I received an inspection copy of a book titled "The View from Here: Bioethics and the Social Sciences".* The book is written by a number of social scientists who are convinced their research yields valuable contribution to bioethical debate. Some of the discussion is dedicated to a problem I mentioned in one of my earlier polemics; that is, how some philosopher-bioethicists seem sometimes a bit jealous of their discipline.

The writers express somewhat a shock at the poor and at times aggressive reception that social sciences have had within the bioethical community. As an explanation for this bad reception they offer a narrative of how "they" (couldn't help noticing how the writers use this kind of rhetoric stance: "We the social scientists") entered the bioethical discussion doing what social scientists do: they criticize. They make notions on how in the hands of "philosophers" (again, a juicy rhetorical device - as if the term denotes a single entity!) complex ethical problems get abstracted from the real life situations, and thus reduced to simple choices between competing principles. When the social scientists pointed out how this was strictly speaking impossible, the philosophers of the story get plain nasty. "No ought from is," they reply to the social scientists. "We can handle this on our own, thank you." What gets defenestrated, according to the writers, is a unique understanding of moral reality.

However, I'm not entirely convinced about the storyline, as I observe far more standpoints than "boo" or "hooray" for social sciences. In an earlier polemic I dismissed philosophers' claimed ownership on 'ethics' in favour of including social sciences into the bioethics curriculum. Yet there are several reasons why this should be done cautiously. First of all, some compatibility issues may be caused by - to paraphrase Jürgen Habermas' theory - by the different knowledge interests these two represent.

Bioethics has been largely occupied in producing decision-making tools for clinical practise, law making and public policy, which make it more or less technical enterprise. It has never been a question whether or not ethical problems in the real life are bafflingly complex and difficult - they are. Our best attempt to solve them depends on our ability to abstract and simplify them, so that we can make an argument for what options are best and what worst.

The social sciences on the other hand are interested in understanding the social phenomena rather than solving problems - their knowledge interest seems more hermeneutic (in Habermas' terms). This involves taking the observed simplistic assumptions under critical scrutiny and revealing the complexities underneath. It's always about challenging the obvious: gendered role assumptions, class power relations, racial issues... bringing all that into play.

Here's a fertile ground for misunderstanding. One party wants to go for the simple, the other for the complex. One is focused on solving problems in an imperfect world with necessarily incomplete data, the other in revealing insights and understanding the "whys".

Second problem is a related to the first one, namely through the scientific and philosophical traditions they manifest in their communicative style. Bioethics has (for the most part) developed out of Anglo-American analytic moral philosophy that prizes the clarity of concepts and argumentation. By contrast, many schools of sociology stem out of French phenomenology that is notorious for going out for a deliberate head-on collision course with ordinary language.

This is evident for any bioethicist who gives these sociological studies a reading - they are filled with metaphor, attempts at developing their own concepts in order to capture a certain impression, and so on. For a person not familiar with this genre of text the experience can be confusing, even painful and frustrating. The opposite is true also: the "dry" analytical thought seems unavoidably simplistic and harsh to a person who is accustomed to more poetic language.

And then, finally, there is the infamous "is/ought" gap. Facts are facts and norms are norms, and there's no simple way of mixing them, says a moral philosopher. Our best minds have attempted at it, and for the most part failed, else we wouldn't be so ridiculously adamant in reciting it. It's still an open question how exactly we should deal with this distinction.

Some social scientists may want, for instance, to dismiss this kind of profound philosophical problem as a mere sophistry, and to give way to a more "grounded" moral theory by showing how effective moral norms somehow emerge from a series of empirical case studies. This is surprisingly common reasoning and does, of course, have some appeal to it.

But the trouble is this kind of argument is just a camouflage, an attempt to dodge the problem rather than facing it straight on. Any reputable social scientist knows how our observations are undermined and distorted by our preconceived ideas and theories: this is called the theory-ladenness thesis. To produce universal norms from a set of particular case-studies is thus dubious as whether the researcher has just used the empirical studies as a springboard for his/her moral prejudices. Hence, we are again where we started in the first place.

Having said as much, I have still my hopes for having the social scientists around and an open heart for their findings. But maybe these small points clear a bit why the relation between bioethics and social sciences hasn't been a love in first sight, but more like a too-eager suitor facing a self-conscious lady playing hard to get.

References

* De Vries, Raymond, Leigh Turner, Kristina Orfali and Charles L. Bosk (eds.): The View from Here. Bioethics and the Social Sciences. Blackwell 2007.

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