Dr Michael Dunn1
1National University Of Singapore
Significant effort has been expended recently in developing new methodologies for conducting ‘empirical bioethics’ (EB) research. As a broad methodological orientation, EB seeks to integrate empirical and normative ethical analysis to make practical bioethical claims, employing deliberative methods, dialogical exchanges around ethical practices, and/or conducting normative reasoning ‘in situ’.
Whilst much attention has been paid to the epistemological challenges associated with this integrative process, there has been very little consideration of the ethical issues that can arise within EB research itself. Our aim is to draw attention to distinctive research ethics issues that are presented by EB methodologies. In particular, we highlight two specific challenges related to the ‘disruption of moral worlds’. First, EB research tends to require participants to explore moral positions critically, and this can be potentially damaging to their settled moral views or sense of ethically justifiable behaviour. Such research encounters can leave participants feeling that they are ‘in the wrong’, resulting in a variety of possible negative outcomes. Second, constructing ethical claims within EB raises questions about the place of reflexivity in the analytic process. Embracing reflexivity has the potential to pose burdens for the researcher, and looks to be misaligned with typical, impersonal approaches to formulating ethical arguments.
We draw on different examples from our own EB research to explore these ‘disruptive moments’ in EB, and consider (i) whether such disruption to both participant and researcher is justified, and (ii) how it ought to be responded to in the conduct of EB research.
Presenting Author : A/Prof Michael Dunn
Non-presenting Author : Prof Jonathan Ives
Biography:
Dr Michael Dunn is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics (CBmE) in the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He works across bioethics, medical ethics, health law, socio-legal studies, and health/social care services research, and is the Director of Undergraduate Education at CBmE.