Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Minding the Gaps: Sensitivities in Pursuing Empirical Ethics

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Philosophies and Sociologies of Bioethics

  • 196 Accesses

Abstract

How issues are identified and how they become formulated as problems in need of redress are prime concerns in social research, ethics, and elsewhere. And yet, what remains off public, professional, and policy agendas also needs to be heeded. The central aim of this chapter is to ask how those engaged in bringing together empirical research on ‘what is’ and normative analysis on ‘what ought to be’ can become more mindful about the matters they are not addressing. In doing so it is possible to consider how traditions in sociology and ethics can learn from each other through mutually attending to what remains absent from each.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    See as well Tausig et al. (2006).

  2. 2.

    See Fricker (2007) for an analysis of the ethical blind spots of social life as well as the discipline of ethics.

  3. 3.

    Moreover, the dormant status of a topic can result from the repeated failure over time from the recognition of a problem to muster concrete reform.

  4. 4.

    From Hoffmaster (1990).

  5. 5.

    This is not to suggest that description and contextualization only become highly problematic in attempts to think about what is not taking place. Attempts to contextualize texts and objects entail a process of making connections, and how this done is open for contestation. Making connections can go on and on, without end, and along many paths (see Dilley 1999). In this sense, the manner in which this chapter seeks to open attention to the tensions and paradoxes of studying what is absent can be used a means for asking questions of inquiry more generally.

  6. 6.

    See the 2006 special issue of Political Studies Review, volume 4 for a lengthy consideration of these and related points as well as Lukes (2005): Chapter 2.

  7. 7.

    For an example, see Dimitrov et al. (2007).

  8. 8.

    For instance, Hayward (2006).

  9. 9.

    For a further discussion of related points see Woolgar and Pawluch (1985).

  10. 10.

    As an example of a work that strives for such contributions, see Haimes and Taylor (2011).

  11. 11.

    For an example see Green (2005). For a wider discussion on ‘undone science’ see Frickel et al. (2010).

  12. 12.

    Indeed, it is the lack of efforts to look for evidence that is often at the center of political and regulatory disputes. For instance, see van Zwanenberg and Millstone (2005).

  13. 13.

    For a consideration of this point see Winner (1992).

References

  • Bacchi, C.L. 1999. Women, Policy and Politics. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bacrach, P., and M. Baratz. 1962. Two Faces of Power. American Political Science Review 57: 632–642.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Balmer, B. 2012. Secrecy and Science: A Historical Sociology of Biological and Chemical Warfare. London: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benford, R.D., and D.A. Snow. 2000. Framing Processes and Social Movements. Annual Review of Sociology 26: 11–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brehm, M. 2013. Banning Nuclear Weapons. London: Article 36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chambliss, D. 1996. Beyond Caring: Hospitals, Nurses and the Social Organization of Ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cunningham-Burely, S., and A. Kerr. 1999. Defining the “social”. Sociology of Health & Illness 21 (5): 647–668.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dilley, R. 1999. The Problem of Context: Perspectives from Social Anthropology and Elsewhere. Vol. 4. London: Berghahn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dimitrov, R., D. Sprinz, G. DiGusto, and A. Kelle. 2007. International Nonregimes: A Research Agenda. International Studies Review 9: 235–236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eliasoph, N. 1998. Avoiding Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Elliott, K.C. 2013. Selective Ignorance and Agricultural Research. Science, Technology, & Human Values 38 (3): 328–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Evans, S., and E. Frow. 2015. Taking Care in Synthetic Biology. In Absence in Science, Security and Policy, ed. B. Rappert and B. Balmer. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Francis, L.P., M.P. Battin, J.A. Jacobson, C.B. Smith, and J. Botkin. 2005. How Infectious Diseases Got Left Out – And What This Omission Might Have Meant for Bioethics. Bioethics 19 (4): 307–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frickel, S., S. Gibbon, J. Howard, J. Kempner, G. Ottinger, and D. Hess. 2010. Undone Science: Charting Social Movement and Civil Society Challenges to Dominant Scientific Practice. Science, Technology and Human Values 35 (4): 444–473.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fricker, M. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Frith, L., A. Jacoby, and M. Gabbay. 2011. Ethical Boundary-Work in the Infertility Clinic. Sociology of Health & Illness 33 (4): 570–585.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gamson, W., and A. Modigliania. 1989. Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power. American Journal of Sociology 95 (1): 1–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaventa, J. 1980. Power and Powerlessness. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gould, C., V. Harris, B. Rappert, and K. Smith. 2014. The Presence of the Past: Re-engaging the Legacy of South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme. Nelson Mandela Foundation News, October 1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green, S. 2005. E3LSI Research: An Essential Element of Biodefense. Biosecurity and Bioterrorism 3 (2): 128–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gross, M., and L. McGoey, eds. 2015. Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gusfield, J. 1981. The Culture of Public Problems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haimes, E., and K. Taylor. 2011. The Contributions of Empirical Evidence to Socio-ethical Debates on Fresh Embryo Donation for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Bioethics 25 (6): 334–341.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayward, C.R. 2006. On Power and Responsibility. Political Studies Review 4 (2): 156–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Herrera, C. 2008. Is It Time for Bioethics to Go Empirical? Bioethics 22 (3): 137–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hess, D. 2007. Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoffmaster, B. 1990. Morality and the Social Sciences. In Social Science Perspectives on Medical Ethics, ed. G. Weisz. Boston: Kluwer Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoffmaster, B., and C. Hooker. 2009. How Experience Confronts Ethics. Bioethics 23 (4): 214–225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Houtepen, R. 1998. The Social Construction of Euthanasia and Medical Ethics in the Netherlands. In Bioethics and Society, ed. R. Devries and J. Subedi, 117–144. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurst, S. 2010. What “Empirical Turn in Bioethics”? Bioethics 24 (8): 439–444.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ives, J., and H. Draper. 2009. Appropriate Methodologies for Empirical Bioethics. Bioethics 23 (4): 249–258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kempner, J., J.F. Merz, and C.L. Bosk. 2011. Forbidden Knowledge: Public Controversy and the productIon of Nonknowledge. Sociological Forum 26 (3): 475–500.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leget, C., P. Borry, and R. De Vries. 2009. “Nobody Tosses a Dwarf!” The Relation Between the Empirical and the Normative Reexamined. Bioethics 23 (4): 226–235.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lukes, S. 1974. Power: A Radical View. London: Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005. Power: A Radical View. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Majone, G. 1989. Evidence, Argument, and Persuasion in the Policy Process. London: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, B. 1999. The Whistleblower’s Handbook: How to Be an Effective Resister. Sydney: Envirobook.

    Google Scholar 

  • Molewijk, B., A.M. Stiggelbout, W. Otten, H.M. Dupuis, and J. Kievit. 2003. Implicit Normativity in Evidence-Based Medicine. Health Care Analysis 11 (1): 69–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2004. Empirical Data and Moral Theory. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 7 (1): 55–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Proctor, R., and L. Schiebinger, eds. 2008. Agnotology. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rappert, B., and C. Gould. 2014. Biological Weapons Convention: Confidence, the Prohibition and Learning from the Past. ISS Occasional Paper. 258 14 July 2014. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rayner, S. 2012. Uncomfortable Knowledge. Economy and Society 41 (1): 107–125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ryan-Flood, R., and R. Gill. 2010. Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tausig, M., M.J. Selgelid, S. Subedi, and J. Subedi. 2006. Taking Sociology Seriously. Sociology of Health & Illness 28 (6): 838–849.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winner, L. 1992. Citizen Virtues in a Technological Order. Inquiry 35 (3/4): 341–361.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Woolgar, S., and D. Pawluch. 1985. Ontological Gerrymandering. Social Problems 32 (3): 214–227.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Zwanenberg, P., and E. Millstone. 2005. BSE: Risk, Science, and Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Philosophy, and Anthropology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Brian Rappert

Authors
  1. Brian Rappert
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brian Rappert .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Communications, Brunel University, London, United Kingdom

    Hauke Riesch

  2. School of History, Anthropology, Politics and Philosophy, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom

    Nathan Emmerich

  3. Department of Social & Political Sciences, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, Middlesex, United Kingdom

    Steven Wainwright

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Rappert, B. (2018). Minding the Gaps: Sensitivities in Pursuing Empirical Ethics. In: Riesch, H., Emmerich, N., Wainwright, S. (eds) Philosophies and Sociologies of Bioethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92738-1_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation