A/Prof Michael Dunn, Centre for Biomedical Ethics, National University of Singapore
with a panel comprising: Prof Jackie Leach Scully, Dr Jane Williams, Dr Jacqueline Savard
Globally and locally, the sub-field of empirical bioethics continues to gain prominence in scholarly and policy-relevant research. However, as the methodologies of empirical bioethicists become more complex and integrative, the term ‘empirical bioethics’ is also becoming more amorphous and difficult to delineate as a unified strategy for research practice in bioethics. While that may be cause for celebration, one worry is that navigating the field for bioethicists (and for junior bioethicists in particular) is becoming increasingly difficult with the myriad different approaches now situated under the ‘empirical bioethics’ banner.
In this unashamed exercise in navel-gazing/workshop, we will begin with A/Prof Michael Dunn examining the boundaries and distinctions that can be drawn between different strategies for conducting bioethics research. Eschewing the standard concept-driven method to typologising empirical bioethics, he argues that broad approaches to connecting ethical and empirical inquiry can be helpfully distinguished by reference to the different types of research questions that these approaches seek to answer. Delineating questions in this way also reveals a discernible pattern in the degree of integration between empirical and ethical analysis that different questions demand. ‘Thin’ integration in empirical bioethics research is commonplace and relatively unproblematic from an interdisciplinary perspective. Integration of this kind simply orientates ethical reasoning in an appropriately practical manner. ‘Thick’ integration, on the other hand, is controversial and theoretically challenging. It requires no less than the endorsement of entirely different paradigms of practicing ethical thinking in real-world contexts.
Using this as a launching pad, our three panellists – Prof Jackie Leach Scully, Dr Jane Williams and Dr Jacqueline Savard – will respond to this argument in the context of their own experiences in combining empirical and ethical analyses, and open it up to the audience for their perspectives and questions.