Just some quick feedback that I didn’t find it very convincing to say that people like Peter Singer, Julian Savulescu, Jeff McMahan and Jeff Sebo have supported things like 1DaySooner, since they’re pretty affiliated with EA and consequentialist ethics. I don’t think anyone is claiming that consequentialist or EA-affiliated bioethicists have silly views. The review of randomly selected bioethics papers seems more convincing.
Strong agree. All of the evidence cited in this post is about philosopher-bioethicists, and my experience working in bioethics (including at the NIH Department of Bioethics) says that philosopher-bioethicsts are much more progressive than bioethicists with a health background. And unfortunately, bioethicists with a health background have much stronger ties to the medical community and health care policy. One major piece of evidence for this is that none of the “bioethicists” mentioned in this post (other than Art Caplan) are members of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities, the main professional organisation in bioethics which “represents nearly 1,800 physicians, nurses, social workers, members of the clergy, educators, researchers, and other healthcare professionals interested in the specialty of bioethics and the health humanities.” (Evidence: I know most of them personally, have been to the ASBH conference three times, have a strong sense of who is there + what the conversations are like.) My experience attending the ASBH conference three times in the past suggests that most members of the ASBH see the philosophers mentioned as excessively radical, and they’re routinely ignored by the core bioethics community.
As I’m revisiting this post, I’m going to break with my no-comment policyagain. This time I don’t have a very good excuse, this comment just sort of sits in my head rent-free, and I keep wanting to address it.
On the one hand, I think your broad point is right, my evidence is more weighted towards the philosopher bioethicists than the medical bioethicists, and I don’t really distinguish the two in my post. This might full well make an important difference to several of the points in my piece, though I’m not sure what sort of difference in particular you think it makes (do you think the medical bioethicists are more bioconservative on average than the general public as well as the philosophers? Do you think this is the primary reason for current problems in the bioethics bureaucracies?).
On a somewhat more petty level, I’m bothered by how you say all of my evidence is specific to philosophers. The philpapers survey certainly is, and the figures I cite from the 1DaySooner letter, but the two pieces of evidence I bring up that I consider strongest don’t seem to be. The program I surveyed (my MA) has a mix of students from both a medical and philosophical background, and is even in NYU’s School of Global Public Health rather than its philosophy school. As for Bensinger’s literature review, if I had time I would go through all of the authors to check how many are from more of a philosophy versus medical background (and I encourage anyone interested to report the results back to me), but I think they are a mix.
I don’t want to lean on this too much though. Again, your basic point holds, that my evidence is philosophy leaning, and it is fully possible to me that the split is characterized by above average philosopher bioethicists canceling out below average medical bioethicists in the aggregates, and the medical ones having more influence. I just don’t know personally.
On the one hand I agree that that piece of evidence is my least systematic and convincing. I mostly raise it because of Willy in the world asking for a bioethicist petition on challenge trials and Matt Yglesias citing the 1Day Sooner letter in claiming that bioethicists seem out of step with regular philosophers. In this context I thought it made sense to dig a little bit into the contents of the letter. On the other hand, I do think that Sebo and Singer and McMahan and Savulescu (and for that matter Jessica Flanigan and Anders Sandberg and others) should count towards the bioethicist scorecard, and if some bioethicists are consequentialist/EA-affiliated, that doesn’t mean they are in some separate category, it should instead undermine some of the stereotypes.
Just some quick feedback that I didn’t find it very convincing to say that people like Peter Singer, Julian Savulescu, Jeff McMahan and Jeff Sebo have supported things like 1DaySooner, since they’re pretty affiliated with EA and consequentialist ethics. I don’t think anyone is claiming that consequentialist or EA-affiliated bioethicists have silly views. The review of randomly selected bioethics papers seems more convincing.
Strong agree. All of the evidence cited in this post is about philosopher-bioethicists, and my experience working in bioethics (including at the NIH Department of Bioethics) says that philosopher-bioethicsts are much more progressive than bioethicists with a health background. And unfortunately, bioethicists with a health background have much stronger ties to the medical community and health care policy. One major piece of evidence for this is that none of the “bioethicists” mentioned in this post (other than Art Caplan) are members of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities, the main professional organisation in bioethics which “represents nearly 1,800 physicians, nurses, social workers, members of the clergy, educators, researchers, and other healthcare professionals interested in the specialty of bioethics and the health humanities.” (Evidence: I know most of them personally, have been to the ASBH conference three times, have a strong sense of who is there + what the conversations are like.) My experience attending the ASBH conference three times in the past suggests that most members of the ASBH see the philosophers mentioned as excessively radical, and they’re routinely ignored by the core bioethics community.
As I’m revisiting this post, I’m going to break with my no-comment policy again. This time I don’t have a very good excuse, this comment just sort of sits in my head rent-free, and I keep wanting to address it.
On the one hand, I think your broad point is right, my evidence is more weighted towards the philosopher bioethicists than the medical bioethicists, and I don’t really distinguish the two in my post. This might full well make an important difference to several of the points in my piece, though I’m not sure what sort of difference in particular you think it makes (do you think the medical bioethicists are more bioconservative on average than the general public as well as the philosophers? Do you think this is the primary reason for current problems in the bioethics bureaucracies?).
On a somewhat more petty level, I’m bothered by how you say all of my evidence is specific to philosophers. The philpapers survey certainly is, and the figures I cite from the 1DaySooner letter, but the two pieces of evidence I bring up that I consider strongest don’t seem to be. The program I surveyed (my MA) has a mix of students from both a medical and philosophical background, and is even in NYU’s School of Global Public Health rather than its philosophy school. As for Bensinger’s literature review, if I had time I would go through all of the authors to check how many are from more of a philosophy versus medical background (and I encourage anyone interested to report the results back to me), but I think they are a mix.
I don’t want to lean on this too much though. Again, your basic point holds, that my evidence is philosophy leaning, and it is fully possible to me that the split is characterized by above average philosopher bioethicists canceling out below average medical bioethicists in the aggregates, and the medical ones having more influence. I just don’t know personally.
On the one hand I agree that that piece of evidence is my least systematic and convincing. I mostly raise it because of Willy in the world asking for a bioethicist petition on challenge trials and Matt Yglesias citing the 1Day Sooner letter in claiming that bioethicists seem out of step with regular philosophers. In this context I thought it made sense to dig a little bit into the contents of the letter. On the other hand, I do think that Sebo and Singer and McMahan and Savulescu (and for that matter Jessica Flanigan and Anders Sandberg and others) should count towards the bioethicist scorecard, and if some bioethicists are consequentialist/EA-affiliated, that doesn’t mean they are in some separate category, it should instead undermine some of the stereotypes.