Abstract:
In recent years, empirical bioethics has embarked on a ‘public turn’, and this turn have been particularly notable within the Australasian bioethics community. Different directions of travel can be identified here. These include approaches that centre the involvement of varied (and typically socially marginalised) community members in co-designing or co-producing bioethics research projects, and other approaches that centre the democratic representation of members of society in deliberative exercises to formulate ethical arguments and make policy-relevant decisions. In this panel, the focus will be on this second tradition.
This variant of the public turn has been marked by distinctive methodologies, including Citizen’s Juries, Citizen’s Panels, or modified versions of wide reflective equilibrium. These methodologies seek to draw on new sources of empirical insight – typically focused on the views of members of the public captured in an active process of deliberative exchange – and which reflect academic bioethics reaching out to borrow and adapt different tools used for public policy formation within democratic political systems.
The panel will showcase and explore the foundations and practices of this evolving tradition of academic research. The justifications developed for this attempt to ‘democratise’ bioethics scholarship will be outlined and critically examined, exploring underpinning rationales as well as central theoretical questions about i) representation and legitimacy, ii) the role, status, and definition of the public(s), and iii) the relationship between philosophical and political standards of normative justification. Specific research methods will be presented and interrogated, including the processes of public learning prior to engagement, and methods of deliberative reasoning and analysis. The panel will draw on specific research projects being undertaken in the region to illuminate cutting-edge practices.
Contributors:
- Chris Degeling and Stacy Carter on the rationales for adopting deliberative democracy in academic bioethics
- Tamra Lysaght on the practice of citizen jury methods
- Emma Frost on informing the public(s) within deliberative democratic approaches
- Michael Dunn and Angus Dawson on the turn towards political standards of justification in academic bioethics
The panel members will begin by giving short presentations. These will be followed by extended time for questions and discussion involving the audience. The panel will be chaired by Yves Saint James Aquino.