Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T02:01:15.123Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Normative Relevance of Cases

Rhetoric and Empirical Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

MARTA SPRANZI
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Special Section: Empirical Ethics
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , October 2012 , pp. 481 - 492
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Callahan, D.Can nature serve as a moral guide? Hastings Center Report 1996;26(6):20–2, at 20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. See the special issue of Bioethics 2009;23(4).

3. Walker, M. Introduction. In: Lindemann, H, Verkerk, M, Walker, M, eds. Naturalized Bioethics: Toward Responsible Knowing and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2009:1–20, at 7.Google Scholar

4. See Sugarman, J.The future of the empirical research in bioethics. Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2007;32(2):226–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hurst, S.What “empirical” turn in bioethics? Bioethics 2010;24(8):439–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

5. “Only an empiricism of this sort leaves us with a chance of showing that moral principles are not immune to the behaviour of particular cases.” Dancy, J.The role of imaginary cases in ethics. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 1985;66:141–53, at 151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Brody, H.Stories of Sickness. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2002.Google Scholar

7. Musschenga, AW.Empirical ethics, context sensitivity, and contexualism. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2005;30:467–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Demoen, K.The rhetorical exemplum. Rhetorica 1997;15(2):125–58, at 148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Aristotle, . The “Art” of Rhetoric. Freese JH, trans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library); 1990.Google Scholar

10. Perelman, C, Olbrecht-Tytecha, L. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press; 1969.Google Scholar Examples differ from testimony; examples have a more general impact and are more ambiguous than testimony, and their effect does not depend on trust. On testimony and trust, see Hardwig, J.The role of trust in knowledge. Journal of Philosophy 1991;88:693–708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. See note 10, Perelman, Olbrecht-Tytecha 1969.

12. For an example of the first conclusion, see the following article in the Catholic press: L’affaire Pierra. France Catholique 2008 19 May; available at http://www.france-catholique.fr/3120-L-affaire-Pierra.html (last accessed 25 May 2012). Gilles Antonowicz, the president of the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity, wrote a book advancing an argument in favor of the second conclusion (Antonowicz G. Moi, Hervé Pierra, ayant mis six jours à mourir. Paris: B. Pascuito éditeur; 2008).

13. Lyons, DJ.Exemplum: The rhetoric of example in early modern France and Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 1989, at 5.Google Scholar

14. See note 13, Lyons 1989, at 27–8.

15. See note 9, Aristotle 1990.

16. Charon, R, Montello, M, eds. Stories Matter: The Role of Narrative in Medical Ethics. London: Routledge; 2002.Google Scholar

17. See note 13, Lyons 1989, at 33.

18. Thouvenin, D. Propriété/propriétés du cas en psychanalyse. In: Passeron, J-C, Revel, J, eds. Penser par cas. Paris: Editions de l’EHESS; 2005:13–28, at 20.Google Scholar

19. Lantos, J.The Lazarus Case? Life-and-Death Issues in Neonatal Intensive Care. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press; 2001, at XII.Google Scholar

20. Beauchamp, T, Childress, J.Principles of Biomedical Ethics. 5th ed.Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2001, at 68.Google Scholar

21. Larmore, C.Moral judgment. Review of Metaphysics 1981;35(2):275–96, at 281.Google Scholar

22. Jonsen, AR.Casuistry as methodology in clinical ethics. Theoretical Medicine 1991;12(4):295–307.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

23. “Thus our object should be to formulate a conception of justice which . . . tends to make our considered judgments of justice converge. . . . Considered judgments are simply those rendered under conditions favorable to the exercise of the sense of justice, and therefore in circumstances where the more common excuses and explanations for making a mistake do not obtain.” Rawls, J.A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1971, at 45 and 47–8.Google Scholar

24. Norman Daniels has stressed the role of intuitions about cases for achieving a “wide reflective equilibrium.” See Daniels, N.Wide reflective equilibrium and theory acceptance in ethics. Journal of Philosophy 1979;76(5):256–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25. “Although it is realistic and based in clinical reality, the case used in this book is . . . a construct created for a particular purpose or range of purposes.” Ashcroft, R, Lukassen, A, Parker, M, Verkerk, M, Widdershoven, G, eds. Case Analysis in Clinical Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2005, at 227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26. See note 25, Ashcroft et al. 2005, at 4.

27. See note 25, Ashcroft et al. 2005, at 228.

28. Vandenbroucke, JP.In defense of case reports and case studies. Annals of Internal Medicine 2001;134(4):330–4, at 333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. According to O’Neill, cases can be neither too simplified nor too complete, as in a Wittgensteinian perspective, in which examples serve “to see the sense of different ways of construing one’s life,” and play so to speak with different potentially incompatible worldviews (O’Neill, O. The power of example. In: The Construction of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1989:165–86Google Scholar, at 179). However, the integrity and wholeness of thick examples also tend to obscure tensions and dilemmas intrinsic in every moral situation.

30. See note 29, O’Neill 1989, at 172 and 175.

31. See note 13, Lyons 1989.

32. Lindemann, H. Holding on to Edmund: The relational work of identity. In: Lindeman, H, Verkerk, M, Walker, MU, eds. Naturalized Bioethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2009.Google Scholar

33. See note 32, Lindemann 2009, at 77 and 78.

34. Bonner, S, Tremlett, M, Bell, D. Are advance directives legally binding or simply the starting point for discussion on patients’ best interests? British Medical Journal 2009;339:1230–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

35. In an article detailing the results of an anthropological qualitative study of organ sale in India, the authors include a more detailed narrative of one of the couples involved. Such narratives allow us to capture “what it means to them and their families when circumstances compel them to sell kidneys,” rather than objective harm. Cases add “depth and richness rather than breath of information” to the study. Moazam, F, Moazam Zaman, R, Jafarey, AM.Conversations with kidney vendors in Pakistan: An ethnographic study. Hastings Center Report 2009;39(3):29–44, at 30 and 32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36. Kaebnick, G.Reasons of the heart: Emotions, rationality and the “wisdom of repugnance.” Hastings Center Report 2008;38(4):36–45, at 44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

37. This is what happened in France regarding the Perruche case, which prompted the adoption of a provision in the law forbidding compensation to children born with a handicap following wrongful information (Rights of Patients Act, 2002). Another case, Vincent Humbert’s death by active euthanasia, prompted the adoption of the End of Life Act (2005), in which withdrawal of treatment, including nutrition and hydration, was authorized, in order to quell public outcry about requests for assisted suicide.

38. Hoffmaster, B, Hooker, C.How experience confronts ethics. Bioethics 2009;23(4):214–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

39. Brinton, A.The role of examples in moral philosophy. Argumentation 1988;2(2):209–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40. See note 28, Vandenbroucke 2001, at 331.

41. See note 5, Dancy 1985, at 148.

42. See note 16, Charon, Montello 2007, at n17.

43. See note 3, Walker 2009.

44. Appiah, KA.Experiments in Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 2008.Google Scholar

45. See note 7, Musschenga 2005.