Download - J.Beever Purdue University - Bioethics
Ethics, Bioethics, and Moral Reasoning:
Jonathan Beever, Purdue University Department of Philosophy
How to Think Well in a Complex World
1. Personal, Societal, and Professional Ethics
2. Ethics vs. RCR
3. Bioethics
4. Arguments and Moral Reasoning
5. Applying Moral Reasoning
What are we doing?
© 2012 Jonathan Beever
1. Personal, Societal, and Professional Ethics
What is Ethics?
What is ethics?
the systematic study of the coherence
and consistency of our moral beliefs.
moral beliefs = our intuitions concerning
right and wrong, good and bad, just and
unjust.
Intuitions? …
The Subject
Society
Professions
© 2012 Jonathan Beever
RCR vs. ethics education
RCR = Responsible Conduct
of Research
- training in legal codes of
appropriate behavior
- “how not to get sued”
models
Ethics Education
- Education in moral
reasoning
- “how to think critically
and ethically” model
What is RCR?
2. Ethics vs. RCR
© 2012 Jonathan Beever
RCR vs. ethics education
Role of philosophy and policy in science education and
moral education
The need (NIH and NSF)The Hastings Center
and The IU Center for Bioethics
The responsible and ethical conduct of
research (RCR) is critical for excellence, as well as
public trust, in science and engineering.
Consequently, education in RCR is considered
essential in the preparation of future scientists and
engineers. (NSF 2009)
NIH Guide 23.23 required that applications for
institutional research training grants lacking a plan for
instruction in responsible conduct of research be
returned without review… (NIH 1994)
What is RCR?
2. Ethics vs. RCR
© 2012 Jonathan Beever
Hellegers:
1. Rights and duties of patients and health professionals
2. Rights and duties of research subjects and researchers
3. Formulation of public policy guidelines for clinical care and biomedical research
Potter:
1. long-range environmental concerns
2. Prevention, not just therapy
3. Search for wisdom
What is Bioethics?
3. Bioethics
© 2012 Jonathan Beever
df. Bioethics: The proactive study of the relationship between
biotechnologies and “societal ethics,” or our codified moral beliefs.
Why care?
3. Bioethics
© 2012 Jonathan Beever
Why care?
© 2012 Jonathan Beever
• Animals
• Cloning
• Biotechnologies
• Environment
• Energy and
Climate
• Euthanasia
• Health
• Personalized Medicine
• Nanotechnologies
• Genomic revolution
• Genetic testing
• Stem Cell research
• Policy issues
What issues?
3. Bioethics
• Et cetera…
© 2012 Jonathan Beever
Why Reason?
4. Arguments and Moral Reasoning
ARGUMENT – a set of statements (or propositions)
such that one of the statements is supposed to be
supported by the others.
Deductive –
necessary inference
from population to
sample.
Inductive –
probable inference
from sample to
population.
Abductive – hypothetical
inference from a fact to the
truth of a premise.
1. All dice in this particular
random sample are A’s;
2. all dice in this particular random
sample are taken from this bag;
3. therefore, all dice in this bag are
A’s.
1. All dice in this bag are A’s;
2. all dice in this particular
random sample are taken from
this bag;
3. therefore, all dice in this
particular random sample are
A’s.
1. All dice in this bag are A’s;
2. all dice in this particular random
sample are A’s;
3. therefore, all dice in this particular
random sample are taken from this
bag.
© 2012 Jonathan Beever
Why Reason?
4. Arguments and Moral Reasoning
Are ethical arguments of the same sort as other arguments?
Does moral reasoning work like other reasoning?
(what are we reasoning about?)
Descriptive vs. Normative claims
FMI – see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasoning-moral/
Taxonomy of Ethical Theories (non-exclusive)
Deontological Consequentialist Pragmatic
Rene Descartes Jeremy Bentham C.S. Peirce
Immanuel Kant John Stuart Mill James Dewey
John Rawls G.E. Moore
Thomas Scanlon Peter Singer
© 2012 Jonathan Beever
How to Decide?
4. Arguments and Moral Reasoning
FMI – see Beauchamp and Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics
Moral
Decision
Top-down
Principlism:
1. Autonomy
2. Non-maleficence
3. Beneficence
4. Justice
© 2012 Jonathan Beever
How to Decide?
4. Arguments and Moral Reasoning
FMI – see Beauchamp and Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics
Moral
Decision
Top-down
Bottom-up
Casuistry
Principlism:
1. Autonomy
2. Non-maleficence
3. Beneficence
4. Justice
© 2012 Jonathan Beever
How to Decide?
4. Arguments and Moral Reasoning
FMI – see Beauchamp and Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics
Moral
Decision
Top-down
Bottom-up
Casuistry
Principlism:
1. Autonomy
2. Non-maleficence
3. Beneficence
4. Justice
Reflexive Equilibrium
© 2012 Jonathan Beever
What to Decide?
5. Applying Moral Reasoning
1. Pharmacogenomic testing
2. End-of-life care for PVS patient
3. Animal Testing on GMO Mice
4. ….
How are we to best apply ethical theory and moral reasoning to real-world cases?
Questions?
J o n a t h a n B e e v e r , b e e v e r j @ p u r d u e . e d u© 2012 Jonathan Beever