I think that many of the people you quote are articulating the bioethical illusion. Take Matt’s quote, for example:
I’ve clashed with bioethics Twitter…
And, I don’t know, the ethics experts just disagree about the big picture, obvious controversies...
And then there’s these, I don’t know who, being like, ‘Well that’s not good ethics.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, according to whom?’ Right?...
[W]ho the fuck are you?
He’s saying:
a) It’s not clear who these supposed “bioethicists” are.
b) Whoever they are, they’re misrepresenting their own controversial views as professional consensus.
c) They are also exaggerating their professional standing, and it’s not clear that they do or should have any standing as moral authorities at all.
It seems to me that a primary skill of a competent professional ethicist is to be able to articulate arguments and counter-arguments in their field, and to be able to roughly articulate the professional consensus as well as popular opinion on the subjects they are most expert in. While people are entitled to their personal opinion, if a professional (bio)ethicist speaks out in their professional capacity to politicians or the media, they ought to qualify the strength of their statements based on an accurate representation of the state of the discourse and professional and popular views. This doesn’t have to be done perfectly or in a uniform fashion, but a real attempt should be made.
In turn, bioethicists ought to either work hard to organize their profession around this principle, and to invite the public, journalists, and lawmakers into a more open-minded view of the most pressing bioethical issues of our day. They don’t have to fix PR problems or instill a particular viewpoint on specific bioethical issues, but they need to try to create a perception that bioethics doesn’t have many universally-held conclusions on particular ethical issues in biotechnology. I don’t hold them responsible for failing to restrain their loudmouthed colleagues, but I do feel resentment for their not trying harder to spread a more nuanced and representative view of unsettled debates.
In fact, I think this is perhaps the primary responsibility of an ethicist. It’s not to craft a conclusive argument to settle an ethical issue, but to make strong efforts invite the public and providers into a more refined dialogue in their public communications. If the public doesn’t accept that invitation, it’s not the bioethicists’ fault. I’d like to see more active efforts from bioethicists, and since I don’t—but do see the tails of the field as indirectly contributing to bureaucratic rigidity and journalistic nonsense, with little pushback from the center—I see the field as having net negative value at present. This is the frustration that I read into some of the quotes you’re referencing.
I think that many of the people you quote are articulating the bioethical illusion. Take Matt’s quote, for example:
He’s saying:
a) It’s not clear who these supposed “bioethicists” are.
b) Whoever they are, they’re misrepresenting their own controversial views as professional consensus.
c) They are also exaggerating their professional standing, and it’s not clear that they do or should have any standing as moral authorities at all.
It seems to me that a primary skill of a competent professional ethicist is to be able to articulate arguments and counter-arguments in their field, and to be able to roughly articulate the professional consensus as well as popular opinion on the subjects they are most expert in. While people are entitled to their personal opinion, if a professional (bio)ethicist speaks out in their professional capacity to politicians or the media, they ought to qualify the strength of their statements based on an accurate representation of the state of the discourse and professional and popular views. This doesn’t have to be done perfectly or in a uniform fashion, but a real attempt should be made.
In turn, bioethicists ought to either work hard to organize their profession around this principle, and to invite the public, journalists, and lawmakers into a more open-minded view of the most pressing bioethical issues of our day. They don’t have to fix PR problems or instill a particular viewpoint on specific bioethical issues, but they need to try to create a perception that bioethics doesn’t have many universally-held conclusions on particular ethical issues in biotechnology. I don’t hold them responsible for failing to restrain their loudmouthed colleagues, but I do feel resentment for their not trying harder to spread a more nuanced and representative view of unsettled debates.
In fact, I think this is perhaps the primary responsibility of an ethicist. It’s not to craft a conclusive argument to settle an ethical issue, but to make strong efforts invite the public and providers into a more refined dialogue in their public communications. If the public doesn’t accept that invitation, it’s not the bioethicists’ fault. I’d like to see more active efforts from bioethicists, and since I don’t—but do see the tails of the field as indirectly contributing to bureaucratic rigidity and journalistic nonsense, with little pushback from the center—I see the field as having net negative value at present. This is the frustration that I read into some of the quotes you’re referencing.