Devolder Katrien, Douglas Thomas
Bioethics. 2018 Feb;32(2):111-118. doi: 10.1111/bioe.12418. Epub 2017 Dec 27.
Bioethicists sometimes defend compromise positions, particularly when they enter debates on applied topics that have traditionally been highly polarised, such as those regarding abortion, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research. However, defending compromise positions is often regarded with a degree of disdain. Many are intuitively attracted to the view that it is almost always problematic to defend compromise positions, in the sense that we have a significant moral reason not to do so. In this paper, we consider whether this common sense view can be given a principled basis. We first show how existing explanations for the problematic nature of compromise fall short of vindicating the common sense view, before offering our own explanation, which, we claim, comes closer to vindicating that view. We argue that defending a compromise will typically have two epistemic costs: it will corrupt attempts to use the claims of ethicists as testimonial evidence, and it will undermine standards that are important to making epistemic progress in ethics. We end by suggesting that the epistemic costs of compromise could be reduced by introducing a stronger separation between ethical debate aimed at fulfilling the epistemic role of ethics, and ethical debate that aims to directly produce good policy or practice.
生物伦理学家有时会为折衷立场辩护，尤其是当他们参与有关传统上两极分化严重的应用话题的辩论时，比如那些关于堕胎、安乐死和胚胎干细胞研究的话题。然而，为折衷立场辩护往往会受到一定程度的轻视。许多人直觉上倾向于这样一种观点，即从我们有重要的道德理由不这样做的意义上说，为折衷立场辩护几乎总是有问题的。在本文中，我们思考这种常识性观点是否能有一个原则性的依据。我们首先展示了对于折衷问题本质的现有解释是如何不足以证明这种常识性观点的合理性的，然后提出我们自己的解释，我们认为这个解释更接近证明该观点的合理性。我们认为为折衷立场辩护通常会有两个认知成本：它会破坏将伦理学家的主张用作证据的尝试，并且会破坏对于在伦理学中取得认知进步很重要的标准。我们最后建议，通过在旨在履行伦理学认知作用的伦理辩论和旨在直接产生良好政策或实践的伦理辩论之间引入更强的区分，可以降低折衷的认知成本。
