16:30 pm
Legal analysis in Bioethics: proposing (a) comparative law methodological approach
Andrea Martani | Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel | Switzerland
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Andrea Martani | Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel | Switzerland
There is virtually no issue in Bioethics where the law does not also come into play. Indeed, since this acronym started being used in the context of the Human Genome Project in the ‘90, it has been common to refer to the study of morally relevant ramifications of medical and biological research practices as “ELSI” (Ethical. Legal and Social Implications/Issues) enquiries. This is because both law and ethics are complementary – and sometimes competing – sets of rules, principles and norms to regulate human conduct. For this reason, it is common to include some form of legal analysis whenever a bioethical issue is examined, for example to determine whether legal obligations are in contrast with what is ethically preferable, or also to suggest the creation of new legal rules to help implementing ethically desirable practices.
However, despite the relevance that legal analysis often has in Bioethics, there has been little discussion on how such legal analysis could – or even should – be done. The aim of this presentation is to propose the use of a specific methodological framework to do legal analysis of bioethical issues. Such methodological framework draws from the ‘dynamic approach’ to comparative law analysis developed by Rodolfo Sacco. In the presentation, I will first sketch out the main features of this methodological framework. Thereafter, I will show why it can be an appropriate framework to use for the legal analysis in Bioethics, drawing both from theoretical considerations and from a series of exemplary case studies.
16:45 pm
Embedding social justice into sustainable urban planning
Bridget Pratt | Australia
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Bridget Pratt | Australia
Introduction: Evidence is growing globally that cities’ climate change plans typically aren’t developed through inclusive processes and/or exacerbate health and social inequities, especially for historically marginalised groups. This raises the question: how can social justice and equity be better embedded into urban planning for climate change?
Methods: This paper gathers and analyses literature assessing the inclusivity of urban climate change planning and literature assessing the equity impacts of urban climate change planning.
Results: It demonstrates that urban planning for climate change is generating negative impacts across six dimensions of social justice via four main pathways: underlying neoliberalism, unequal treatment, green gentrification, and exclusion from decision-making.
Conclusions: Suggestions are made for how urban planners can embed consideration of these pathways into their reflective planning practice to avoid reinforcing or widening inequities. The paper further calls for urban planners to engage in “fearless speech” when confronted with the neoliberal pathway and for the field to establish conditions where “fearless speech” is supported.
17:00 pm
How can advanced data science support the human bioethicist? A first sketch of "computational bioethics"
Dr. Marcel Mertz | Hannover Medical School | Germany
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Dr. Marcel Mertz | Hannover Medical School | Germany
Anna Lena Fehlhaber | Germany
Prof. Dr. Dr. Sabine Salloch | Hannover Medical School | Germany
Introduction: Advanced data science and artificial intelligence technology are increasingly being used for supporting human experts in knowledge-intensive tasks. Whereas ethical issues of digitization in healthcare and biomedical research are already the subject of comprehensive analyses, the potential and limits of data technologies for bioethics itself as an academic discipline have been scarcely explored. This contribution thus addresses the question whether and how data technologies can support bioethicists in their work.
Methods: Related fields of discussion (e.g., machine ethics and artificial moral agents) are used as starting points to analyze the concrete scientific work of bioethicists, conceptualized as consisting of “reading”, “thinking”, “discussing” and “writing”. These domains of work are then examined against the background of the current technical possibilities and limitations of advanced data science.
Outcome: Computational bioethics can be used as “weak ethical decision support” (e.g., automated collection and synthesis of evidence or automated compilation of relevant ethical concepts and arguments) or as “strong ethical decision support” (e.g., automated ethical evaluation and making recommendations). While weak support could already be technically possible, there are specific challenges regarding the training of AI for strong ethical decision support.
Conclusion: Computational bioethics has important implications for technical aspects (e.g., handling bias in moral evaluation), human-machine interaction (e.g., agency and cooperation), impact on bioethical practice (e.g., skills necessary for bioethicists) and theory (e.g., predominance of technically more suitable approaches). It has to be discussed under which aspects a purely “human-made” bioethics is (still) desirable, and which advantages lie in machine-based support.
17:15 pm
Promoting the management of ethical dilemmas among people with dementia and their carers: An intervention development study
Dr. Sigurd Lauridsen | University of Southern Denmark | Denmark
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Dr. Sigurd Lauridsen | University of Southern Denmark | Denmark
Research assistant Frederik Schou-Juul | University of Southern Denmark | Denmark
Research Assistant Signe Nørgaard | University of Southern Denmark | Denmark
Dr. Marie-Elisabeth Holm | University of Southern Denmark | Denmark
Dr. Anna Folker | University of Southern Denmark | Denmark
Prof. Peter Simonsen | University of Southern Denmark | Denmark
Sofie Skov | University of Southern Denmark | Denmark
The detrimental effect of dementia on the cognition and autonomy of those affected creates several ethical issues in dementia care. People with dementia gradually lose connection with deep-seated values, and this creates difficulties in determining whether their stated care preferences reflect actual values that should be respected. To involve and support people with dementia and professional and family carers in managing ethical dilemmas, we have developed the CARE intervention. This intervention aims to improve the knowledge of people with dementia and their carers regarding the ethical dilemmas in dementia care, as well as their involvement and confidence in managing these dilemmas. The aim of this development study is to show how the intervention has been developed in a four-stage participatory action research project, the elements and applications of the intervention, the ethical dilemmas it addresses and the ethnographic and review data and theory it builds on
17:30 pm
Interdisciplinary Collaborative Auditing as a method to cross disciplinary boundaries in empirical bioethics projects without getting lost in no man's land
Prof. Veerle Provoost | Ghent University | Belgium
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Prof. Veerle Provoost | Ghent University | Belgium
Interdisciplinary collaborative auditing (ICA) is a method that is grounded in a perspectivist view on knowledge construction. It starts from acknowledging disciplinary and researcher heterogeneity and does not aim for consensus or the use of an amalgamated method. On the contrary, identifying disciplinary differences in approaches, analysis styles and interpretations are at the core of the method. The method was developed during several empirical bioethics research projects. In this talk, I will discuss three focus points of the method using a concrete empirical bioethics research project to demonstrate how the method works in practice, what challenges can arise and what the advantages of the method are. The project that I will use to demonstrate this is an interdisciplinary research project on social and genetic parenthood; a project that involved seven researchers and three supervisors, with a collection of disciplinary backgrounds in empirical bioethics, normative ethics, family psychology, sexology, reproductive medicine, midwifery and medical sociology.
First, ICA allowed us to safeguard the quality of the analyses we conducted as a team. Second, the method helped our team to continue to focus on research questions related to bioethics despite also actively pursuing the research agendas of the other team members. Third, ICA permitted the identification of differences related to the disciplinary backgrounds of the team members, starting from the analysis questions that were raised, over the interpretation of concrete parts of the data, all the way to the way to our discussions about the structure of the results sections of research papers.