Winther Hannah
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway.
Animals (Basel). 2022 Aug 21;12(16):2143. doi: 10.3390/ani12162143.
The past few decades have seen a turn to the empirical in applied ethics. This article makes two contributions to debates on this turn: one with regard to methodology and the other with regard to scope. First, it considers empirical bioethics, which arose out of a protest against abstract theorizing in moral philosophy and a call for more sensitivity to lived experience. Though by now an established field, methodological discussions are still centred around the question of how empirical research can inform normative analysis. This article proposes an answer to this question that is based on Iris Murdoch's criticism of the fact/value distinction and Cora Diamond's concept of reflective empiricism. Second, the discussion takes as a point of departure a study on genome-edited farmed salmon that uses qualitative research interviews and focus groups. Although there are several animal ethics studies based in empirical data, there are few works on the methodological challenges raised by empirical ethics in this area. The article contributes to these discussions by arguing that reflective empiricism can constitute a methodological approach to animal ethics.
在过去几十年里，应用伦理学出现了向实证方法的转向。本文对关于这一转向的争论做出了两点贡献：一点涉及方法论，另一点涉及范围。首先，本文探讨了实证生物伦理学，它产生于对道德哲学中抽象理论化的抗议以及对更多关注生活经验的呼吁。尽管如今它已成为一个既定领域，但方法论的讨论仍围绕着实证研究如何为规范分析提供信息这一问题。本文基于艾丽斯·默多克对事实/价值区分的批判以及科拉·戴蒙德的反思性实证主义概念，对这一问题提出了一个答案。其次，讨论以一项关于基因编辑养殖三文鱼的研究为出发点，该研究采用了定性研究访谈和焦点小组的方法。虽然有几项基于实证数据的动物伦理学研究，但关于这一领域实证伦理学所引发的方法论挑战的著作却很少。本文通过论证反思性实证主义可以构成动物伦理学的一种方法论途径，为这些讨论做出了贡献。
