Abstract
This article is concerned with the role empirical research can play in normative practical ethics. There is no doubt that ethical research requires some kind of collaboration between normative disciplines and empirical sciences. But many researchers hold that empirical science is only assigned a subordinate role, due to the doctrine that normative conclusions cannot be justified by descriptive premises. Scientists working in the field of ethics commonly hold, however, that the empirical sciences should play a much bigger role in ethical research. The aim of this paper is to show that empirical sciences can play a substantive role in normative ethics, with no illicit inferences from is to ought. To achieve this aim, I explain (in “The Is-Ought Problem Explained” section) Hume’s thesis. In the following sections, I am concerned with different uses of empirical data that do not imply an illicit inference from descriptive premises to a normative conclusion. The article demonstrates that there are many modes of ethical reasoning that allow for a substantive use of empirical data, and it also shows the importance of Hume’s thesis for clarifying ethical reasoning.
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Notes
The term ‘empirical ethics’ is therefore misleading. It suggests that this approach consists in non-normative empirical research about ethical issues. This view is reinforced by the fact that empirical research published by academic journals is commonly descriptive research. To avoid misunderstandings, it would be preferable to use the term ‘empirical ethics’ only for research which philosophers have traditionally called descriptive ethics. Some authors employ the terms ‘evidence-based ethics’ (see Major-Kincade et al. 2001) or ‘empirically well-informed ethics’, which seem to me less misleading than ‘empirical ethics’.
There are, however, various ways of combining empirical research with normative reflection. Molewijk et al. (2004) propose an approach, which they call integrated empirical ethics, that challenges the essential distinction between descriptive and normative research (see also Davies et al. 2015 or Weaver and Trevino 1994). Hedgecoe (2004) has proposed critical bioethics, an approach that incorporates scientific research into philosophical practical ethics. Frith (2012) proposes symbiotic empirical ethics, which suggests a collaborative relationship between normative and empirical inquiry, but requires that each discipline remains grounded in its own theories and methods. Ives (2014) proposes reflexive bioethics, in which facts and values are mutually informing; and Ives and Draper (2009) outline a reflective equilibrium account of ethical reasoning. As this brief overview shows, there is no agreement among the critics of traditional practical ethics about how empirical data should be used in normative research.
Although it is widely accepted that one cannot infer an ought from an is, there is by no means agreement on this topic in contemporary philosophy. Some philosophers hold that Hume’s thesis is incorrect because normative statements can be deduced from descriptive ones, which they usually try to show by providing examples of such derivations (see e.g., Searle 1964). Others think Hume has been misinterpreted because he did not actually hold that there is a logical gap between the is and the ought (see MacIntyre 1959). This latter view is, however, of little relevance to our discussion because we are not interested in exegetical issues but in the question whether there is a logical relationship between the normative and the descriptive. A positive answer to this question is rejected by (arguably) the majority of philosophers, in particular by logicians.
Justification is not always inferential, it can be non-inferential. Sometimes it is plausible to say that we "just see" that something is morally wrong, particularly when we are dealing with simple issues. Since it may not be immediately clear what a non-inferential justification in ethics is, let me briefly explain one type of it. According to ethical intuitionism, we can have intuitive knowledge of ethical propositions, which may be general (e.g., that pleasure is intrinsically good) or particular (e.g., that a certain act was morally bad). That is, on this view we can intuitively (and hence non-inferentially) know (by a faculty called "intuition"), that killing an innocent person is wrong, and we have therefore a non-inferential justification for this moral knowledge.
In this paper, I confine myself to explaining Hume’s thesis. For lack of space, no attempt is made to prove it, which is only possible relative to a logical system and on the basis of an extensive meta-ethical discussion. Proofs of Hume’s thesis can be found in von Kutschera (1977), Morscher (2012), and Schurz (1991).
This “law” is not expressly stated by Kant but suggested by some of his formulations—e.g., that “the action to which ‘ought’ applies must indeed be possible under natural conditions” in his Critique of Pure Reason (B 576). (Nun muss die Handlung allerdings unter Naturbedingungen möglich sein, wenn auf sie das Sollen gerichtet ist …”. In vol. 3 of the Royal Prussian Academy edition of Kant's works, (p. 371).
It is worth noticing that empirical research can only find out that tube feeding is not in the best interest of patients after the value-laden concept “best interest” has been clarified, which is not an empirical issue. I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for this journal for alerting me to this.
It is, however, easy to misunderstand how ethical principles or theories can be tested by empirical research. According to Greenberg and Bies (1992), utilitarian philosophers commonly think that punishing harmdoers benefits society by rehabilitating them. They hold that empirical research indicates that this is not the case and think that this result can challenge the utilitarian theory. This is an erroneous view because utilitarianism is (according to one version) the theory that an act is morally right if it maximizes social well-being. If some utilitarians think that punishing harmdoers has this effect they may well be wrong. But this fact does not challenge the utilitarian theory as such. It challenges only an application of this theory to a particular ethical issue.
The ethical literature contains numerous examples of hybrid reasoning. Let me mention here only some of them. I will leave it to the reader to determine the descriptive and the normative content of the premises. Condous et al. (2005) argue for the use of transvaginal ultrasonography in the diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy because this method has a higher detection rate than other methods. Fisshea and Clark (2014) maintain that donor-egg IVF should not be made available to postmenopausal women because postmenopausal pregnancy poses a greater risk of obstetrical and neonatal complications to both mother and child. For further examples see Haimes (2002).
Be it noted that the conclusion in our example can also be understood as a hybrid statement, in which case the authors make a descriptive statement but express at the same time their desire that the process of contracting for clinical research is re-evaluated. In this case, the reasoning does fall into the scope of Hume’s thesis because it has a conclusion that has a normative component.
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Spielthenner, G. The Is-Ought Problem in Practical Ethics. HEC Forum 29, 277–292 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-016-9318-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-016-9318-8