Telos versus Praxis in Bioethics
Telos versus Praxis in Bioethics
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DOI：
10.1002/hast.617
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发表时间：
2016-09-01
影响因子：
3.3
通讯作者：
Chambers, Tod S.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Chambers, Tod S.
《生物伦理学研究和学术翻译的概念模型》一书的作者认为，生物伦理学必须通过证明它在世界上产生影响来应对体制压力。作者认为，任何影响都必须以生物伦理学学科的目标为依据。生命伦理学作为一门学科的概念是他们论点的核心。他们开始引用了丹尼尔卡拉汉在《黑斯廷斯中心研究》第一期上写的一篇文章。卡拉汉在这篇1973年的文章中认为，生物伦理学还没有达到一门学科的地位，他赞扬了能够定义一门新学科的自由。卡拉汉的文章与马修斯及其同事的文章有一个共同点：他们都没有定义什么是“学科”。定义一门学科确实意味着关注学术活动的预期最终产品，所以我同意马修斯等人的观点。注重结果。但我担心的是，在他们的论证中，他们混淆了对一门学科的内部目标（它的目的）和对外部世界产生影响的潜力（它的实践）的理解。这可能带来的混乱暴露了我认为是生物伦理学内部的一个深刻问题，即该学科与其机构宿主之间的特殊关系，有时甚至是智力上的危险关系。
The authors of “A Conceptual Model for the Translation of Bioethics Research and Scholarship” argue that bioethics must respond to institutional pressures by demonstrating that it is having an impact in the world. Any impact, the authors observe, must be “informed” by the goals of the discipline of bioethics. The concept of bioethics as a discipline is central to their argument. They begin by citing an essay that Daniel Callahan wrote in the first issue ofHastings Center Studies.Callahan argued in this 1973 piece that bioethics had yet to attain the status of a discipline, and he lauded the freedom of being able to define a new discipline. Callahan's essay shares with Mathews and colleague's a peculiarity: neither ever defines what it means to refer to something as a “discipline.” To define a discipline does mean attending to the intended end product of scholarly activity, so I concur with Mathews et al.’s focus on outcomes. But I am concerned that in their argument they confusingly entangle their understanding of an academic discipline's internal goals, its telos, with its potential to have an impact on the external world, its praxis. The confusion that this can bring exposes what I believe is a profound problem within bioethics, the discipline's peculiar and at times intellectually hazardous relationship with its institutional hosts.