Constructing Empirical Bioethics: Foucauldian Reflections on the Empirical Turn in Bioethics Research [Book Review]

Health Care Analysis 11 (1):3-13 (2003)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The empirical turn in bioethics has been widely discussed by philosophical medical ethicists and social scientists. The focus of this discussion has been almost exclusively on methodological issues in research, on the admissibility of empirical evidence in rational argument, and on the possible superiority of empirical methods for permitting democratic lay involvement in decision-making. In this paper I consider how the collection of qualitative and quantitative social research evidence plays its part in the construction of social order, and how this creates certain paradoxes for the normative ideal of a public bioethics. The analysis in this paper is based on Foucauldian ideas, and on recent work in the history of the human sciences. The paper closes with some open questions for theoretical work in the sociology and philosophy of bioethics

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

On the Nature and Sociology of Bioethics.Mark Sheehan & Michael Dunn - 2013 - Health Care Analysis 21 (1):54-69.
Empirical ethics in psychiatry.Guy Widdershoven (ed.) - 2008 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Assessing empirical research in bioethics.Baruch A. Brody - 1993 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 14 (3).

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-09-02

Downloads
30 (#459,346)

6 months
3 (#445,838)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

References found in this work

Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics.Onora O'Neill - 2002 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
The taming of chance.Ian Hacking - 1990 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Writing and Difference.Jacques Derrida - 1978 - Chicago: Routledge.
Writing and Difference.Jacques Derrida - 1978 - Chicago: Routledge.

View all 27 references / Add more references