Empirical Turn Research Articles

Non-empirical methods for ethics research on digital technologies in medicine, health care and public health: a systematic journal review

Bioethics has developed approaches to address ethical issues in health care, similar to how technology ethics provides guidelines for ethical research on artificial intelligence, big data, and robotic applications. As these digital technologies are increasingly used in medicine, health care and public health, thus, it is plausible that the approaches of technology ethics have influenced bioethical research. Similar to the “empirical turn” in bioethics, which led to intense debates about appropriate moral theories, ethical frameworks and meta-ethics due to the increased use of empirical methodologies from social sciences, the proliferation of health-related subtypes of technology ethics might have a comparable impact on current bioethical research. This systematic journal review analyses the reporting of ethical frameworks and non-empirical methods in argument-based research articles on digital technologies in medicine, health care and public health that have been published in high-impact bioethics journals. We focus on articles reporting non-empirical research in original contributions. Our aim is to describe currently used methods for the ethical analysis of ethical issues regarding the application of digital technologies in medicine, health care and public health. We confine our analysis to non-empirical methods because empirical methods have been well-researched elsewhere. Finally, we discuss our findings against the background of established methods for health technology assessment, the lack of a typology for non-empirical methods as well as conceptual and methodical change in bioethics. Our descriptive results may serve as a starting point for reflecting on whether current ethical frameworks and non-empirical methods are appropriate to research ethical issues deriving from the application of digital technologies in medicine, health care and public health.

(Re)Designing the Public Sphere? Doing Political Theory After the Empirical Turn

(Re)Designing the Public Sphere? Doing Political Theory After the Empirical Turn

Conflict of Interpretations on Ricoeur’s Contributions to the Philosophy of Technology

Recent literature regarding how Ricoeur’s work relates to the philosophy of technology appears prima facie to be contradictory. In one established interpretation, Ricoeur’s contributions are merely indirect as he did not engage with the empirical turn of the discipline in the 1980s and maintained a suspicious view of technology based on a profound concern with the distinction between persons and things. In this view, Ricoeur’s work does not add anything new to the discipline but is still valuable to the philosophy of technology through other features of his corpus, such as his critical hermeneutics and narrative theory. In another interpretative approach, some argue Ricoeur adds to the field by directly thematizing technology when studying ethics and human capability–he cannot be thought of as merely ignoring the complex relationship between the social sphere and technology. The present paper offers a dialectical analysis of these interpretative approaches and argues that these positions are not mutually exclusive, but rather capture complementary aspects about the nature of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic and political projects. At one level, Ricoeur engages with core themes of philosophy of technology by exploring the ambiguity of specific technologies and techniques and their implications to social, cultural, and political spheres; in doing so, Ricoeur contributes directly to the field by avoiding the reduction of meaning into merely technical questions. On the other hand, it is also true that Ricoeur, particularly in the main thematic areas of his great works since the 1970s, has not been directly involved with specific questions of how different recent technologies are intertwined with social, political, and ethical aspects, and his emphasis against a reductionist type of technical mentality distanced him from a closer engagement with specific technological issues. In this sense, most of his contributions to the philosophy of technology are indirect. Nevertheless, this paper wants to emphasize that this dialectic analysis invites us to recognize the richness and potential of Ricoeur’s thought to understand how technologies are shaping our experiences in the world. The recently published volume Interpreting Technology, edited by Wessel Reijers, Alberto Romele, and Mark Coeckelbergh, is a powerful example of such potential.

Empirical Political Theory: A Template for a Research Design and a Qualified Defense

Developments in contemporary analytic political theory have called for political theory to situate itself near political science, to pay attention to political institutions, to follow the research output of the social sciences, and to present sensitivity to method. This empirical and methodological turn has brought about a debate regarding the form and desirability of such empirically grounded political theory. We aim, first, to clarify what the empirical turn in political theory implies for research in political theory. We shall situate such empirically grounded political theory in contemporary analytic political theory, in contemporary analytic political theory’s descriptive and prescriptive steps, and also examine how this turn complements contemporary analytic political theory’s evaluative step. Second, to suggest a defense of this empirical development, as if properly understood, it would assist empirically grounded contemporary analytic political theory to achieve its own stated goals. Third, to provide a template for a research design in empirical contemporary analytic political theory.

Euthanasia and End-of-Life Decisions: From the Empirical Turn to Moral Intuitionism.

Most medical learned societies have endorsed both "equivalence" between all forms of withholding or withdrawing treatment and the "discontinuity" between euthanasia and practices to withhold or withdraw treatment. While the latter are morally acceptable insofar as they consist in letting the patient die, the former constitutes an illegitimate act of actively interfering with a patient's life. The moral distinction between killing and letting die has been hotly debated both conceptually and empirically, most notably by experimental philosophers, with inconclusive results. This article employs a "revisionary" intuititionist perspective to discuss the results of a clinical ethics study about intensivists' perceptions of withhold or withdraw decisions. The results show that practitioners' moral experience is at odds with both the discontinuity and equivalence theses. This outcome allows us to revisit certain concepts, such as intention and causal relationship, that are prominent in the conceptual debate. Intensivists also regard end-of-life decisions as being on a scale from least to most active, and whether they regard active forms of end-of-life decisions as ethically acceptable depends on the overarching professional values they endorse: the patient's best chances of survival, or the patient's quality of life.

한국에서 자산소유 민주주의를 실현하기 위한 포용적, 자율적 교육정책: 롤즈 정의론의 경험적 전회를 위한 시론

한국에서 자산소유 민주주의를 실현하기 위한 포용적, 자율적 교육정책: 롤즈 정의론의 경험적 전회를 위한 시론

Engaged Solidaristic Research

Reshaping our methodological research tools for adequately capturing injustice and domination has been a central aspiration of feminist philosophy and social epistemology in recent years. There has been an increasingly empirical turn in recent feminist and political theorization, engaging with case studies and the challenges arising from conducting research in solidarity with unequal partners. I argue that these challenges cannot be resolved by merely adopting a norm and stance of deference to those in the struggle for justice. To conduct philosophical research in an engaged and solidaristic manner, I suggest that deference be supplemented by three methodological and normative principles: (1) epistemic humility, (2) accountability, and (3) coproducing knowledge. I situate these principles within contemporary philosophical work on solidarity and show how they might help confront power imbalances and other methodological hazards that arise when conducting research in solidarity with others. I arrive at these principles in part by critically reflecting on my own attempt to conduct research in solidarity with women’s rights activists in Senegal.

Is it time to reboot welfare economics? Overview

AbstractThe contributions of economists have long included both positive explanations of how economic systems work and normative recommendations for how they could and should work better. In recent decades, economics has taken a strong empirical turn as well as having a greater appreciation of the importance of the complexities of real‐world human behaviour, institutions, the strengths and failures of markets, and interlinkages with other systems, including politics, technology, culture and the environment. This shift has also brought greater relevance and pragmatism to normative economics. While this shift towards evidence and pragmatism has been welcome, it does not in itself answer the core question of what exactly constitutes ‘better’, and for whom, and how to manage inevitable conflicts and trade‐offs in society. These have long been the core concerns of welfare economics. Yet, in the 1980s and 1990s, debates on welfare economics seemed to have become marginalised. The articles in this Fiscal Studies symposium engage with the question of how to revive normative questions as a central issue in economic scholarship.

Pricing Kernels and Risk Premia implied in Bitcoin Options

Bitcoin Pricing Kernels (PKs) are estimated using a novel data set from Deribit, the leading Bitcoin options exchange. The PKs, as the ratio between risk-neutral and physical density, dynamically reflect the change in investor preferences. Thus, the PKs improve the understanding of investor expectations and risk premiums in a new asset class. Bootstrap-based confidence bands are estimated in order to validate the results. Investors are heterogeneous in their risk profiles and preferences with respect to volatility and investment horizon. The empirical PKs turn out to be U-shaped for short-dated instruments and W-shaped for long-dated instruments. We find that investors are willing to pay a substantial risk premium to insure themselves against short-term price movements. The risk premium is smaller for longer-dated instruments and their traders are risk averse. The shape of the empirical PKs reveals the existence of a time-varying risk premium. The similarity between the shape of empirical PKs for Bitcoin and other markets that represent aggregate wealth shows that Bitcoin is becoming an established asset class.

Does Cognitive Psychology Imply Pluralism About the Self?

Psychologists and philosophers have recently argued that our concepts of ‘person’ or ‘self’ are plural. Some have argued that we should also adopt a corresponding pluralism about the metaphysics of the self. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, I sketch and motivate an approach to personal identity that supports the inference from facts about how we think about the self to facts about the nature of the self. On the proposed view, the self-concept partly determines the nature of the self. This approach provides new justification for the recent empirical turn in the philosophy of personal identity. Second, I argue that closer examination reveals that the empirical evidence does not in fact support pluralism about the self. Instead, the evidence points toward a model of the self-concept as a complex web of attitudes that is disposed toward integration and unity. I ultimately suggest that this unifying disposition of the self-concept helps ground the existence of a singular self.

ПЕТР I И МЕЖДИСЦИПЛИНАРНЫЙ СИНТЕЗ

This paper examines the specifics of interdisciplinary synthesis in modern social sciences.The author argues that currently economists do not “intervene” on to the “territory” of adjacent social sciences but rather export concepts from their disciplines into economics. The article reveals the reasons for the decline in the interest of social scientists in “grand theories” and highlights the factors that conditioned the rise of the socalled quantitative turn in social sciences. The author demonstrates the correlation between the empirical turn in social sciences and the promotion of interdisciplinarity. The analysis allows to state that the main driver enhancing the dialogue between representatives of various scientific fields is the growing unityof the analytical toolkit used by scholars. As a result, more and more researchers identify themselves through the analytical methods they use. Drawing on the papers prepared by the participants of the conference “Paradoxes of Peter the Great’s reforms: lessons for the economy of modern Russia”, held at the Faculty of Economics of Lomonosov Moscow StateUniversity on September 21, 2022 and formed this issue of Lomonosov Economics Journal, the author examines the manifestations of interdisciplinary approach in Russian social sciences.It has been identified that, unlike their international colleagues, Russian social scientists are united not so much by common analytical toolkit, but by the desire to fit their research intoa broad theoretical framework, which over the past decades is represented by diverse types of institutionalism.

The relationship between normative and empirical elements in bioethical reasoning

The article examines the internal structure of bioethics in terms of the relationship between its normative and empirical elements. It is shown that bioethical research is subject to the epistemological specificity that is characteristic of applied ethics in general: there is a certain difficulty in the theoretical representation of the transition from the analysis of empirical data to normative conclusions. It is suggested that W.R. Potter's initial characterisation of bioethics as a "bridge" between facts and values needs to be clarified and supplemented with information about the logical and epistemological mechanisms that enable the transition from facts to values, from empirical data to normative findings, and from the real to the proper. The key objective of the research presented in this article is to identify (changing at different stages of bioethics development) the relationship between normative and empirical elements of bioethical knowledge by analysing the structure of bioethical reasoning. Both "principled" and "empirically oriented" models of bioethical reasoning (including precedent conclusions, conclusions by analogy, etc.) are analysed. The significance of the phenomenon of the "empirical turn" in bioethics for the development and transformation of its epistemic structure and changes in the standards for evaluating the results of reasoning is comprehended. The interrelation of the specifics of transitions between empirical and normative contexts of bioethical knowledge and the interdisciplinary nature of bioethical research is highlighted. It demonstrates the importance of addressing the issue of the relationship between normative and empirical elements of bioethical knowledge for the justification of bioethics and the formation of ideas about its position in the system of knowledge.

The birth of the "digital turn" in bioethics?

The so-called "empirical turn" in bioethics gave rise to extensive theoretical and methodological debates and has significantly shaped the research landscape from two decades ago until the present day. Attentive observers of the evolution of the bioethical research field now notice a new trend towards the inclusion of data science methods for the treatment of ethical research questions. This new research domain of "digital bioethics" encompasses both studies replacing (or complementing) socio-empirical research on bioethical topics ("empirical digital bioethics") and argumentative approaches towards normative questions in the healthcare domain ("argumentative digital bioethics"). This article draws on insights taken from the debate on the "empirical turn" for sounding out perspectives for the newly developing field of "digital bioethics." We particularly discuss the disciplinary boundaries, chances and challenges, and potentially undesirable developments of the research field. The article closes with concrete suggestions on which debates need to be initiated and which measures need to be taken so that the path forward of "digital bioethics" will be a scientific success.

Intuition: A potential life-raft for Philosophy and Theology?

ABSTRACT The empirical turn has created an undercurrent of scrutiny regarding the relevance of disciplines such as philosophy and theology due to assumptions about the limitations of their epistemology. This article seeks to recognize that disciplines that are lauded as most relevant due to their reliance on empiricism as their main form of epistemology often rely upon intuition for making decisions in the research process. After delineating this process using Anthropological research as an example, I draw a parallel between descriptions of how intuition can be understood and used as a means of knowing in the work of Kant and several theologians with descriptions of how intuition is relied upon and necessarily emerges as a critical epistemology in the more traditionally empirically grounded discipline Anthropology. This parallel is offered as the launching place for connections between these disciplines through further examination of the use of intuition as an epistemology and hopes to equate the epistemo- logical integrity of disciplines such as philosophy and theology that admit to the use of intuition with those that are considered empiri- cal which rely upon intuition yet may not admit to its use overtly.

The pet-ification of Nature or the Idea of Physis in the Anthropocene

My paper deals with the topic “Physis in a post-Heideggerianphilosophy of technology”, by interpreting it as two topics or questions. By doing so, I have the opportunity to present two related sides of my philosophical work. The first side consists in a several years historical and theoretical work on the philosophy of technology, whichculminates in the proposal of a Philosophy of Technology in the Nominative Case (TECNOM). The second side is more recent and has to do with the philosophical implications of the Anthropocene and culminates in its reinterpretation/redefinition as Technocene.The two topics/questions around which move these pages are the following: 1) whatis (whathasbecome) the post-Heideggerianphilosophy of technology? 2) whatis the peculiar interpretation of physis in ourage (the idea of nature) expressed by the Anthropocene? With reference to the first question, in the Part I (After Heidegger, Beyond Heidegger. The Empirical Turn in the Philosophy of Technology) I will sketch an overview on the most recent developments in this area of studies, or better, a critical historicization of the post-Heideggerianphilosophy of technology, starting from the so-called empirical turn. My thesis is that the empirical turn gradually turned in to an ontophobic turn, namely a rejection of Heidegger’s legacy, which has produced a philosophical lack/deficit in the philosophy of technology, namely its genetivization. Ascountermovement against this ontophobic turn (i.e. as first step for the establishment of a “philosophy of technology in the nominative case”) I suggest a Heidegger-renaissance in the philosophy of technology.Moving from Heidegger’s assumption according to which the technischesZeitalter establishes the death of physis/nature, that is its definitive trasformation in to an object (Gegenstand) or standing-reserve (Bestand), in the Part II (After Physis, Beyond Physis. The Pet-ification of Nature)I will highlight a new form of reification of nature. This is the Pet-ification of Nature, a trans-objectualreification of it which takes place in the Anthropocene. More than a new geological epoch, with “Anthropocene” I mean the entelechy of the age of technology and thisiswhy I propose to call it Techno-cene. In the pet-ification of nature I see the accomplishment of the “disenchantment of the world” (Weber) as goal of the whole modernity. Pet-ification of nature’s main out come consists in an ethical paradox: the Paradox of Omni-responsibility, namely the overcoming of Hans Jonas’s imperative of responsibility as an ethical standard for philosophical thought over recent decades.

Testing Design Bioethics Methods: Comparing a Digital Game with a Vignette Survey for Neuroethics Research with Young People

Background Over the last decades, the neurosciences, behavioral sciences, and the social sciences have all seen a rapid development of innovative research methods. The field of bioethics, however, has trailed behind in methodological innovation. Despite the so-called “empirical turn” in bioethics, research methodology for project development, data collection and analysis, and dissemination has remained largely restricted to surveys, interviews, and research papers. We have previously argued for a “Design Bioethics” approach to empirical bioethics methodology, which develops purpose-built methods for investigation of bioethical concerns. In this paper we compare a research tool created using a design bioethics approach to a “methods-as-usual” approach in empirical bioethics. Methods Our study compared dimensions of engagement with a digital game we created, called “Tracing Tomorrow,” to a standard vignette survey. The two tools investigated the same subject matter, digital phenotyping for mental health, in a sample of 301 UK adolescents. Results Participants who played the game reported a greater sense of presence, emotional engagement, cognitive absorption, and mental health ethics insight, compared to participants who completed the vignette survey. Perceived authenticity and curiosity/motivation to learn more was equivalent for both methods. Conclusion The results of this study highlights the importance of purpose-built methodology for empirical bioethics research.

Should Deliberative Democrats Eschew Modernist Social Science?

The empirical turn in the study of deliberative democracy raises a problem: deliberative democracy’s conceptual premises are in tension with those of the social scientific approaches often used to study it. If deliberation is to function as a source of political legitimacy, we must treat citizens as intentional agents capable of reasoning. In contrast, modernist social science characteristically employs forms of explanation that bypass intentionality. Deliberative democrats thus risk theoretical inconsistency when they attempt to study deliberation using the techniques of modernist social science. The danger is that when deliberative democrats rely on modernist social science, they at least implicitly reinforce a fallacious belief in expertise at the expense of a more dialogic and democratic ethos. The concepts and the practical aims of deliberative democracy seem, therefore, to require a more interpretive social science.

De la Imaginación Dialéctica a la Imaginación Experimental: Para una explicación melancólica de la relación Sujeto Mundo

 The dialectical imagination, the poetic imagination and the experimental imagination, are addressed as three types of imagination useful to account for debates and philosophical positions on issues such as "second nature", therapy and poetry in the analytic tradition or the consequences of the empirical turn in more recent times. Once this has been made explicit, dialogues are established with Donald Davidson's approaches to subjective experience and truth, and reference is made to melancholy as an explanatory fold in the subject's relationship with the world.

Linking xylem structure and function: the comparative method in from the cold.

This article is a Commentary on Savage et al. (2022), 235: 953–964.

How to Escape from Model Platonism in Economics: Critical Assumptions, Robust Conclusions, and Approximate Explanations

About sixty years ago, Hans Albert criticized economists for their “model platonism”, a methodological attitude that immunizes theoretical models against empirical criticism. Since then, economics has taken an empirical turn; yet, model platonism lingers on. The root of the problem is economists’ reluctance to distinguish explicitly between the law-like and the situational assumptions of their models. Without this distinction, it is impossible to give a satisfactory account of the interplay between theory and empirical investigations. Based on Hans Albert’s critical rationalism, the paper explains how making the distinction allows economists to escape from model platonism. By identifying critical situational assumptions and robust conclusions, economists can, and sometimes do, find approximate explanations even though they cannot completely avoid unrealistic simplifications.