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Since the 1990s, deliberative democracy has been the focus of increased scholarly attention, as well as the locus of initiatives intended to directly engage the public in matters of public concern. Geared to bringing the core tenets of public deliberation to bear onto different contexts within the public sphere, deliberative processes have been implemented in a range of forms, from citizens' juries to national issue forums, from deliberative opinion polls to participatory budgeting. Ever more frequently, public deliberation has also gained traction in the field of public bioethics. Seizing on their intrinsic dialogic nature, scholars have proposed to harness deliberative processes as a means to address moral disagreement in the public sphere, in order to manage the ensuing and often irreconcilable conflicts around topics of bioethical sensitivity that challenge contemporary liberal democracies. Building upon these premises, this volume aims to reconstruct the theoretical as well as empirical processes of cross-pollination between deliberative democracy and public bioethics.
Dear Mr. President: On behalf of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (Bioethics Commission), we present to you Bioethics for Every Generation: Deliberation and Education in Health, Science, and Technology. In this legacy report, the Bioethics Commission focuses on two essential, mutually reinforcing missions-both practical and ethical-in our constitutional democracy: democratic deliberation and ethics education. These two tools can and should be used in tandem to address and resolve complex problems in developing health, science, and technology policy for our society. A primary mission of the Bioethics Commission has been to reimagine and reinvigorate the deliberative and educational roles of bioethics commissions in our democracy. Expanding the reach of our many in-person meetings, we have used online media tools for public outreach and input, and we have developed an unprecedented range of educational materials that help tailor our work to a variety of audiences. We undertook this report-which focuses on the future of bioethics deliberation and education-because of our nation's urgent ongoing need to foster civil and robust public discourse and civic involvement, especially in service of health, science, and technology policy that serves the common good. The Bioethics Commission approached each of its past projects with robust and reasoned deliberation, inviting presentations from a variety of experts and leaders, soliciting and receiving thoughtful input from the public, and conducting almost 200 hours of public discussion over seven years. In eachof its reports, the Bioethics Commission has recommended improvements in ethics and bioethics education. The Bioethics Commission's body of over 60 accompanying educational materials is already aiding in the integration of bioethics into classrooms and professional settings across our country, from high schools to hospitals and beyond. These educational materials reflect the Bioethics Commission's commitment to develop useful and accessible tools that enable and encourage all citizens to familiarize themselves with the most important developments in health, science, and technology. To inform this capstone report, the Bioethics Commission held four public meetings with deliberation and education as the focus, and heard from speakers with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. The Bioethics Commission also received many thoughtful public comments. In Bioethics for Every Generation, the Bioethics Commission offers eight recommendations to increase and improve the use of democratic deliberation and ethics education in order to enhance complex decision making in bioethics and health, science, and technology policy at all levels. Because education and deliberation are mutually reinforcing, we offer ideas for innovative ways to incorporate deliberation skills into ethics education, and to enhance deliberative processes by improving ethics education. The Bioethics Commission is honored by the trust you have placed in us and appreciative of the opportunity to serve you and our nation in this way. Sincerely, Amy Gutmann, Ph.D. Chair James W. Wagner, Ph.D. Vice Chair
Author : Benjamin J. Hurlbut Publisher : Columbia University Press Page : 376 pages File Size : 41,72 MB Release : 2017-01-31 Category : Medical ISBN : 0231542917
Human embryo research touches upon strongly felt moral convictions, and it raises such deep questions about the promise and perils of scientific progress that debate over its development has become a moral and political imperative. From in vitro fertilization to embryonic stem cell research, cloning, and gene editing, Americans have repeatedly struggled with how to define the moral status of the human embryo, whether to limit its experimental uses, and how to contend with sharply divided public moral perspectives on governing science. Experiments in Democracy presents a history of American debates over human embryo research from the late 1960s to the present, exploring their crucial role in shaping norms, practices, and institutions of deliberation governing the ethical challenges of modern bioscience. J. Benjamin Hurlbut details how scientists, bioethicists, policymakers, and other public figures have attempted to answer a question of great consequence: how should the public reason about aspects of science and technology that effect fundamental dimensions of human life? Through a study of one of the most significant science policy controversies in the history of the United States, Experiments in Democracy paints a portrait of the complex relationship between science and democracy, and of U.S. society's evolving approaches to evaluating and governing science's most challenging breakthroughs.
How many citizens take part in moral and political decisions concerning the results obtained by the contemporary life sciences? Should they blindly follow skilled demagogues or false and deceptive leaders? Should they adhere to the voice of the majority, or should they take a different decisional path? Deliberative democracy answers these questions, but what is deliberative democracy? Can we really deliberate if we are completely ignorant of the relevant issue? What about ethical or political expertise, is it strictly necessary? Finally, and most significantly, can a deliberative process take place if we ignore the techniques governing it; that is, the techniques required to be minimally skilled in rational argumentation? Giovanni Boniolo goes back to the historical and theoretical foundations of deliberation showing us, with some irony, that deliberation is a matter of competence, and not just a matter of a right to decide. His conclusion might not delight everyone: “anyone who is not sufficiently acquainted with the subject matter or lacks the sufficient deliberative competence ought not be admitted to deliberative discussions. This restriction makes both good deliberation and a proper deliberative democracy possible, otherwise debate degenerates into demagogy and hypocrisy”.
Author : Albert W. Dzur Publisher : Penn State Press Page : 270 pages File Size : 21,13 MB Release : 2015-10-20 Category : Political Science ISBN : 0271075279
Bringing expert knowledge to bear in an open and deliberative way to help solve pressing social problems is a major concern today, when technocratic and bureaucratic decision making often occurs with little or no input from the general public. Albert Dzur proposes an approach he calls “democratic professionalism” to build bridges between specialists in domains like law, medicine, and journalism and the lay public in such a way as to enable and enhance broader public engagement with and deliberation about major social issues. Sparking a critical and constructive dialogue among social theories of the professions, professional ethics, and political theories of deliberative democracy, Dzur reveals interests, motivations, strengths, and vulnerabilities in conventional professional roles that provide guideposts for this new approach. He then applies it in examining three practical arenas in which experiments in collaboration and power-sharing between professionals and citizens have been undertaken: public journalism, restorative justice, and the bioethics movement. Finally, he draws lessons from these cases to refine this innovative theory and identify the kinds of challenges practitioners face in being both democratic and professional.
This book addresses the problem of how to make democratically-legitimate public policy on issues of contentious bioethical debate. It focuses on ethical contests about research and their legitimate resolution, while addressing questions of political legitimacy. How should states make public policy on issues where there is ethical disagreement, not only about appropriate outcomes, but even what values are at stake? What constitutes justified, democratic policy in such conflicted domains? Case studies from Canada and Australia demonstrate that two countries sharing historical and institutional characteristics can reach different policy responses. This book is of interest to policymakers, bioethicists, and philosophers, and will deepen our understanding of the interactions between large-scale socio-political forces and detailed policy problems in bioethics. asdf
Author : Leonard M. Fleck Publisher : Oxford University Press Page : 433 pages File Size : 27,64 MB Release : 2022 Category : Health care rationing ISBN : 0197647723
Metastatic cancer and costly precision medicines generate extremely complex problems of health care justice. Targeted cancer therapies yield only very marginal gains in life expectancy for most patients at very great cost, thereby threatening the just allocation of limited health care resources. Philosophers have high hopes for the utility of their theories of justice in addressing the challenges of resource allocation; however, none of these theories can address adequately the "wicked" ethical problems that have resulted from these targeted therapies. What we need instead, bioethicist Leonard M. Fleck argues, is a political conception of health care justice, following Rawls, and a fair and inclusive process of rational democratic deliberation governed by public reason. His account makes the basic assumption that we have only limited health care resources to meet unlimited health care needs generated by emerging medical technologies. The primary ethical and political virtue of rational democratic deliberation is that it allows citizens to fashion autonomously shared understandings of how to fairly address the complex problems of health care justice generated by precision medicine. While ideally just outcomes are a moral and political impossibility, "wicked" problems can metastasize if rationing decisions are made invisibly--in ways effectively hidden from those affected by those decisions. As Fleck demonstrates, a fair and inclusive process of democratic deliberation could make these "wicked" problems visible, and subject, to public reason.
When a government in a democracy acts in our name, are we, as citizens, responsible for those acts? What if the government commits a moral crime? The protestor's slogan--"Not in our name!"--testifies to the need to separate ourselves from the wrongs of our leaders. Yet the idea that individual citizens might bear a special responsibility for political wrongdoing is deeply puzzling for ordinary morality and leading theories of democracy. In Our Name explains how citizens may be morally exposed to the failures of their representatives and state institutions, and how complicity is the professional hazard of democratic citizenship. Confronting the ethical challenges that citizens are faced with in a self-governing democracy, Eric Beerbohm proposes institutional remedies for dealing with them. Beerbohm questions prevailing theories of democracy for failing to account for our dual position as both citizens and subjects. Showing that the obligation to participate in the democratic process is even greater when we risk serving as accomplices to wrongdoing, Beerbohm argues for a distinctive division of labor between citizens and their representatives that charges lawmakers with the responsibility of incorporating their constituents' moral principles into their reasoning about policy. Grappling with the practical issues of democratic decision making, In Our Name engages with political science, law, and psychology to envision mechanisms for citizens seeking to avoid democratic complicity.