Bioethics in American Society

这个项目的总体目标是对美国社会中生物伦理学的起源、发展、作用和意义进行历史编年史和社会学分析。这项研究将讨论下列主题以及它们之间的相互联系：20世纪60年代末作为一个领域的生物伦理学的起源；主要的智力和专业学科，以及它们所代表的价值情结；生物伦理学的精神，包括道德哲学、神学和宗教已经和没有发挥的作用；生物伦理学感兴趣和研究的主要主题，包括在多大程度上和以何种方式，在美国社会中，生物伦理学和其他伦理关注焦点之间存在或不存在显性的相互联系，以及更多的潜在的社会和价值联系；生物伦理学的方式“不仅是医学的”，而且无论多么潜伏，都涉及到比伦理主题更多的主题；该领域的社会组织、制度化和逐步扩展；它日益渗透到公共领域的方式和原因；以及该领域的理论和方法。这项研究将结合历史和社会学的研究方法：(1)对“三代生物伦理学家”的关键人物以及参与早期“生物伦理学走向华盛顿”政策领域的其他人士进行半结构化的深入个人和小组访谈；(2)对生物伦理学文献的内容分析；(3)对该领域从20世纪60年代到90年代逐步制度化的社会组织分析；以及(4)对三代人进入生物伦理学的人之间的相互关系进行社会计量或社交圈分析。在过去的30年里，生物伦理学一直是詹姆斯·M·古夫斯塔森所说的“伦理学：美国的成长型产业”的主要组成部分。然而，尽管生物伦理学在美国社会中取得了突出的成就，但研究该领域发展的工作一直很少。该项目旨在解决这一真空：它将是对生物伦理学的第一次深入研究，也将阐明涉及美国思想、价值观和信仰的更广泛的主题。除了书面材料(一本书和一份论文)外，这项研究还将产生一批重要的档案材料，主要包括采访生物伦理学关键人物的录音带和文字记录，这些材料将存放在肯尼迪伦理研究所。

The overall objective of this project is to chronicle historically and analyze sociologically the genesis, development, roles, and significance of bioethics in American society. The study will address the following topics, and the interconnections between them: the genesis of bioethics as a field in the late 1960s; the chief intellectual and professional disciplines that have, and have not, been centrally involved, and the value complexes they represent; the ethos of bioethics, including the roles that moral philosophy, theology, and religion have and have not played; the major thematic foci of bioethical interest and inquiry, including the extent to which and ways in which there are or are not explicit interconnections as well as more latent social and value linkages between bioethics and other foci of ethical concerns in American society; the ways in which bioethics is `more-than-medical` and, however latently, has involved more-than-ethical themes; the social organization, institutionalization, and progressive expansion of the field; the ways that and reasons for which it has increasingly pervaded public domains; and the field's theories and methodologies. The study will use a combination of historical and sociological research methods: (1)semi-structured in-depth individual and small group interviews with key persons from `three generations` of bioethicists, and others involved in the early `bioethics goes to Washington` policy arenas; (2) content analyses of the bioethics literature; (3) a social organizational analysis of the field's progressive institutionalization from the 1960s through the 1990s; and (4) a sociometric or social circles analysis of the interconnections between those who entered bioethics across three generations. During the past 3 decades, bioethics has been a dominant component of what James M. Gufstason has called `ethics: an American growth industry.` Despite the prominence that bioethics has achieved in American society, however, there has been a paucity of work that has examined the field's development. The project has been designed to address this vacuum: it will be the first in-depth study of bioethics, and one which also will illuminate broader themes dealing with American ideas, values, and beliefs. In addition to written products (a book and papers), the study will generate an important body of archival materials, consisting primarily of tapes and transcripts of interviews with key persons in bioethics, which will be deposited at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics.