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


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


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


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


df. Bioethics: The proactive study of the relationship between

biotechnologies and “societal ethics,” or our codified moral beliefs.

Why care?

3. Bioethics


Why care?


• 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…


Why Reason?


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.


Why Reason?


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


How to Decide?


FMI – see Beauchamp and Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics

Moral

Decision

Top-down

Principlism:

1. Autonomy

2. Non-maleficence

3. Beneficence

4. Justice


How to Decide?



Moral

Decision

Top-down

Bottom-up

Casuistry

Principlism:

1. Autonomy

2. Non-maleficence

3. Beneficence

4. Justice


How to Decide?



Moral

Decision

Top-down

Bottom-up

Casuistry

Principlism:

1. Autonomy

2. Non-maleficence

3. Beneficence

4. Justice

Reflexive Equilibrium


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

j.beever purdue university - bioethics

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