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Summary - bio ethics (UA_2002FBDBMW)
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- Universiteit Antwerpen (UA)
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LESSON 1: INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS AND BIO-ETHICSEXPLAIN THESE TERMS
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY
Theoretical philosophers ask themselves what human beings are, what the world is and what the
universe is. Examples are metaphysics, philosophical anthropology and philosophy of science.
Although exact science have taken much of this domain since Modernity, it is still important to reflect
critically on many questions in science and try to clarify these e.g. when is something scientific?
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY
Examples of practical philosophy are ethics, political philosophy and social philosophy. Political
philosophers think about questions of politics and power and analyze different structures and
ideologies such as capitalism, democracy, colonization, communism,…. Social philosophy on the
other hand think about the origins and essence of a society and the relation between individuals and
social structure.
ETHICS
According to Socrates and Aristotle, ethics are the search for ‘the higher good’ of ‘the good life’.
Now, however, ethics are mostly about the search for and the study of the principles that are the
basis of norms and values. Ethics are a branch of philosophy (moral philosophy) that deals with the
common notion of good and bad, referred to as morality, on different levels. Ethics is further
subdivided in two non-normative and two normative branches.
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
A thought experiment is a fictional case which one tries to test or bring to the fore certain
philosophical intuitions. It is often used to draw certain conclusions or to state philosophical (and
universal) truths. An example is the thought experiment by which Edmund Gettier suggested that it is
not enough to have a true justified belief of something in order to be able to speak about really
knowing something (Gettier case). However, there has been some critique on using thought
experiments ‘from the armchair’ during the last twenty years: how do we know that these intuitions
are correct? Don’t they depend on our culture?
EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY
Experimental philosophers question the function of thought experiments and the philosophical
intuitions they thought to invoke. It has for example been demonstrated that philosophical intuitions
can differ between cultures, meaning that values and thoughts resulting from Western philosophy
may be less universal than thought. Experimental philosophy is a field of philosophical research that
attempts to combine traditional philosophical research with systematic empirical research e.g.
surveys which probe intuitions of ordinary people. However, some people have criticized it by saying
that it uses a flawed methodology (poor sample size, data analysis,…) and that it is rather psychology
than philosophy.
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,MORALITY
Morality is a code of rules and principles based on a fundamental notion of good and bad by which
people’s acts and judgements are guided. In other words: morality is the common notion of good and
bad. It is a collective given (there is no such thing as private morality) and it is acquired through
education, habit and culture.
EGOISTIC PRUDENCE
According to Thomas Hobbes, morality, being the common notion of good and bad, applies
specifically to humans living in a society and originates from egoistic prudence. He states that there
were only a few people and lots of food and other resources at the beginning of human history.
However, as the population grew, people had to compete for those resources. Individuals were
entangled in a bitter struggle to survive. Only the strongest made it. In this harsh climate, the social
contract emerged: people realized that it was to everyone’s advantage to keep to a set of moral rules
and norms. These rules and norms were institutionalized in laws and enforced by the state.
ETHICAL NATURALISM
What is morally good is determined by scientific data and be logically deduced from facts. Ethical
naturalist like Peter Railton state that moral facts can be logically deduced from non-moral facts and
thus that moral facts are not separate from empirical facts. Empirical facts can show what is good.
ETHICAL NON-NATURALISM
Ethical non-naturalists like G.E. Moore state that moral facts cannot be deduced from non-moral
facts and thus that goodness is a separate, fundamental characteristic. They believe that goodness
can only be shown and grasped (not defined) and that goodness is what our moral intuitions point to
(not what we imply from empirical facts).
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,SITUATE BIOETHICS WITHIN THE BROADER FIELD OF PHILOSOPHY AND IN RELATION TO
OTHER DISCIPLINES.
Bioethics is a form of applied ethics, a subdiscipline of ethics. Ethics is generally considered a branch
of philosophy, although some consider philosophy and ethics separate trades? However, like other
forms of applied ethics, bioethics is also interdisciplinary. Bioethics are often philosophers, but also
often people with a background in the exact sciences who have turned to ethics. One cannot think
about the practical dilemmas of the life sciences without engaging with these life sciences. Hence,
Oxford philosopher Onora O’Neill has called bioethics a meeting ground for a number of disciplines,
discourses and organizations concerning ethical, legal and social questions raised by advances in
medicine, science and biotechnology.
Ethics/moral philosophy is generally considered as a form of practical philosophy that deals with
morality on different levels. This discipline is further subdivided in:
Two non-normative branches
1. Descriptive ethics/moral sciences approach morality from social sciences,
psychology and cultural anthropology e.g. psychologists Lawrence Kohlberg and
Carol Gilligan have studied different stages of moral development in children.
2. Metaethics study why and how human beings show moral sensitivity by looking
at social sciences, history and biology e.g. we can ask ourselves if it is sufficient to
feel guilty to be moral or whether you must have a rational conviction that you
have done something wrong. Is morality a matter of emotions or reason? Also
concept such as good and evil and justice are studied.
Two normative branches
1. General normative ethics try to explain basic principles or morality in rational
terms and look for a comprehensive moral theory. In other words: these kind of
ethics try to determine which kind of behavior is good and bad.
2. Applied ethics analyze and specify specific moral dilemmas from specific
subdomains of human action e.g. media ethics (journalists’ duties towards those
interviewed), business ethics (company’s responsibility concerning the well-
being of its employees and their families) and bio-ethics.
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, WHICH METHOD(S) DO PHILOSOPHERS USE TO COME TO CERTAIN CONCLUSIONS?
1. Philosophers think about the meaning of concepts
The meaning of many everyday concepts may not be as straightforward if you consider it
more closely. For example, think about the concept of curing a disease. But what is a
disease? Does it mean that there is a proven biological cause, such as is the case with the flu?
Does it mean deviating from the mean? Has it to do with species-typical functioning? This
type of questions is also relevant for researchers. For example, much money is spent on
researching autism genes. But what should be the aim of this research? Is autism a disease to
be cured or a disorder, or is it in milder cases more like a variation of normal human
behavior? Another major topic is the concept of personal identity. What does it mean to have
an identity? Is an identity stable over time? What about interventions, such as Deep Brain
Stimulation (DBS), do they affect identity and it this relevant in the discussion on the
acceptability of these techniques.
Thinking about how concepts are used in scientific disciplines is also essential for
communicating science. If scientists find a statistical association between a specific gene and
a specific behavior of characteristic, such as intelligence, can we say ‘the gene for…’ has been
found?
2. Philosophy questions commonly held assumptions
It is often assumed that scientific knowledge progress linearly and cumulatively. Philosophers
of science have investigated this idea and have tried to consider whether and how scientific
progress is possible. They have argued that it is not only about gaining more and better
knowledge in science but that scientists are also (subconsciously) led by other influences.
What is considered scientific depends on current scientific paradigms or what we find
acceptable as a society.
3. Philosophers develop theories rather than doing experiments
Rather than generating ‘scientific’ data themselves by doing experiments, philosophers
develop theories, using data from their field of interest. They often do use thought
experiments. We shall discuss one when we discuss the theory of justice by John Rawls.
Some of these thought experiments can be amusing. For example, the philosopher Derek
Parfit, who wrote extensively on the concept of personal identity, asks us to consider a
‘teletransporter’, in his book Reasons and Persons. The teletransporter is similar to the one in
Star Trek. If you enter the teletransporter, you are put to sleep, it destroys you, breaks you
down in atoms and copies the information to Mars at the speed of light, where you will be
reassembled. Is this reassembled person the same person as you were on Earth? And what if
the original person is not destroyed but copies of you are created throughout the universe?
What does it mean to be the same person? Such type of thought experiment may seem a bit
farfetched, but they help us solve dilemmas that are much closer to home. How much do you
need to be changed neurologically before you are a different person? Would it be ethical to
perform euthanasia on a person with dementia, if he or she had expressed a desire to be
euthanized when he or she did not yet have dementia? What about drugs such as Ritalin,
who can make one’s life easier, but maybe also influence your personality? Is keeping your
‘personal identity’ a value as such, or is the wellbeing of the person the only thing that
counts?
Experimental Philosophy is a field of philosophical research that makes use of empirical
data, for example surveys or vignette studies probing the intuitions, for example moral
intuitions, of —often gathered through surveys which probe the intuitions of ordinary
people, often also moral intuitions—in order to inform research on philosophical questions.
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