BMC Medical Ethics 9 (1):16- (2008)
Abstract |
BackgroundThe concept of evidence-based medicine has strongly influenced the appraisal and application of empirical information in health care decision-making. One principal characteristic of this concept is the distinction between "evidence" in the sense of high-quality empirical information on the one hand and rather low-quality empirical information on the other hand. In the last 5 to 10 years an increasing number of articles published in international journals have made use of the term "evidence-based ethics", making a systematic analysis and explication of the term and its applicability in ethics important.DiscussionIn this article four descriptive and two normative characteristics of the general concept "evidence-based" are presented and explained systematically. These characteristics are to then serve as a framework for assessing the methodological and practical challenges of evidence-based ethics as a developing methodology. The superiority of evidence in contrast to other empirical information has several normative implications such as the legitimization of decisions in medicine and ethics. This implicit normativity poses ethical concerns if there is no formal consent on which sort of empirical information deserves the label "evidence" and which does not. In empirical ethics, which relies primarily on interview research and other methods from the social sciences, we still lack gold standards for assessing the quality of study designs and appraising their findings.ConclusionThe use of the term "evidence-based ethics" should be discouraged, unless there is enough consensus on how to differentiate between high- and low-quality information produced by empirical ethics. In the meantime, whenever empirical information plays a role, the process of ethical decision-making should make use of systematic reviews of empirical studies that involve a critical appraisal and comparative discussion of data
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DOI | 10.1186/1472-6939-9-16 |
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References found in this work BETA
Critical Bioethics: Beyond the Social Science Critique of Applied Ethics.Adam M. Hedgecoe - 2004 - Bioethics 18 (2):120–143.
Specifying, Balancing, and Interpreting Bioethical Principles.Henry S. Richardson - 2000 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 25 (3):285 – 307.
Evidence-Based Ethics? On Evidence-Based Practice and the "Empirical Turn" From Normative Bioethics.Maya J. Goldenberg - 2005 - BMC Medical Ethics 6 (1):1-9.
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Citations of this work BETA
The “Ought-Is” Problem: An Implementation Science Framework for Translating Ethical Norms Into Practice.Bryan A. Sisk, Jessica Mozersky, Alison L. Antes & James M. DuBois - 2020 - American Journal of Bioethics 20 (4):62-70.
Empirical Research in Medical Ethics: How Conceptual Accounts on Normative-Empirical Collaboration May Improve Research Practice.Sabine Salloch, Jan Schildmann & Jochen Vollmann - 2012 - BMC Medical Ethics 13 (1):5.
What is ‘Moral Distress’? A Narrative Synthesis of the Literature.Georgina Morley, Jonathan Ives, Caroline Bradbury-Jones & Fiona Irvine - forthcoming - Nursing Ethics:096973301772435.
Research Across the Disciplines: A Road Map for Quality Criteria in Empirical Ethics Research.Marcel Mertz, Julia Inthorn, Günter Renz, Lillian Geza Rothenberger, Sabine Salloch, Jan Schildmann, Sabine Wöhlke & Silke Schicktanz - 2014 - BMC Medical Ethics 15 (1):17.
Scientific Dishonesty—a Nationwide Survey of Doctoral Students in Norway.Bjørn Hofmann, Anne Ingeborg Myhr & Søren Holm - 2013 - BMC Medical Ethics 14 (1):3-.
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