bioethics as discipline
Post on 01-Nov-2014
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Submitted by: Sanjay kaushal
Assignment- II
The Emergence of Bioethics As Discipline and Discourse
Daniel Callahan
In this article, Daniel Callahan has talked about the need of the emergence of
Bioethics as a Discipline and what role should an ethicist play to bring it up as a
discipline. Callahan has basically focused the need of solving the problems in Bio-
sciences and medicine that involve ethical questions regarding Bioethics.
While solving the bioethical problems and ethicist should do three important
tasks as follows;
a. Ethicist should try to point out and define which problems raise moral
issues.
b. Ethicist should provide some systematic means of thinking about, and
thinking through the moral issues which have been recognized.
c. And, should help scientists and physicians to make right decisions.
Philosophy and Theology do not compatibly lay open the ethical issues in
medicine and biology. There is a slot between the conceptual world and real
world, and this space is to be bridged through the Bioethics.
Challahan has discussed the notion “disciplinary reductionism”, which means, first
picking up the problem and then minus all technical jargons, and then reducing it
(but not the issue) to that language which is commonly comprehensive. In this
situation, the language which consists all jargons of a particular field is
transformed into other language. Challahan has stressed the problem of
disciplinary reductionism; i.e. transforming one language into other is a way of
reducing many elements of that language, though this helps methodologists and
professional ethicists. Therefore, disciplinary reductionism is also an unavoidable
difficult task. As he has explained, “if a discipline of Bioethics is to be created, it
must be created in a way which does not allow this form of evading responsibility,
of blaming the students for the faults of the teacher, of changing the nature of the
problems to suit the methodologies of professional ethicists.”
In trying to create the discipline of Bioethics, it is vital to understand the meaning
of “rigorous” and “serious” regarding Bioethics on which most of the questions
are based. And there can be two options to understand these words.
One way is to stick to traditional notions of philosophical and theological rigor, in
which case one will rarely if ever encounter it in the interdisciplinary work of
Bioethics. And according to other way, the thought may occur that its definitions
of “rigor” which needs adaptation. Therefore, basically the methodological rigor
should be appropriate to the subject matter.
The first task and ethicist is entrusted with is to have the ability to see in, through,
and under the surface appearance of things; to envision alternatives; to get under
the skin of people’s ethical agonies or ethical insensitivities, to envision across
social issues, faiths and values. Secondly, methodological strategies require a rigor
which can and should come into play, bearing on logic, consistency, careful
analysis of terms, and the like. Simultaneously they have to be adapted to the
subject matter at hand, and that subject matter is not normally, in concrete
ethical cases of medicine and biology, one which can be stuffed into a too-rigidly
structured methodological mold.
Traditionally, the methodology of ethics has concerned itself with ethical thinking
about ethical problems. Callahan has talked about three areas of ethical activity
as follows;
a. Thinking
b. Feeling (attitudes)
c. And behavior
The case for including feeling and behavior along with thinking rests on the
assumptions,
i. that in life both feelings and behavior shape thinking helping to explain
why defective arguments are persuasive and pervasive
ii. and, that it is legitimate for an ethicist to worry about what people do
and not just what they think and say.
Callahan has offered one negative and one positive criterion for ethical
methodology. He says, the wrong methodology will be used if it is not a
methodology which has been specifically developed for ethical problems of
medicine and biology. His positive criterion for positive methodology is that it
must display the fact that bioethics is an interdisciplinary field in which the purely
“ethical” dimensions neither can nor should be factored out without remainder
from the legal, political, psychological and social dimensions.
The third task as a bioethicist is the decision-making. Callahan has offered a
second positive criterion as a test of a good bioethical methodology.
Methodology ought to be such that it enables those who employ it to reach
reasonably specific, clear decisions in those instances which require them. Good
methodology should make it possible to reach specific conclusions at specific
times. And only deductive kind of ethical systems makes it possible.
Callahan has drawn a distinction between “ethics” understood broadly and ethics
understood narrowly. In its narrow sense, “to do ethics is to be good at doing
what well-trained philosopher and theologians do – such as analyze concepts,
clarify principles, see logical entailments, spot underlying assumptions, and build
theoretical systems. Callahan explains, if Bioethics is to be understood as a
discipline, it has to be designed and practitioners should be trained so that it will
directly serve those physicians and biologists whose position calls them to make
the practical decisions. One important test for acceptance of bioethics as a
discipline will be the extent to which it is called upon by scientists and physicians.
This means that it should be developed inductively, working at least initially from
the kinds of problems scientists and physicians believe they face and need
assistance on.
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