decisions, and (4) how to change and improve some parts of their moral framework. Second, metaethical considerations suggest that moral psychology may lead to the radical revision of entire moral frameworks and thus prompt the radical revision of entire moral frameworks in bioethics. However, I show that bioethics must either relinquish these radical implications of moral psychology and accept that there are limits to progress in bioethics based on moral psychology or establish an epistemic framework that guides radical revision.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
By submitting his/her work to the Editorial Board, the author accepts, upon having his/her text recommended for publication, that Diametros applies the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license to works we publish. Under this license, authors agree to make articles legally available for reuse, without permission or fees, for any purpose except commercial. Anyone may read, download, copy, print, distribute or reuse these articles without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as the author and original source are properly cited. The author holds the copyright without any other restrictions. Full information about CC-BY-NC: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode.
References
Antiel R.M., Humeniuk K.M., Tilburt J.C. (2014), "Spanning our Differences: Moral Psychology, Physician Beliefs, and the Practice of Medicine," Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 9 (1): 1–7.
View in Google Scholar
Arras J.D. (1991), "Getting Down to Cases: The Revival of Casuistry in Bioethics," The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 16 (1): 29–51.
View in Google Scholar
Baker R. (2002), "From Metaethicist to Bioethicist," Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 11 (4): 369–379.
View in Google Scholar
Beauchamp T.L., Childress J.F. (2013), Principles of Biomedical Ethics, Oxford University Press, New York.
View in Google Scholar
Beauchamp T.L., Rauprich O. (2016), "Principlism," [in:] Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics, H. ten Have (ed.), Springer, Berlin: 2282–2293.
View in Google Scholar
Berker S. (2009), "The Normative Insignificance of Neuroscience," Philosophy & Public Affairs 37 (4): 293–329.
View in Google Scholar
Beschorner T. (2006), "Ethical Theory and Business Practices: The Case of Discourse Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics 66 (1): 127–139.
View in Google Scholar
Bloom P. (2004), Descartes' Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains what Makes us Human, Basic Books, New York.
View in Google Scholar
Borry P., Schotsmans P., Dierickx K. (2005), "The Birth of the Empirical Turn in Bioethics," Bioethics 19 (1): 49–71.
View in Google Scholar
Brandt R.B. (1944), "The Significance of Differences of Ethical Opinion For Ethical Rationalism," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4 (4): 469–495.
View in Google Scholar
Brinchmann B.S., Nortvedt P. (2001), "Ethical Decision Making in Neonatal Units: The Normative Significance of Vitality," Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 4 (2): 193–200.
View in Google Scholar
Buchanan A., Powell R. (2015), "The Limits of Evolutionary Explanations of Morality and Their Implications for Moral Progress," Ethics 126 (1): 37–67.
View in Google Scholar
Callahan D. (1973), "Bioethics as a Discipline," The Hastings Center Studies 1 (1): 66–73.
View in Google Scholar
Campbell R., Kumar V. (2012), "Moral Reasoning on the Ground," Ethics 122 (2): 273–312.
View in Google Scholar
Chase S.B. (ed.) (1968), Problems in Public Expenditure Analysis, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC.
View in Google Scholar
Childress J.F. (2007), "Methods in Bioethics," [in:] The Oxford Handbook of Bioethics, B. Steinbock (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford: 15–45.
View in Google Scholar
Clarke S., Savulescu J., Coady C.A.J., Giubilini A., Sanyal S. (eds.) (2016), The Ethics of Human Enhancement: Understanding the Debate, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
View in Google Scholar
Clipsham P. (2014), "Does Empirical Moral Psychology Rest on a Mistake?," Philosophical Studies 170 (2): 215–233.
View in Google Scholar
Clouser K.D., Gert B. (1990), "A Critique of Principlism," The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 15 (2): 219–236.
View in Google Scholar
Cohen G.A. (2003), "Facts and Principles," Philosophy & Public Affairs 31 (3): 211–245.
View in Google Scholar
Curry O.S. (2016), "Morality as Cooperation: A Problem-Centred Approach," [in:] The Evolution of Morality, T.K. Shackelford, R.D. Hansen (eds.), Springer, Dordrecht: 27–51.
View in Google Scholar
Doris J.M., Stich S., Philips J. et al. (2020), "Moral Psychology: Empirical Approaches," [in:] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), E.E. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-psych-emp/ [Accessed 29.06.2020].
View in Google Scholar
Dörries A. (2009), "The 4-Step Approach: Ethics Case Discussion in Hospitals," Diametros 22: 39–46.
View in Google Scholar
Draper H. (2019), "Activism, Bioethics and Academic Research," Bioethics 33 (8): 861–871.
View in Google Scholar
Draper H., Moorlock G., Rogers W. et al. (2019), "Bioethics and Activism," Bioethics 33 (8): 853–856.
View in Google Scholar
Duke G., Thompson S. (2007), "Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Nursing Personnel Regarding Advance Directives," International Journal of Palliative Nursing 13 (3): 109–115.
View in Google Scholar
Düwell M. (2013), Bioethics: Methods, Theories, Domains, Routledge, London.
View in Google Scholar
Ebbesen M., Pedersen B.D. (2007), "Using Empirical Research to Formulate Normative Ethical Principles in Biomedicine," Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 10 (1): 33–48.
View in Google Scholar
Frodeman R., Briggle A. (2016), Socrates Tenured: The Institutions of Twenty-First-Century Philosophy, Rowman & Littlefield, London, Lanham, Maryland.
View in Google Scholar
Frodeman R., Briggle A., Holbrook J.B. (2012), "Philosophy in the Age of Neoliberalism," Social Epistemology 26 (3–4): 311–330.
View in Google Scholar
Frodeman R., Klein J.T., Mitcham C. (eds.) (2010), The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity (1. ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford.
View in Google Scholar
Greene J.D. (2008), "The Secret Joke of Kant's Soul," [in:] Moral Psychology Vol. 3: The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Disease, and Development, W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA: 35–79.
View in Google Scholar
Greene J.D. (2014), "Beyond Point-and-Shoot Morality: Why Cognitive (Neuro)Science Matters for Ethics," Ethics 124 (4): 695–726.
View in Google Scholar
Greene J.D., Sommerville R.B., Nystrom L.E. et al. (2001), "An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment," Science 293 (5537): 2105–2108.
View in Google Scholar
Haidt J. (2001), "The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment," Psychological Review 108 (4): 814–834.
View in Google Scholar
Harman G. (1977), The Nature of Morality: An Introduction to Ethics, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
View in Google Scholar
Herrera C. (2008), "Is it Time for Bioethics to go Empirical?," Bioethics 22 (3): 137–146.
View in Google Scholar
Horgan T., Timmons M. (eds.) (2006), Metaethics after Moore, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
View in Google Scholar
Hopster J. (2018), "Evolutionary Arguments Against Moral Realism: Why the Empirical Details Matter (and which Ones do)," Biology & Philosophy 33 (41).
View in Google Scholar
Ives J., Draper H. (2009), "Appropriate Methodologies for Empirical Bioethics: It's all Relative," Bioethics 23 (4): 249–258.
View in Google Scholar
Jenni K.E., Loewenstein G. (1997), "Explaining the 'Identifiable Victim Effect'," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 14 (3): 235–257.
View in Google Scholar
Jonsen A.R. (2003), The Birth of Bioethics, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
View in Google Scholar
Jonsen A.R., Toulmin S.E. (2012), The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning, University of California Press, Brekeley.
View in Google Scholar
Joyce R. (2016a), "Evolution, Truth-Tracking, and Moral Scepticism," [in:] R. Joyce, Essays in Moral Skepticism, Oxford University Press, Oxford: 142–158.
View in Google Scholar
Joyce R. (2016b), Essays in Moral Skepticism, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
View in Google Scholar
Kahane G. (2011), "Evolutionary Debunking Arguments," Noûs 45 (1): 103–125.
View in Google Scholar
Kass L.R. (1997), "The Wisdom of Repugnance," The New Republic, June 2: 17–26.
View in Google Scholar
Kay M., Matuszek C., Munson S.A. (2015), "Unequal Representation and Gender Stereotypes in Image Search Results for Occupations," [in:] CHI '15: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, B. Begole, J. Kim, K. Inkpen et al. (eds.), The Association for Computing Machinery, New York: 3819–3828.
View in Google Scholar
Keane W. (2016), Ethical Life: Its Natural and Social Histories, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
View in Google Scholar
Kelly D. (2011), Yuck!: The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
View in Google Scholar
Klenk M. (2018), Survival of Defeat: Evolution, Moral Objectivity, and Undercutting, Quaestiones Infinitae, Utrecht.
View in Google Scholar
Klenk M. (2019a), "Objectivist Conditions for Defeat and Evolutionary Debunking Arguments," Ratio 32 (4): 246–259.
View in Google Scholar
Klenk M. (2019b), "The Influence of Situational Factors in Sacrificial Dilemmas on Utilitarian Moral Judgments," SSRN Electronic Journal, URL = https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3501289 [Accessed 25.06.2020].
View in Google Scholar
Klenk M. (2020a), "Change in Moral View: Higher-Order Evidence and Moral Epistemology," [in:] Higher-Order Evidence and Moral Epistemology, M. Klenk (ed.), Routledge, New York: 1–27.
View in Google Scholar
Klenk M. (2020b), "Third Factor Explanations and Disagreement in Metaethics," Synthese 197 (1): 427–446.
View in Google Scholar
Klenk M. (ed.) (2020c), Higher-Order Evidence and Moral Epistemology, Routledge, New York.
View in Google Scholar
Kon A.A. (2009), "The Role of Empirical Research in Bioethics," The American Journal of Bioethics 9 (6–7): 59–65.
View in Google Scholar
Leiter B. (2004a), "The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Recovering Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud," [in:] The Future for Philosophy, B. Leiter (ed.), Clarendon Press, Oxford: 74–105.
View in Google Scholar
Leiter B. (ed.) (2004b), The Future of Philosophy, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
View in Google Scholar
Lindauer M. (2019), "Experimental Philosophy and the Fruitfulness of Normative Concepts," Philosophical Studies, Published 08 May 2019, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01302-3.
View in Google Scholar
Lindemann H. (2019), "Bioethicists to the Barricades!," Bioethics 33 (8): 857–860.
View in Google Scholar
May J. (2016a), "Emotional Reactions to Human Reproductive Cloning," Journal of Medical Ethics 42 (1): 26–30.
View in Google Scholar
May J. (2016b), "Repugnance as Performance Error: The Role of Disgust in Bioethical Intuitions," [in:] S. Clarke, J. Savulescu, C.A.J. Coady et al. (eds.), The Ethics of Human Enhancement: Understanding the Debate, Oxford University Press, Oxford: 43–57.
View in Google Scholar
Musschenga A.W. (2005), "Empirical Ethics, Context-Sensitivity, and Contextualism," The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 30 (5): 467–490.
View in Google Scholar
Paulo N. (2019), "In Search of Greene's Argument," Utilitas 31 (1): 38–58.
View in Google Scholar
Prinz J.J. (2007), The Emotional Construction of Morals, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
View in Google Scholar
Ruse M., Wilson E.O. (1986), "Moral Philosophy as Applied Science," Philosophy 61 (236): 173–192.
View in Google Scholar
Schelling T.C. (1968), "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," [in:] Problems in Public Expenditure Analysis, S.B. Chase (ed.), Brookings Institution, Washington, DC: 127–167.
View in Google Scholar
Shackelford T.K., Hansen R.D. (eds.) (2016), The Evolution of Morality, Springer, Dordrecht.
View in Google Scholar
Shafer-Landau R. (ed.) (2018), Oxford Studies in Metaethics: Volume 13, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
View in Google Scholar
Sinclair N. (2018), "Belief-Pills and the Possibility of Moral Epistemology," [in:] Oxford Studies in Metaethics 13, R. Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford: 1–41.
View in Google Scholar
Singer P.A., Viens A.M. (2008), The Cambridge Textbook of Bioethics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
View in Google Scholar
Sinnott-Armstrong W. (2006), "Moral Intuitionism Meets Empirical Psychology," [in:] Metaethics after Moore, T. Horgan, M. Timmons (eds.), Oxford University Press, Oxford: 340–366.
View in Google Scholar
Sinnott-Armstrong W. (ed.) (2008), Moral Psychology: The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Brain Disorders, and Development (vol. 3), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
View in Google Scholar
Steinbock B. (ed.) (2007), The Oxford Handbook of Bioethics, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
View in Google Scholar
van Thiel G.J.M.W., van Delden J.J.M. (1997), "Dealing with Patient Autonomy in Dutch Nursing Homes," Health Care in Later Life 3: 177–186.
View in Google Scholar
Veatch R.M. (1981), A Theory of Medical Ethics, Basic Books, New York.
View in Google Scholar
Vries R. de, Gordijn B. (2009), "Empirical Ethics and its Alleged Meta-Ethical Fallacies," Bioethics 23 (4): 193–201.
View in Google Scholar
Wielenberg E.J. (2016), "Ethics and Evolutionary Theory," Analysis 76 (4): 502–515.
View in Google Scholar
Wocial L.D. (2010), "Nurturing the Moral Imagination: A Reflection on Bioethics Education for Nurses," Diametros 25: 92–102.
View in Google Scholar
Żuradzki T. (2019), "The Normative Significance of Identifiability," Ethics and Information Technology 21 (4): 295-305.
View in Google Scholar
Żuradzki T. (2015), "The Preference Toward Identified Victims and Rescue Duties," The American Journal of Bioethics 15 (2): 25–27.
View in Google Scholar