Holm Søren
Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, Department of Law, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Center for Medical Ethics, HELSAM, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Camb Q Healthc Ethics. 2024 Apr;33(2):159-166. doi: 10.1017/S0963180123000348. Epub 2023 Jul 28.
The question that this paper tries to answer is Q: "Can good academic bioethics be done without commitment to moral theory?" It is argued that the answer to Q is an unequivocal "Yes" for most of what we could call "critical bioethics," that is, the kind of bioethics work that primarily criticizes positions or arguments already in the literature or put forward by policymakers. The answer is also "Yes" for much of empirical bioethics. The second part of the paper then provides an analysis of Q in relation to "constructive bioethics," that is, bioethics work aimed at providing an argument for a particular position. In this part, it is argued that a number of the approaches or methods used that initially look like they involve no commitment to moral theory, nevertheless, involve such a commitment. This is shown to be the case for reflective equilibrium, mid-level theory, the use of theory fragments, and argument by analogy.
问题Q：“不依赖道德理论能否开展优秀的学术生物伦理学研究？”本文认为，对于我们可称为“批判性生物伦理学”的大部分内容，即主要对文献中已有的或政策制定者提出的立场或论点进行批判的那种生物伦理学工作而言，对问题Q的回答是明确的“能”。对于许多实证生物伦理学研究而言，答案也是“能”。本文的第二部分接着针对“建设性生物伦理学”对问题Q进行了分析，“建设性生物伦理学”即旨在为某一特定立场提供论证的生物伦理学工作。在这部分内容中，本文认为，一些最初看似不依赖道德理论的方法或途径，实际上却涉及对道德理论的依赖。事实表明，反思平衡、中层理论、理论片段的运用以及类比论证皆是如此。
