In search of the Goldilocks method: Empirical bioethics and the spectre of scientisation
Jonathan Ives1, Giles Birchley1, Richard Huxtable1, The University Of Bristol, Uk Bristol 1The University Of Bristol, Uk, Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
Abstract
In this talk I consider the emergence of empirical bioethics, and its apparent acceptance as a mainstream methodological approach. In so doing I review some of the drivers that undergird its growing popularity, but sound a word of warning in the form of a concern about the scientisation of ethics.
I offer a critique of scientisation qua scientisation and highlight the ways in which scientisation appears to be encroaching on bioethics, from the rise of systematic review, though the uncritical use of scientific fact in argument, through calls for the adoption of implementation science, to the use of quasi-scientific methods that play too great a role in ethical argument or even replace it entirely.
I explore the ways in which applied bioethics scholarship may suffer if we submit to superficial scientisation and reliance on processual compliance.
I then propose that an appropriate balance between scientific method and ethics requires the articulation of methodological rigour where possible, the adoption of process where helpful, and an acceptance of inarticulable methodological messiness where necessary.
Biography
Jon is Professor of Empirical Bioethics, University of Bristol, UK, and currently researches innovation/AI and clinical ethics. He sits on the NICE Highly Specialised Technology Evaluation Committee, and chairs the BNSSG ICB Risk and Ethics Advisory Forum. He is lead editor for the newly commissioned Routledge Handbook of Empirical Bioethics.