{"id":157,"date":"2009-08-04T11:16:04","date_gmt":"2009-08-04T10:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=157"},"modified":"2009-08-04T15:59:31","modified_gmt":"2009-08-04T14:59:31","slug":"dan-sulmasys-crystal-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2009\/08\/04\/dan-sulmasys-crystal-ball\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Sulmasy’s Crystal Ball"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Sulmasy has a piece on Bioethics Forum at the moment<\/a> in which he considers the next 40 years of bioethics.\u00a0 It’s a curious piece,\u00a0making six main claims or predictions about the future, to which I’ll return in a minute: but before that, I think it’s worth looking at his scene-setting:<\/p>\n

I suggest that bioethics has evolved through three phases: a religious phase in the 1950s and \u201960s, a philosophical phase in the \u201970s and \u201980s, and a political-empirical phase from the \u201990s to the present. Much as been written and said about the first two phases, but little about more recent history.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By the late 1980s, just as I was starting serious study in the field, philosophical bioethics had created a standard canon and had begun to rest on its achievements. Physicians, who found the language of philosophers alien but had been taking courses in bioethics, began re-engaging the field (or, in some cases, reclaiming it as their own).\u00a0<\/p>\n

The general public, policymakers, and many of the new young students entering the field of bioethics by this time also began to complain that philosophy did not supply enough concrete answers to their pressing questions. They wanted solutions to social policy problems such as the distribution of health care resources, cost-containment, and physician-assisted suicide.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m interested to know whether this natural history of bioethics is accurate.\u00a0 On the face of it, I’m not sure.\u00a0 It – perhaps – describes the genesis of bioethics in the US, but I’m not sure that the subject has followed the same route in Europe, where there simply has not been a religious or political phase.\u00a0 Bioethics has grown out of a renewed interest in applied ethics, which has grown out of good, old-fashioned, seminar-room ethics.\u00a0 To the extent that claims are made about what should be done, and what the law should say, bioethics is “political” – but it isn’t political in the strong sense that I think Sulmasy uses the term; it isn’t about activism on behalf of this or that group (and it shouldn’t be, either).\u00a0 And I’ve already articulated my suspicions of the supposed “empirical turn” in the subject; empirical studies\u00a0may feed ethical debate, but they oughtn’t to be treated as a substitute.<\/p>\n

But back to the six points, which I’ve edited down here.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1. I think we should avoid the temptation to make bioethics a clinical profession. \u00a0I completely understand the desire to set standards so that not just anyone can call herself a bioethicist and act incompetently, even harming patients in a hospital.\u00a0 However, one could accomplish this goal by establishing general standards while leaving it up to individual institutions to determine how they will assure that such standards are met.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The most obvious point to be made here is that Sulmasy seems to be talking about bioethics as a profession in its own right more than as an academic pursuit (and I’ve blogged about my worries<\/a> concerning this before); if you think that bioethics is a species in the latter genus, a lot of this point’ll make no sense.\u00a0 Now, to the extent that there is (or could be) a sui generis<\/em> profession of bioethics, the point does have some mileage.\u00a0 Bluntly, we’d need to decide whether we’re analogous to dieticians<\/a> or\u00a0nutritionists<\/a>.\u00a0 (I’ve commented before on an advert that I found for a medical ethicist<\/a> that seemed not to place that much importance on ethical competence.)\u00a0 But Sulmasy’s point about standards should we go down the professionalised route is actually quite tough\u00a0– if there are to be standards, how are they to be assessed?\u00a0 Could we imagine – and would we support – some kind of Chartered Institute of Bioethics, indicating a specific level of qualification?\u00a0 That’d seem hard on people who’ve just started out in their careers having spent the best part of a decade before studying philosophy to PhD level – why would we want to impose yet more exams on them? And what would we be examining to begin with, given what Sulmasy says in point (4) about bioethics not being a discipline?\u00a0 The alternative might be that we go on publications – but, again, this is hard on newbies, and it’s a measure of bioethicist-ness that’s much more appropriate for the academic model anyway.<\/p>\n

2. We should forswear our recent turn to politics and start engaging again in basic scholarship.\u00a0 Our best hope lies in pursuing the fundamental questions. This will often take us back to basic inquiries such as those of moral psychology; the meaning of altruism; the meaning of the common good; what it means for human beings to flourish; the place of medicine in a well-ordered society; and critical thinking about rights, casuistry, utilitarianism, pragmatism, and other very basic questions that are essential to serious thinking about bioethical questions. In the end, this will not only be more productive, it will be a lot more fun.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, yes.\u00a0 But now we’re back to the philosophical seminar room, more than the real-world professionalism of point (1).\u00a0 And by “our best hope”, what’s meant?\u00a0 Who is the “we”, and what is the hope we need?\u00a0 It’s all a bit Obiwan Kenobi…<\/p>\n

3. Similarly, I\u2019d like to see a revival of interest in the philosophy of medicine, nursing, and the healing arts in general.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More philosophy, yes.\u00a0 But is there really a discrete philosophy of medicine, philosophy of nursing, philosophy of gas-meter-reading\u00a0and so on ad infinitum<\/em>?\u00a0 Or is there, rather, just critical, philosophical thinking?<\/p>\n

4. We should continue to pursue the goal of truly interdisciplinary scholarship. The academy, in general, talks a great talk about being interdisciplinary, but delivers very little. Bioethics remains perhaps the last great hope for interdisciplinarity truly to flourish.\u00a0 \u00a0Bioethics has done a decent job, but we can go much deeper. The work will be hard, but rewarding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have no idea what is meant by the assertion that bioethics is the “last great hope for interdisciplinarity”.\u00a0 Indeed, I have problems with the “I”-word as\u00a0a whole: what’s the difference between being interdisciplinary and being intellectually curious?\u00a0 For sure, it’s useful, admirable, desirable, and a whole lot else to be able to engage across the spectrum of human pursuits, and with researchers in other fields.\u00a0 If that’s what interdisciplinarity is, then it’s hard not to think it good.\u00a0 But it’s not an end in itself, and it’s possible to be a good scholar with a narrow focus, too.\u00a0 I know that the Academy gets very damp about the concept of interdisciplinarity, and I suppose that, as a member of the academic set, it’s probably written into my contract that I should as well.\u00a0 But\u00a0I just don’t get it.<\/p>\n

Sulmasy continues:<\/p>\n

The wrong way to go about this, however, is to make bioethics into a homogenous mush. I am, frankly, quite troubled by the proliferation of degree-granting programs in \u201cbioethics.\u201d A smattering of sociology, philosophy, literature, law, and political science does not constitute a discipline that can interact with other disciplines in a productive dialogue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

True – and we’re back to the question in point (1) about how wide we want the gates to be with this.\u00a0 There are some utter cranks who pass themselves off as bioethicists, and I have no doubt that there’s a number of comparably cranky bioethics “qualifications”.<\/p>\n

Bioethics is not a discipline. It is a fascinating field of inquiry that can productively attract scholars from many disciplines in a dialogue. Each can learn from the other, and all can contribute to a richer understanding of the questions that confront us.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is plenty of work to do in finding out how better to facilitate interdisciplinary scholarship. Exactly what can a sociologist do for a philosopher or a historian for a lawyer? Can it develop beyond a series of pictures at an exhibition to form some sort of coherent unity? Bioethics is the field in the best position to explore these questions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m worried here about a confusion of interdisciplinarity and non-disciplinarity.\u00a0 But if bioethics is not a discipline, and if it is nonetheless interdisciplinary, then it would seem to be nothing more than the Lagrange point<\/a> at which all disciplines concerned with the biosciences meet.\u00a0 Bioethics, on this account, is what happens\u00a0by accident when people with vaguely coincident interests meet in the pub\u00a0– and that doesn’t seem right, either.\u00a0 Moreover, if it is right, bioethics does not seem to be in any position to explore questions of what sociologists can do for philosophers\u00a0– that would be meta-bioethics.<\/p>\n

I’m so terribly confused.<\/p>\n

5. I think it is time we started working on new theories of bioethics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Really?\u00a0 What would a “theory of bioetics” look like?\u00a0 Does Sulmasy mean here some sort of new philosophical synthesis?\u00a0 But – even assuming that such a thing would be possible – why, and what would it presuppose?\u00a0 (At\u00a0a guess, it’d presuppose a norm telling us how to go about the synthesis; but if we can have that norm, why go about forming new ones?\u00a0 It looks like all the normativity is there, uncontaminated, and waiting to be picked off the shelf.)<\/p>\n

6. Finally, let me suggest that medical schools would do well to embrace programs designed to train clinicians in philosophy and theology, just as they now train clinicians in molecular biology and neuroscience. For the field of bioethics to be respected in academic medicine, it needs to embrace its basic sciences.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s perhaps true that bioethicists need to be scientifically literate – or, at least, to have a tamed scientist nearby to help out.\u00a0 (If that’s interdisciplinarity, then so be it – but I’d call it simple good taste.)\u00a0 But there’s no reason for ethicists to be clinically trained that I can see; and nor is there a need for medical schools to train philosophers much beyond awareness-raising of how to spot a moral problem when it stalks the wards.\u00a0 Medical degrees are there to teach people to make us well; the ethics component is to teach them to think critically about their actions.\u00a0 But that’s really not the same as training doctors to be ethicists – though if they want to study ethics in more depth, that’s obviously a very good thing indeed.<\/p>\n

As for the point about theology…\u00a0 What<\/em>?\u00a0 What would that add to anything?\u00a0 Ethics is a branch of philosophy, and there’re still philosophers who’re non-ethicists and\/ or terrible ethicists and of\u00a0whom, as such, we oughtn’t really\u00a0to take much notice on matters bioethical.\u00a0 Why should theologians – who may be brilliant at studying exhortions cooked up\u00a0by pre-scientific and semi-literate (or illiterate) people a couple of thousand years ago – be thought of as being able to say anything coherent (let alone interesting) about bioethical problems just because of their discipline?\u00a0\u00a0I could bang on about this for ages – but I’ll point instead to a recent post by Russell Blackford<\/a> and end by quoting from that post.\u00a0 Delete the words “religious leaders” and insert the word “theologians” in its place, and you’ll get the gist of my position.<\/p>\n

[M]any people in the bioethics community are fed up with the never-ending resistance from religionists to rational bioethics. Some of them are asking what credentials religion has anyway. Religious leaders are, of course, able to put their arguments in public, like anyone else. But they cannot expect anyone to defer to them if they rely on controversial religious claims.<\/p>\n

It’s one thing for the state to protect us from internal and external violence, to provide a social\/economic safety net, and to engage in a variety of other functions that can be given some secular justification or other. It is another thing for it to ask what the views are of various religious traditions when it is confronted by an issue such as stem cell research. But this is just what has been happening. I suggest that religious leaders should be free to put their arguments, but if the arguments depend on doctrines such as ensoulment, the views of God, the sanctity of the natural order, and so on, these popes and priests should not expect to wield any influence. Those are not the sorts of worldly concerns that should influence government policy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan Sulmasy has a piece on Bioethics Forum at the moment in which he considers the next 40 years of bioethics.\u00a0 It’s a curious piece,\u00a0making six main claims or predictions about the future, to which I’ll return in a minute: but before that, I think it’s worth looking at his scene-setting: I suggest that bioethics […]<\/p>\n

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