People with anti social personality disorder (ASPD) create incoherent moral narratives suggesting that they may have a compromised capacity for moral autonomy, according to an unusual empirical interview study (Adshead, Brown et al. 2008). Project collaborator and ethicist Jonathan Glover explained what had inspired him to become involved in the research: “I wanted to study personality disorder in more depth, and I didn’t want to do it from the position of a purely abstract philosopher writing away about people I’d never met.” And the research findings certainly suggest that abstract philosophy requires empirically informed caveats if the moral behaviour of ASPD patients is to be interpreted.
This sort of ‘empirical ethics’ has far reaching implications, not only for those affected by named psychological disorders, but in broader terms, for the way we see one another as citizens. For example, if research indicates that one offender has a lesser moral capacities than another, should the courts treat the one more leniently than the other? Glover says that the “big issue lurking behind all this is determinism”; an alternative interpretation is that the research demonstrates that individuals possess different capacities for moral decision-making. Either way, when ethics encounters empirical research, new forms of thought about human moral identity emerge.
A completely different encounter between ethics and empirical research is found in Meeting of Minds (2004-06), the ambitious EU consultation on brain sciences, ethics and policy. Citizens from nine European countries were educated about developments in the field, established their deliberation agendas, held national assessments, and produced an international consensus statement of 37 recommendations. A number of the recommendations, such as the suggestion that informed consent should be taken for brain imagining, could have been derived from any medical ethics text book. But, recognising the profoundly creative power of brain science to create new ethical possibilities and dilemmas, participants applied their reflections to the question of what sort of future we should create with brain sciences and technologies. For example, there was some concern that perverse incentives might lead the pharmaceutical industry to produce research poorly aligned with the common good. Citizens bringing ethical reflection to bear on the facts of empirical research had recommendations not only about how existing brain research is applied, but about the sort of research that is conducted in the future. They had no problem understanding the idea that our values and choices today inform the production of the fresh empirical facts and dilemmas we will face tomorrow. As citizens they wanted to bring influence to bear not only on direct government decisioning making, but also the behaviour of industry.
Another aspect of this initiative, and others like it, is the calling into being of a certain sort of engaged citizenship. Partcipants were invited to be involved not because of a prior interest in the topic, or a previous record of political activism. But through the consultation process, they formed into groups of informed citizens, proactively engaged in policy debate. Although the explicit agenda was brain science, the secondary agenda was closing a perceived gap between the EU and its citizens, to demonstrably involve citizens in EU policy making. This is not just public engagement in science, but public engagement in citizenship.
From the ethical decision making of psychopaths, to the ethical decision making of EU citizens, when empirical facts meet reflective ethical consideration they co-produce new ways of thinking about each other as humans and new ways of relating to each other as citizens. ‘Empirical ethics’, in its many forms, has a growing place in contemporary biopolicy decision-making. It is the crucible for new ways of relating to one another as ethical citizens.
Adshead, G., C. Brown, et al. (2008). Studying moral reasoning in forensic psychiatric patients. Empirical ethics in psychiatry. G. Widdershoven, J. McMillan, T. Hope and L. v. d. Scheer. Oxford, OUP: 211-230.
