Abstract
In this essay I consider whether the political perspective of third wave science studies – ‘elective modernism’ – offers a suitable framework for understanding the policy-making contributions that (bio)ethical experts might make. The question arises as a consequence of the fact that I have taken inspiration from the third wave in order to develop an account of (bio)ethical expertise. I offer a précis of this work and a brief summary of elective modernism before considering their relation. The view I set out suggests that elective modernism is a political philosophy and that although its use in relation to the use of scientific expertise in political and policy-making process has implications for the role of (bio)ethical expertise it does not, in the final analysis, provide an account that is appropriate for this latter form of specialist expertise. Nevertheless, it is an informative perspective, and one that can help us make sense of the political uses of (bio)ethical expertise.
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- 1.
In this essay I use the term (bio)ethics to mean the discussion and analysis of bioethical topics in accordance with the methodological prescriptions and philosophical presumptions of applied or practical ethics. The term bioethics denotes the broader inter- or multi-disciplinary field.
- 2.
What I am calling the contemporary account is often rejected. Such rejection does not necessarily indicate a preference for the traditional account. Rather it involves a denial of ethical expertise per se. Those who make this move include individuals who could be seen as experts in ethics (Cowley 2005; Archard 2011). It seems to me that such rejections are primarily motivated by concerns about the (unethical or simply unpalatable) normative implications of ethical expertise, concerns that are, for the most part, a function of certain meta-ethical commitments. We should, instead, recognize that (bio)ethical expertise is a fact of contemporary society, modern cultural and democratic politics.
- 3.
Proof of this point can be found if one considers the philosophical literature on moral practice, where we find interesting sub-field in which the significance of psychopaths is discussed. Here the psychopath is held to be an individual who does not feel the compulsion towards morally good or right action – or away from morally bad or wrong actions – felt be the rest of the population. It is not that they are unaware of the moral landscape; even lacking any moral compunction, it seems they can negotiate it all too well. Thus psychopaths do not lack ubiquitous moral expertise; rather they lack the normative motivations (or ‘conatus’) required for them to act morally rather than immorally. Similarly consider the ubiquitous moral expertise of an individual situated in a socio-cultural or political context they consider morally abhorrent, but the structural dictates of which they are forced to obey. Thinking that such individuals lack the ubiquitous moral expertise required to do what is right, or that this disproves the notion of ubiquitous moral expertise, is to miss the point entirely. A large component of ubiquitous moral expertise is constitute by ones moral perceptions (Zahle 2013, 2014). Psychopaths can be understood as being possessed of such perceptual abilities whilst lacking any compulsion to follow its dictates.
- 4.
At least to some degree, these past two sentences account for the phenomena known as moral dumbfounding, see Emmerich (2016) for further discussion of this point.
- 5.
The reason being that the process of becoming a contributory expert involves being socialized (and enculturated) into the relevant field. This involves the development of interactional expertise See: (Collins and Evans 2015).
- 6.
Part of the original impetus for the recognition of this sort of expertise was the abilities that one of the authors, Harry Collins, developed in relation to gravitational wave physics whilst conducting sociological research in this field (Collins and Evans 2007: 104–109).
- 7.
So as to avoid any potential misinterpretation that might result from the negative connotations usually attached to the notion of being able to talk the talk (whilst being unable to walk the walk) the phrase ‘walk the talk’ is preferred by Collins and Evans (2007: chap. 4). It also makes clear that the ‘talk’ is very much part of the ‘walk’.
- 8.
Some might think the order of these examples should be reversed. However, that is to underestimate the degree to which we already possess a certain level of interactional expertise with the field of healthcare. After all, we have all been patients. Therefore the interactional expertise required of (bio)ethicists builds on their wider, preexisting and non-academic experiences.
- 9.
Democratic politics and policy making is said to be endangered by scientific expertise and ‘scientism’ more generally. Collins and Evans (2007: 11), defend a particular kind of scientism – scientism4 – that is summed up by the notion that science is an essential part of modern culture. Thus elective modernism is a form of scientism, but one that Collins and Evans defend. Similarly my work has been concerned by ‘ethicism’ as any articulation of (bio)ethical expertise must avoid the suggestion that we might abdicate our moral agency to a cadre of experts. The resolution I have adopted is analogous to Collins and Evans’ notion of scientism4. It is to see bioethics as, in essence, one part of modernity’s moral culture.
- 10.
Whilst in my discussion of (bio)ethics and (bio)ethical expertise I did not make use the phrase ‘formative intentions’ the way in which I have sought to construe the field of (bio)ethics mirrors Collins, Evans and Weinel’s understanding of science and scientific fields. Formative intentions have been equated with values (2010) as well as with ideals and vocabularies of motive (Collins et al. 2010: 191 & 198 note 10).
- 11.
Particularly when it is scientific research that has raised questions for policy-makers to address, it is clear that technical phase must, in some way, precede the political phase. However, when one considers specific cases and the process through which they are addressed in more detail it is not simply the case that one follows the other. When properly examined such decision-making processes are complex and move back and forth between their technical and political phases. Thus, the notion of a phase does not allude to their temporal sequence so much as to make metaphorical reference to their natures as being comparable different physical states, like gas or liquid (Collins and Evans 2007: 124 fn 17). The technical and political phases are, therefore, different social states, different contexts for ways of being or forms of life. Or, to my mind the better phrasing, different modes of social life.
- 12.
Of course, this is not to deny that there might be elite, or even expert, consumers or interpreters of such works and products. Connoisseurship is acknowledged as form of (meta)expertise and, furthermore, it is a term that can be applied to science, to scientists and, in particular, to those involved in the practical and political management of science and scientists (Bourdieu 1996; Collins and Evans 2007: 57–59).
- 13.
Criticism by other scientists or those with scientific expertise such that they occupy the Locus of Legitimate Interpretation would, of course, not be an example of criticism but, rather, instances of further interpretation.
- 14.
The difference is, of course, the degree to which different forms of intellectual enquiry respect – or call into question – the ideological values of science and those that operate in practice.
- 15.
In a response to an article discussing elective modernism (Collins et al. 2010) Fischer (2011), a sociologist of science, criticized the apparent revival of the fact-value distinction. However, as their ongoing support for Wave 2 Science studies shows, Collins, Evans and Weinel are not seeking to revive the fact-value distinction per se. Rather they are promoting the realization that the distinction between fact and value has, so to speak, value. Thus it may be adopted in some times, places and contexts whilst rejected in others.
- 16.
The phrase is a subversion of Radcliffe-Richards (2012) more prescriptive and rhetorically loaded use of the same term. Albeit implicitly, Radcliffe-Richards’ view would appear to suggest that all moral agents should become (bio)ethical experts, at least to the level of gaining significant interactional expertise with the field of applied ethics. At play here is a misguided assumption that extends what Narvaez and Lapsley (2005: 141) identify as the principle of phenomenalism – the notion that formal ethical reflection is a prerequisite for an act, behavior or practice to have ‘moral significance.’
- 17.
It is, however, worth noting that it does not appear to apply to our ordinary or everyday ethical concerns but only to more specialist concerns of the kind raised by bioethics, business ethics, environmental ethics and so forth. We might ascribe this state of affairs to the way in which these domains require the careful evaluation of information, knowledge and perspectives that most are relatively uninformed about. A point that again highlights the role of bioethics in communicating ‘the science.’ Nevertheless it remains the case that, for the most part, applied ethics seems remarkably ill-suited to commenting on the ordinary ethics and moral practices of everyday life. A point that is, I would suggest, borne out by recent anthropological research (Zigon 2008; Lambek 2010; Faubion 2011; Laidlaw 2013). In a similar vein, see Johnson’s (2014) remarkable and interdisciplinary ‘Morality for Human Beings.’
- 18.
This does not, of course, imply that expert (bio)ethicists cannot engage in more esoteric, complex and expert forms of discourse. Just they, when required, they should at least make some attempt to communicate and engage with non-experts.
- 19.
Rosanvallon (2011) points out that politics and, indeed, policy-making, is not restricted to the work of the government but that, in modernity, has become ‘decentered’ with debates being distributed more widely. The UK’s Nuffield Council on Bioethics is a good example of this decentering, and of the broader (bio)ethicsts make to ‘the political life of a nation as a whole.’
- 20.
This way of thinking often appears to be anathema to (bio)ethicists. Consider, for example, the ethical compromise on embryo research set out by the Warnock Report. From an applied (bio)ethical perspective the position adopted is rationally indefensible and it has been criticized by (bio)ethicists for this very failing (Harris 1985: 132). However, not only are there more nuanced views (Hammond-Browning 2015), consider the longevity and impact that the report has had on the regulatory landscape: it is, for example the basis of UK’s Human Fertilization and Embryological Authority (HFEA) and, therefore, of the approval it recently granted for genome editing research. In regards its influence, durability and, more importantly, its political balance the report has been an outstanding success (Wilson 2011).
- 21.
Of course the fact that, at the time of writing, Montgomery was Chair of the Nuffield Council for Bioethics is pertinent to his view, and vice versa.
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Emmerich, N. (2018). Elective Modernism and the Politics of (Bio)Ethical Expertise. 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_2
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