Musschenga Albert W
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
J Med Philos. 2005 Oct;30(5):467-90. doi: 10.1080/03605310500253030.
In medical ethics, business ethics, and some branches of political philosophy (multi-culturalism, issues of just allocation, and equitable distribution) the literature increasingly combines insights from ethics and the social sciences. Some authors in medical ethics even speak of a new phase in the history of ethics, hailing "empirical ethics" as a logical next step in the development of practical ethics after the turn to "applied ethics." The name empirical ethics is ill-chosen because of its associations with "descriptive ethics." Unlike descriptive ethics, however, empirical ethics aims to be both descriptive and normative. The first question on which I focus is what kind of empirical research is used by empirical ethics and for which purposes. I argue that the ultimate aim of all empirical ethics is to improve the context-sensitivity of ethics. The second question is whether empirical ethics is essentially connected with specific positions in meta-ethics. I show that in some kinds of meta-ethical theories, which I categorize as broad contextualist theories, there is an intrinsic need for connecting normative ethics with empirical social research. But context-sensitivity is a goal that can be aimed for from any meta-ethical position.
在医学伦理学、商业伦理学以及政治哲学的一些分支领域（多元文化主义、公平分配问题和公正分配），相关文献越来越多地融合了伦理学和社会科学的见解。医学伦理学领域的一些作者甚至提及伦理学史上的一个新阶段，将“实证伦理学”誉为继转向“应用伦理学”之后实践伦理学发展进程中合乎逻辑的下一步。实证伦理学这个名称选得不好，因为它与“描述性伦理学”相关联。然而，与描述性伦理学不同的是，实证伦理学旨在兼具描述性和规范性。我关注的首要问题是实证伦理学运用了何种实证研究以及出于何种目的。我认为所有实证伦理学的最终目标是提高伦理学的情境敏感性。第二个问题是实证伦理学是否在本质上与元伦理学中的特定立场相关联。我表明，在某些我归类为广义情境主义理论的元伦理理论中，内在地需要将规范伦理学与实证社会研究联系起来。但是情境敏感性是一个从任何元伦理立场都可以追求的目标。
