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Beyond integrating social sciences: Reflecting on the place of life sciences in empirical bioethics methodologies

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Abstract

Empirical bioethics is commonly understood as integrating empirical research with normative-ethical research in order to address an ethical issue. Methodological analyses in empirical bioethics mainly focus on the integration of socio-empirical sciences (e.g. sociology or psychology) and normative ethics. But while there are numerous multidisciplinary research projects combining life sciences and normative ethics, there is few explicit methodological reflection on how to integrate both fields, or about the goals and rationales of such interdisciplinary cooperation. In this paper we will review some drivers for the tendency of empirical bioethics methodologies to focus on the collaboration of normative ethics with particularly social sciences. Subsequently, we argue that the ends of empirical bioethics, not the empirical methods, are decisive for the question of which empirical disciplines can contribute to empirical bioethics in a meaningful way. Using already existing types of research integration as a springboard, five possible types of research which encompass life sciences and normative analysis will illustrate how such cooperation can be conceptualized from a methodological perspective within empirical bioethics. We will conclude with a reflection on the limitations and challenges of empirical bioethics research that integrates life sciences.

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Notes

  1. Though we have to mention a historical counter-example concerning the source of criticism: the early sociobiology of E.O. Wilson in the 1970s also criticised ethics—though not bioethics in particular—and did this from a dedicated natural science perspective. But this criticism, as we might say today, was neither destructive nor constructive for ethics, and the debate was mostly limited to mere academic musings without a particular tangible impact on actual research practices.

  2. An enthymeme that underlies such thinking may go like this: Only method x is appropriate for EB research; method x is (mainly, solely) employed by discipline y; therefore, (only, solely) discipline y is an appropriate partner for EB research.

  3. We are using ‘real world’ in a more colloquial manner in order to distinguish it from conceptions of the world that are more idealised, abstracted or are built upon the narrow lenses of a specific disciplinary tradition. We do not propose philosophically that a ‘metaphysically real’ world can be (directly) depicted by such means of carrying out bioethics.

  4. One may argue, for example, that one or two ethicists refrain from endorsing too much the sort of naturalism that might be implied by being involved in natural science research, because of (so perceived) shortcomings of naturalism to explain normativity or to take societal institutions and ‘mechanisms’ sufficiently into account. The tendency of a lot of qualitative research approaches to epistemologies that can be classified as (social) constructivism might also be deemed better suited by many (bio-)ethicists than the scientific realist or ‘positivist’ epistemologies that are more often advocated in the natural sciences.

  5. However, we found that these approaches are, surprisingly, not very helpful for our venture, mainly because they embrace other goals than we envisage for EB.

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Acknowledgements

We like to thank the members of the working group “Ethik und Empirie” of the Akademie für Ethik in der Medizin e.V. (Academy for Ethics in Medicine) for their critical comments on an early draft of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for History, Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Straße 1, 30625, Hanover, Germany

    Marcel Mertz

  2. Institute for Ethics, Wilhelm Löhe University of Applied Science, Fürth Merkurstraße 41/Südstadtpark, 90763, Fürth, Germany

    Jan Schildmann

  3. Department of Medicine III, Klinikum der Universität München, Campus Großhadern, Munich, Germany

    Jan Schildmann

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  1. Marcel Mertz
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Correspondence to Marcel Mertz.

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Mertz, M., Schildmann, J. Beyond integrating social sciences: Reflecting on the place of life sciences in empirical bioethics methodologies. Med Health Care and Philos 21, 207–214 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-017-9792-z

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