Reflexivity in Bioethics Research: From principle to practice

Reflexivity in Bioethics Research: From principle to practice

Michael Dunn², Jane Williams⁴, Supriya Subramani¹, Jonathan Ives³, Jackie Leach Scully⁵, Sydney Health Ethics, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney Sydney², ³, UKAustralia 5

¹Sydney Health Ethics, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
²Centre for Biomedical Ethics, NUS Singapore
³Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol UK
⁴ACHEEV School of Health and Society, University of Wollongong Australia
⁵Disability Innovation Institute, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW Australia

Abstract

As a researcher, have you considered how your personal experiences, social context, cultural background and ethical commitments influence your bioethics scholarship? In recent debates in the social sciences, reflexivity has become widely recognized and accepted as a concept and practice to attend correctly to ‘the personal’ in the conduct of social research. Specifically, it reveals how researchers’ subjective and intersubjective standpoints impact and influence research, and specifies how these elements should be attended to in data collection and analysis. For many social scientists, taking a reflexive stance is a fundamental requirement of creating new and defensible forms of knowledge in the research process: an ethical imperative that recognises that empirical understanding is co-constructed in deliberative exchange and within specific social settings.

Recent research in bioethics has highlighted a role for reflexivity in developing ethical claims in both philosophical bioethics and empirical bioethics. However, despite the growing acceptance of this position, it remains unclear how reflexivity should be practiced in scholarship that is practical and normative in nature. Specific challenges remain unresolved, including:

•How do the requirements of reflexivity align with methods of practical ethical argumentation that are commonly understood to commit to objective standards of reasoning?
•How precisely can and should a bioethicist write themselves into their ethical thinking?

This workshop will begin with a short 10-minute paper introducing the case for reflexive bioethics. Next, three 10-minute papers will address varied challenges in putting reflexivity into practice in bioethics. To maximise conversational exchange, the workshop will be followed by a 30-minute panel discussion that will focus on key questions and contributions from audience members.

Biography

Bio to come