This is an excellent, provocative commentary, but I would like to say as both a committed interdisciplinarian (indeed, as someone who has completed a Ph.D in an interdisciplinary field, medical humanities) and as someone with advanced training in applied ethics, there are many ways of sharpening the predicate “is interdisciplinary studies.”

In the U.S., there is an unusual professional group entitled the “Association of Integrative Studies” that has made it their business to clarify what is and what is not meant by the term “interdisciplinary.” I agree with Dr. Sulmasy that the Academy tends to wax about the term without any clear sense of what it means or what it entails, but I also have a vested interest in believing, and do believe, that he is right that doing so is of critical importance.

While a blog comment is obviously not the place to go into a detailed discussion of what counts as interdisciplinary work, and why it matters especially to concerns of health and illness in society, I did just want to register both that I think the concept is important, and in fact that it can be sharpened to render it meaningful in practice. (As a devoted Wittgensteinian and non-essentialist, I neither want nor think it coherent to search for a definition of “interdisciplinary”).

In any case, I hope to practice such a form of life in my own work, though, for all the talk of the importance of interdisciplinarity, there is, both in my experience and in the evidence on the matter, little reward and every punishment for attempts to practice as such in the U.S.

I’d just like to highlight this book to you http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521694438

‘This is a comprehensive and carefully designed textbook that will attract many users in the health professions. The chapters, written by a group of distinguished authors, are presented in a format that is well suited to interactive educational use.’ Bulletin of the World Health Organization
Medicine and health care generate many bioethical problems and dilemmas that are of great academic, professional and public interest. This comprehensive resource is designed as a succinct yet authoritative text and reference for clinicians, bioethicists, and advanced students seeking a better understanding of ethics problems in the clinical setting. Each chapter illustrates an ethical problem that might be encountered in everyday practice; defines the concepts at issue; examines their implications from the perspectives of ethics, law and policy; and then provides a practical resolution. There are 10 key sections presenting the most vital topics and clinically relevant areas of modern bioethics. International, interdisciplinary authorship and cross-cultural orientation ensure suitability for a worldwide audience. This book will assist all clinicians in making well-reasoned and defensible decisions by developing their awareness of ethical considerations and teaching the analytical skills to deal with them effectively.

IAIN COMMENTS:
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there’s a distinct whiff of spam about this comment. With this in mind, I’ve taken the liberty of sabotaging the link.

I’ll de-sabotage it if and when I get a lovely complimentary copy of the book being pimped.
Cheers
Hurrah! There’s a freebie on its way, and the link is now de-horsed. I’ll post a review as soon as I can.

As to the first, regarding the benefits of theo-, I agree it’s not a special contribution, just a contribution. The only difference I can see would be foundation principles, which add nothing. It was just to point out that it is a separate discipline in which this kind of work is done, same may be said for moral anthropology but not of others. I may have already mentioned that I don’t care much to defend theology and now I feel like I am, so I’ll stop!

With regard to politics and bioethics – I should have read DS’s post more fully before commenting. Having now done so, I’m still not sure if the problem he points to is a case of bioethicists becoming overly involved in partisan discussions of a bioethical nature, or if it is really a problem of politicians using bioethical issues in an emotive, polarising manner to inflame moral outrage. If the problem is with politicians, then maybe bioethicists should become more publicly active to change the dynamic of such debates?? I’m not thinking you necessarily disagree…I’m just hijacking your critique of DS (apologies).

On interdisiciplinarity – yep.

In respect of the religious origins of the subject, while it may be true that religious concerns motivated the flagging of certain problems, I don’t think it follows that there was ever a religious turn in the subject per se; nor did it grow out of religious arguments. European bioethics, as I see it, has always been an almost completely secular affair, and is at its most successful when it is.

This speaks to your (4), too: whatever important work there has been on social morality carried out by theologians, it’s hard to see what the theo- prefix has added; what’s the difference between this kind of work and moral anthropology or just plain old ethics?

In respect of (2) and (3), I agree almost completely. If an analysis of a problem leads an ethicist to conclude that a policy is indefensible and should be ditched, then that is political in some sense. But it’s not the sense that I detected in S’s post; and there is a big difference between the criticism of a policy decision and activism to change a policy. Moreover, I don’t think that the cool analysis at which we should be aiming could ever be partisan, which also seems to be implied in the kind of politics about which S is talking.

As for interdisciplinarity… yup. You need some kind of norm to manage it, and to tell you why it’s necessary – and that’s not the sort of thing you can establish, derive or discover through more interdisciplinarity without circularity.

A most interesting post – thanks for drawing our attention to Salmasy’s piece too.

It is quite long and raises more than a few points…

1. Natural History of Bioethics – you think Salmasy is really documenting bioethics in the US. I do think however that there has been a religious phase in Europe if not in the UK. In Ireland and on the continent medical ethics was very much entwined with the religious (clergy/theologians) which in turn developed into bioethical inquiry more generally. While I don’t think it was necessarily a long phase, I think it may have been a stepping stone in the history of European bioethics.

2. Foreswearing Politics
While the more basic questions (as Salmasy puts it) are important, I can’t understand the resistance to politics? Maybe I’m understanding him wrong: if he means that bioethicists should avoid fuelling political divides (say on the issue of assisted death), I can understand where he’s coming from. However, bioethics – with it’s attendant policy/legislation implications – is political. To ignore that is to ignore something very significant about bioethics. To fail to engage with the politics around bioethics is mere cowardice. (Is that too strong? I don’t care.)

3. The Dreaded Disciplinarity Question
There is constant back-and-forth about this. Yes, bioethics is a field of academic research that is populated by many disciplines, ie. multi-disciplinary. Interdisciplinarity requires some sort of integration of methodologies/approaches that is rarely seen in bioethics (in my experience – I could be wrong). By the way, I think for bioethics to succeed as an interdisciplinary field, we would have to be careful to consciously maintain high quality research within our specific disciplines as well as working with and across other disciplines.
[Iain, I wonder if you think that is utter rubbish??]

4. Theology
I don’t feel too strongly about this one way or the other, as an areligious individual, but it might be worth pointing out that there is a great deal of theological scholarly work on social morality (some of it is even progressive!) and morality more generally, which may have something to contribute to (bio)ethics. (In answer to your question, “Why should theologians…be thought of as being able to say anything coherent (let alone interesting) about bioethical problems just because of their discipline?”)

Having said that, there is no reason why theology/religion should be given prominence, which it often is, and it certainly wouldn’t be a *necessary* component of bioethical training for students in the healthcare professions.

Lots to ruminate on this afternoon!