The Future of Empirical Research in Bioethics

2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Sugarman
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Life Threatening Illness ◽  
Descriptive Ethics ◽  
Health Related ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Empirical Research In Bioethics

Empirical research in bioethics can be defined as the application of research methods in the social sciences (such as anthropology, epidemiology, psychology, and sociology) to the direct examination of issues in [bioethics]. As such, empirical work is a form of descriptive ethics, focused on describing a particular state of affairs that has some moral or ethical relevance. For example, empirical research can help to describe cultural beliefs about the appropriateness of providing health-related information, such as the diagnosis of a life-threatening illness, which informs deliberations about the extent to which it is morally important for clinicians to provide comprehensive information to patients in different cultural contexts. Similarly, empirical research can delineate popular attitudes and experiences related to contentious issues such as abortion, cloning, stem-cell research, and physician-assisted suicide to enlighten discussions and policy formulations regarding them.

Consumer Medicine’s Origins and Harms

2021 ◽  
pp. 002436392110592
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Lisanti ◽  
Samuel E. Lisanti
Keyword(s):  
Economic Activity ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Sexual Expression ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Medical Interventions ◽  
Objective Health ◽  
Expressive Individualism ◽  
Health Related

Consumer medicine consists of medical interventions pursued for non–health-related goals with the locus of the goals residing solely with the patient. Currently, contraceptives, abortion, cosmetic procedures, and physician-assisted suicide (PAS)/euthanasia fall in this category. Consumer medicine originates from the fusion of expressive individualism with its sole focus on the subjective psychological well-being intersecting with an expansion of health now including well-being combined with an exaltation of autonomy. Expressive individualism is inward-focused and entirely subjective reducing the human to a psychologic self while instrumentalizing the biological and social dimensions and neglecting the spiritual dimension. Expressive individualism is currently manifested through economic activity (career and consumption) and particularly sexual expression. This contrasts with the holistic biopsychosocial-spiritual model of health with its deep inter-relationships and prioritization of the spiritual. Consumer medicine has damaged the profession of medicine. Physicians now have conflicting roles of healer versus body engineer, and conflicting obligations to do no harm while performing medical harms unrelated to objective health. There is now division within medicine and increasing external state regulations both seriously harming its professional status. The traditional teleologically driven ethical framework that is objectively disease-focused is now confused with a subjective list of non–health-related values as goals for medical interventions leading to an incoherent ethical framework. Biologic solutions best address biological problems and do not effectively address psychological, social, or even spiritual problems but rather make them worse. Medicine now reinforces and is complicit with expressive individualism and its attendant shallow and narrow understanding of what it means to be human with the current valuation of sexual expression and economic activity. Medical harms and social costs have resulted while challenging the value of those who are disabled, elderly, or marginalized. This shallow view has likely fueled the current existential crisis contributing to the marked increase in PAS/euthanasia in the West. Summary: Consumer medicine currently includes contraceptives, abortion, cosmetic procedures, and physician-assisted suicide (PAS)/euthanasia. These medical interventions are pursued for subjective non–health-related goals as opposed to the traditional goal of treating sick patients for their objective health. Consumer medicine’s origins lie in the intersection of expressive individualism, the exaltation of patient autonomy combined with health’s redefinition as subjective well-being. This has resulted in harms to the profession of medicine, ethical incoherence, and medical injury. Consumer medicine promotes a truncated understanding of the human at odds with the biopsychosocial-spiritual model and human flourishing. This has likely contributed to the rise of PAS/euthanasia.

Euthanasia and Related Practices Worldwide

Crisis ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 109-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J Kelleher † ◽  
Derek Chambers ◽  
Paul Corcoran ◽  
Helen S Keeley ◽  
Eileen Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
International Association ◽  
Active Euthanasia ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Passive Euthanasia ◽  
Medical Practitioners ◽  
General Acceptance ◽  
International Importance ◽  
Controversial Area ◽  
Active And Passive Euthanasia

The present paper examines the occurrence of matters relating to the ending of life, including active euthanasia, which is, technically speaking, illegal worldwide. Interest in this most controversial area is drawn from many varied sources, from legal and medical practitioners to religious and moral ethicists. In some countries, public interest has been mobilized into organizations that attempt to influence legislation relating to euthanasia. Despite the obvious international importance of euthanasia, very little is known about the extent of its practice, whether passive or active, voluntary or involuntary. This examination is based on questionnaires completed by 49 national representatives of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP), dealing with legal and religious aspects of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, as well as suicide. A dichotomy between the law and medical practices relating to the end of life was uncovered by the results of the survey. In 12 of the 49 countries active euthanasia is said to occur while a general acceptance of passive euthanasia was reported to be widespread. Clearly, definition is crucial in making the distinction between active and passive euthanasia; otherwise, the entire concept may become distorted, and legal acceptance may become more widespread with the effect of broadening the category of individuals to whom euthanasia becomes an available option. The “slippery slope” argument is briefly considered.

Dignity and the Case in Favor of Assisted Suicide

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralf Stoecker
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Ethical Perspective ◽  
Commit Suicide

Advocates of legalization of physician-assisted suicide usually argue that it is as matter of respect for human dignity that people get help in ending their lives (1) because the prohibition interferes with a fundamental liberty to conduct life according to one’s own preferences and (2) because sometimes suicide is an appropriate measure to avoid living an undignified life. In this chapter, it is argued that although the first argument is strong, the second argument is misguided. Hence, from an ethical perspective, society should not legally prohibit physician-assisted suicide. Yet, the person him- or herself should not commit suicide either. In particularly, the person should not regard such a suicide as a demand of his or her dignity.

Art and Ambiguity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John O’Dea
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Visual Interpretation ◽  
Perceptual Constancy ◽  
Multistable Perception ◽  
State Of Affairs

This chapter defends a solution to the problem of variable appearances that co-occur with perceptual constancy. In conditions which are non-ideal, yet within the range of perceptual constancy, we see things veridically despite a puzzling “appearance” which is suggestive of a non-veridical state of affairs. For example, a tilted coin is often taken to have an “elliptical appearance”. This chapter defends Gestalt-shift approach, according to which these appearances are in fact illusory, but not part of normal perceptual experience. The experience of ellipticality when viewing a tilted coin, it is argued, arises from something like a brief and unstable Gestalt shift to a different visual interpretation of the scene, of the kind that E. H. Gombrich argued artists invoke when painting a three-dimensional scene on a flat canvas. Recent empirical work on multistable perception is used to show how this might work.

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