Some Mutual Benefits of Normative Analysis and Empirical Investigation – noting some perils under way…

Christian MuntheDepartment of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science

flov.gu.se/english/about/staff/christian-munthegu-se.academia.edu/ChristianMunthe

Background and frame of reference•Basic training in philosophy & political science, Ph.D. training in ”practical” philosophy (everything relating to human action)

•Very ”philosophical” Ph.D. thesis on the morality of abortion, Incl. some early lessons on the import of considering detailed facts from empirical research (medicine, social science, economy, history)

•In parallel: assessing social science research on the storage of spent nuclear fuel for a national agency

•Post doctoral & junior projects on prenatal diagnosis, ART, PGD, embryo and genetic research, and general research ethics, with increasing direct collaboration with relevant scientists, professionals, policy makers, etc.

•Expert and advisory work for government, parliament, research councils

•Continued and further increased collaborations: genetic testing, sport,public health, societal risk management, forensic psychiatry, clinical health care, disability, secularism

•Increasingly doing empirical research as a part of ethics research

•Expansion towards: psychology/cognitive science, education, religion, social studies and science…

PND, PGD, genetics, ART, embryo research•Analysing real debates among scientists & professionals rather than using

fantasies about (in this case) technology and its uses as an inspiration in pre-set philsophical discussions

Attaining a more adequate formulation of your own research problem, e.g. prenatal diagnosis, PGD, ART: less a morality of abortion issue than about liberty/autonomy, equality and institutional value expression in a social contextAble to point out inconsistencies and important unclarities and suggest improvements in the actual reasoning of clinicians, policy makers, etc.Able to relate philosophical/ethical theory to concrete policy and practice suggestions, e.g. re. indications for procedures.

•Learning science and technology – robust phil. of science helpful, good mentors crucial: independent critical monitoring of further developments.

Ability to formulate the problems in the language of the recipientAvoiding quasi-issues: germline gene therapy as a cure, cloning for making human copies or ART, ”enhancement”Avoiding misrepresenting motives behind and reasons for/against

technological developments (e.g. PND).Finding relevant factors that ehicists as well as scientists and professionals

have overlooked.Danger: too close for comfort; staying critical may feel uncomfortable, but you also learn how to not be tricked by overenthusiasts…

Public Health & Risk Policy Making

•Interacting closely with professionals & researchers, learning the theoretical, conceptual and practical basics and as much detail as possible.

Takes time and effort: necessary to challenge one’s own theoretical preceptsAvoid prejudging the theoretical shape and practical needs of actual debates

and issues: the precautionary principle, PH as utilitarian Avoid badly informed judgements; e.g. confusing PH with health care on an institutional and policy level.Provide relevant conceptual frameworks and distinctions to empirical researchers, practical professionals and policy makersFind inspiration for innovative theory development in ethics and philosophy!

•Investigating how people, policy makers, professionals actually reason on relevant issues/themes

Avoiding prejudging the theoretical shape and practical needs of actual debates

and issues.Find inspiration for innovative theory development in ethics and philosophy!Contribute to the methodology of social science: the fields of empirical

studies of values need lots of clever ethicists and philosophers able to relate basic moral philosophical theory to the design of methods and analysis of data

Secularism & Forensic psychiatry

•Again, close and continuous interaction and learning, proceed from real debates and practices…

Finding conceptual variations that challenge pre-set conceptualisations in philosophical discussion, e.g. the concepts of religion, religious belief, religious…Point to and clearly characterise value-dependent concepts, e.g. criminally insane and its equivalents…Enrichen the perspectives of empirical researchers with resulting analyses: what you view as a scientific problem may more clearly be analysed as a problem in applied normative politicsApply said to/in research and public debates…

•Add: actual co-researching, writing, etc.(only re. F.P. so far)

Theoretical, analytical innovation: ethics of forensic psychiatry, philosophy of law and punishmentNew areas of application for abstract philosophical theory, e.g. metaethicsConnecting ethics with other fields e.g. cognitive science and philosophy of mind in a concrete setting with salient pragmatic dimensionsImproving conceptual foundations and methodological basics of the

relevant field of researchFresh practical approaches and suggestions in both ethics and science

Person Centred Care & Disability in Higer Education

•Designing and conducting empirical research proper in collaboration with linguistics, education & caring science, psychology, organisation research.

Designing philosophical/ethical theoretical models with the usefulness for descriptive and practice issues as one primary guide

Spell out how basic normative ideas connect to particular instances in a very concrete way – e.g. autonomy or beneficience in health care Find connections between established philosophical/ethical concerns and issues investigated in other fields, e.g., linguistics regarding the content and structure of multimodal communicationFind a basis for describing connections to other topics in ethics as well as empirical research, e.g. political philosophy and social science, e.g. social studies of disabilityDesign alternative practices to be tried out (=”interventions”) and do that, e.g.

new models and routines – maybe do some goodTricky balancing the usefulness aspect and the intellectual assessment

aspect (version of Brock’s worry).Need of handling profoundly deep differences of academic culture (e.g. on what’s ”intersting” or ”valid”, how research is to be organised, etc.) that are integrated with but intellectually independent from the content of the disciplines/practices – i.e. not only different theoretical and practical frameworks, methodological precepts, etc.Cf. David Archard’s points about the culture of law and political decision making.