College of Charleston Philosophy Professor Jennifer Baker is delving into experimental philosophy with a study on bioethics in the Charleston region. The study was chosen for inclusion in Yale University’s Experiment Month, a contest to find the best new ideas for studies from philosophers.
Baker is partnering with Dr. Walter Limehouse, the head of Emergency Medicine and the Ethics Committee at MUSC, to determine the role bioethics plays in clinicians’ own moral reasoning. Starting March 1, questionnaires were distributed to physicians, mid-level providers, residents, and nurses at three local hospitals: Roper St. Francis Healthcare, Trident Medical Center and MUSC. Baker and Limehouse are looking for answers to questions like, do clinicians abide by ethical constraints because they feel they have to? Or do they share the reasoning behind such constraints?
“Our study is important because bioethics is one of the most necessary fields of ethics. If we don’t get bioethics right, patients may be harmed, rather than treated,” Baker says. “We should not just assume that medical workers are following the guidelines of bioethics because they agree with them. What if medical workers don’t agree? What would this mean? Or, what if they agree with bioethics for different reasons than bioethicists expect? What would that mean? It might mean bioethics needs better arguments, different conclusions, or that we are kidding ourselves when we think philosophical argumentation helps to communicate ethics.”
Experimental philosophy, or “X Phi” as it is sometimes called, is a relatively new concept. It enables psychologists, cognitive scientists and philosophers to work together. For Experiment Month, Yale was looking for experimental studies and received a large number of submissions.
For more information, contact Jennifer Baker at 843.953.7272.
