FAB Gab Episode 8: Nora Hämäläinen on a Higher Level of Reflection on the Bioethical Process

8:34AM May 10, 2021

Speakers:

Kathryn MacKay

Nora Hämäläinen

Keywords:

bioethics

moral philosophy

paper

ethics

people

bioethicists

nora

philosophy

find

approach

moral

diamond

thought

murdoch

question

writing

point

work

philosophical

thinking

Hello and welcome to FAB Gab. This is the podcast for the International Journal of feminist Approaches to Bioethics brought to you by FAB Network. My name is Kathryn MacKay and today I'm joined by Nora Hämäläinen from the University of Pardubice in Czech Republic. And Nora has joined me to discuss her paper, which is entitled 'Contextuality, Bioethics and the Nature of Philosophy: Reflections on Murdoch, Diamond, Walker, and the Groningen Approach' which appeared in the most recent volume of IJFAB Volume 14 number one. Hi, Nora.

Hi.

How are you?

Good. Nice to be here.

Great. Thank you so much for joining me. So I wonder if you could tell us straight off the bat, Nora, what's the sort of summary of this paper?

I think the paper does several small things in different directions. What one ah the central central aim is to dispel a simplified notion of philosophy and bioethics. Philosophy isn't the top-down theoretical endeavour as that some people like for instance, Barry hoffmaster have recently taken it to be to philosophy can be many things and for moral philosophy can be many things. Moral philosophy, in bioethics can be many things. And to sort of prove... prove that point I here bring together two strands of ground-up work in in ethics and bioethics, one strand, centred on the work of Iris Murdoch, and Cora Diamond, and one centred on on the bioethical work of Margaret Urban Walker, Hilda Lindeman, and Marian Verkerk, which I call here, a Gronigan approach, because it's sort of my central material here is it's an ontology that they popped in together, that's more than 10 years ago, but I think it's still a very valuable, valuable collection. And it sort of points to very interesting directions in bioethics and also directions in ethics more generally, what moral floss is, and I also sort of wanted to explore the theoretical and practical implications of the kind of work they suggest, because it's... the direction these two strands of work point to is a kind of enabling maieutig work on our ethical point of departure, sort of to understand where we stand and to move on, move on from there. So I think they have much, much in common, but also things that we can sort of learn from them.

Yeah. And something that I really took from reading the paper was, well, I guess one thing, first off, was that perhaps hoffmaster was painting with a very broad brush, and maybe not taking into account the number of people who've been working on the sort of contextual ethic that he was saying that we needed more of. And I thought you did a good job of highlighting how in your paper, actually, a lot of that was going on already, but that... it nonetheless remains a pretty good critique of a version of philosophy, I suppose. And also that there's a real advantage in having that kind of ethical approach that kind of what, for lack of a better word, I'm going to call the contextual approach. But maybe also, you could call it like you do the ground-up approach or, yeah, something like that. That kind of grassroots approach. I took those two things away from your paper thinking 'yeah, there's a lot of room here to do a lot more work in that level that doesn't necessarily have to become empirical ethics'. Is that a fair way of phrasing some of your points?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's, that's why I what I wanted to... you to take home.

Great. So I wondered, Was this something that you'd been working on or thinking about for a while, I think Gary Hoffmaster has been writing about this kind of higher level reflection on the process of bioethics for a little while. So I wondered, what was your motivation in writing this particular paper?

So I have a long term engagement in in the work of Iris Murdoch and Cora Diamond. And I think I've engaged those bodies of work because I, I, because they they brought a kind of critical voice into, into moral philosophy, Anglophone moral philosophy in the latter half of of the 20th century that's been really central for shaping my understanding of moral philosophy, because moral philosophy was very much for a long time, defined by a very sort of top-down theoretical approach where where the aim is to formulate the theory and the idea that the sort of the systematicity and integrity of the theory sort of somehow sort of makes it normatively and practically more apt. So so you need to work in a way that smooths out all the roughness, all the rough edges or the complications of, of ordinary life. And, and I think Di... Murdoch and Diamond are two philosophers who, for me have always sort of represented an insistence on taking that roughness seriously, and taking the complexity and multiplicity of moral situations very seriously. And of course, there are many others. And this is a kind of work that you may find in many sort of woman philosophers of the latter half of the 20th century and all sort of features that you find in virtue ethics, more than perhaps in Kantian ethics or, or Utilitarianism - this is of course, generalisations, but, but I've been struggling to find, I think, for a long time, ways of approaching ethics that I think are more sort of satisfactory, and also sort of tuned to explicate to others what I'm doing in a in a in a useful way. And I'm, I think I'm still there in in many ways, I mean, I and perhaps that's a feature of philosophy that, that we sort of often get caught up in the sort of the methodological questions don't leave us they rather sort of form a kind of constant background. So I have so I've been sort of trying to argue for contextual ethics, not always knowing what that would be. And I think that's sort of continuously evolving. And I've sort of thought that that has to be a more descriptive kind of work that it's the kind of work that engages empirical research that engages literature. And I've been trying to do all those things. But this particular paper came about actually as, as a simple talk in a context or, or in a contextual ethics workshop, where I knew that people were well familiar with Murdoch and Diamond, but they were not as familiar with, with this bi- this trend of bioethics. So I thought about this as a kind of small diplomatic mission, but also because sort of, it took me very long to find people like Hilda Lindeman. And and the other sort of authors in this in this volume that are very interesting, and sort of, in many ways, similar to and I was sort of struck by the fact that these strands do not always meet - that they are not part of the shared pool of knowledge necessarily. So there was a small, it's a small interventions, of course, then the paper evolved into something else.

Hmm.

Wonderful, epic, polemic intervention in bioethics.

Yeah, that's really interesting. It's also interesting to hear it described as a diplomatic mission. I like that phrasing. And I guess I would ask, so what would you say for someone who hasn't necessarily read the paper yet, but that you would like to entice to read the paper? What are the sort of main points of interest that you would point out to people or that you would want people to pick up on perhaps.

I suppose different kinds of readers would take home very different things. And I think the main main point, I suppose, in this paper is to sort of the philosoph - main philosophical substance, if we put the sort of polemic aspects aside is to look at what it means to do philosophy, moral philosophy, or bioethics in a way where we take starting points very seriously, where we sort of enter that philosophical question or problem with with this genuine, quite open-ended curiosity where we want to know what's going on here. And we really sort of take that very seriously. And you have sort of two bodies of philosophical or bioethical work where that question is taken very seriously. So to start philosophising from the middle of things, or to start or start sort of reflecting ethically very much from the middle of things and to figure out what situation. But I said, I mean, people people might approach the paper from very different angles. So for some it might just be... help them to see that there is philosophical work that doesn't follow this sort of top-down procedure that we also see a lot of in, in sort of philosophical bioethics. Some might come from the Murdoch-Diamond side and sort of discover that 'oh, here's kind of bioethics that we might be interested in'. Some might come come from the bioethics side and and find new resources of philosophy. And I think some might also find the reflections on ethical thought and the maieutic work of the philosopher or the bioethicist useful for something that they're doing themselves either sort of practically in clinical setting or elsewhere or theoretically to open up philosophical questions. So, so I think there are many, many sort of things to take home depending on and and of course, also there are many things that might be oh, absolutely obvious to many readers. And...

It was Murdoch who said that doing philosophy is often just looking for the opportunity to state the obvious, right?

Yeah, I th-... I think philosophy is often bringing together different things that might be obvious but brought together in a different way they will... they will bring bring something new, I hope.

Yeah. Actually, reading your paper caused me to reflect quite a bit on what it meant to be a bioethics teacher. Many people who work in bioethics and as an academic that is, and sometimes also, if you're a clinical bioethicists, end up having a kind of educational role. And so your paper made me reflect quite a bit on what it means to be teaching people bioethics, and that was a really interesting thing to reflect on as well. Because, to be honest, I haven't read very much about the methodology of teaching bioethics in particular. So that was an interesting thing to reflect on.

Yeah, I think I think what what Lindeman and Verkerk write about in this sort of concluding chapter to the book that I that I sort of focalize in this, in this paper is, is quite, actually quite radical. I mean, I think it's a quite radical approach to, to thinking about what what bioethicists do, because it has... it sort of, really, I mean, I suppose many bioethicists like to think of themselves as helping people to make decisions. But I think it's... they have a quite radical take on what that helping means, because it really means sort of divesting the bioethicist of industry expertise. And really sort of taking seriously that the fact that people in the pot practical tasks have a lot of ethical knowledge and practical knowledge that the bioethicist does just doesn't share, that there's kind of an exchange that has kind of exchange of also information, knowledge, and understanding that where the bioethicist might be as much on the receiving side. So so I think that's really fascinating. Also, also, theoretically, and philosophically, because, of course, that has, if we think about these sort of educational situations, or or the select supportive roles that bioethicists might have in a clinical setting, for instance, it's as easy to see that kind of practical work work as I mean, how it how it might might work, but then it also has implications for what the practice of writing bioethical articles could be, and and sort of how to bring along so you have this you have this very sort of immersed practice, where you divest yourself of claims to expertise, but then you also write papers and sort of develop and teach other teachers and you sort of, so that's the whole sort of infra- sort of infrastructure or knowledge that you're still participating in, and how those work together is very fascinating. And this is just something that I touched upon very briefly, in the paper. But but I think there's a lot to think about in their approach.

Mm hmm. I think so. And I think that actually connects into a question that I was gonna ask you about a potential challenge for writing the paper, which was about the way that you are really bringing together these two quite different fields. And I thought, I mean, I think that it's so interesting and useful to do that. But it's often fairly difficult to do that. And as you've mentioned, the paper might attract very different readers, because you've kind of brought in two, I don't know, I don't want to call it traditions - two streams, I suppose, of intellectual work together. So the Murdoch-Diamond line that you mentioned, and then the Groningen approach line from Walker and Lindemann. So were there challenges that you've found when you were trying to bring those literatures together, or into dialogue with each other?

Not so much in bringing them together, but maybe of contextualising them and bringing together. So in a way, I think they are- the similarities or the affinities between them are so massive, in a way that it's hard to see why there isn't more interaction between those and perhaps it is because people who come from the Diamond-Murdoch context don't necessarily go into bioethics. And and so they don't discover this work. And I know I've seen that people do refer to Margaret Urban Walker's work sometimes and you know you have these... and I mean, it's not obvious to me why these strengths are not reversing more render in the current literature. And I think especially in the sort of broadly Wittgenstein context where, for instance, Wittgenstinian context where Diamond's work is a poem, I think a lot of energy goes into struggling with preconceptions of what moral philosophy should be, and this kind of sort of - people are caught up in this sort of internal debate of showing how their alternative is a viable alternative in moral philosophy, and some sort of obvious allies in the broader context of contemporary scholarship bridges, not you know, they are not found on that path. But but I think this is the connections are so so overwhelmingly obvious that and of course, there are also actual, I think you can, if we repeal the Lindemann I think it's Wittgenstein has quite visible role in... or at least... yeah, this yeah, I think she, I'm not sure about what she thinks about it Wittgenstein, but but he does have a role. And so there are sort of common, a common ancestry there as well.

Yeah, that's very interesting. So I wanted to ask you a final question. This is kind of about something that you mentioned a few minutes ago, and something that you mentioned in the paper, and that I wanted to ask you more about, which is the idea of starting our ethics in the middle of things. I wonder if you can just expand on that for a minute.

Right, in moral philosophy, there's a long tradition of trying to find the perfect theory that would sort of solve all our moral quandaries. Of course, as a caricature picture of moral philosophy. But, but but in that context, with that sort of guiding ideal of finding a moral theory, the idea that the maybe we just look at what we have first, rather than what what, what ought to be or like this sort of finding sort of structured... structured idea what what what it should be like that what we have is often very rich of resources for many, many of our ways forward, and that we often lose many of those resources when we try and start it's because because theory, is all... normative theory is often about simplifying. And what if we don't go that way? What if we rather look at what we have and look at the sort of complex resources we have in... at our sort of disposal in our everyday lives? And that I think that is doing philosophy from the middle of things, trying to see what we have, what are our resources? What are our commitments, what are our complex everyday duties? What do we believe in? Ethically?

Yeah, I think that that's a very rich field from which to sort of draw moral resources or ideas. I guess my further question would be, do we need to generalise from that, or can we or should we?

Well, I suppose thought is always generalising in some sense. I mean, we do we do new do need concepts that capture something beyond the individual situations. And I think thinking about situations thinking about particularities thinking about individual people or individual challenges is is always sort of thinking of them in relation to other things. So there is always I mean, from the various the various situations we are in are already full of generalisations, and I think it's it makes sense to work on those generalisations in different ways. And I'm not in that sense a particularist. I mean, I think particularism is is ah can of of course be many things but but but I don't think there is is a reason to combat generalisation it's just a greater sensitive, we needed a great sensitivity to what generalisations can do for us in different situations. And moral theory has operated often with a rather sort of crude, large scale ideas of the over what kind of of generalisations we need, and and i think those those ideas can be and are of course re-considered all the time.

Yeah, great. Um, so I guess we're kind of coming towards the end of our chat. This has been so good. I wonder if there's anything that we haven't covered? Or if you wanted to summarise any sort of primary takeaway message that you hope people will get from reading your paper? Before we wrap up?

Yeah, I think I would like to point it in the direct is because... in a direction where I would be going myself with my philosophical work, because I, I think, sort of what fascinates me about bioethics, I mean, I'm very much more a philosopher rather than a bioethicist. And this is very new to me. What fascinates me with bioethics, and this sort of approach- approaching things in... questions in bioethics from the middle of things is that it's an area where life is changing where, you know, it touches upon areas of life, where you have new technologies, you have new challenges, you have new, so there's a lot of novelty all the time, and you're not just finding new answers to old questions, but you're actually having new questions all the time. And, and it's the kind of kind of area of moral thinking where we are challenged to think about how our morality changes, how they're not just the things we have to take into account change, but how the very criteria by which we judge them change, and what the sort of dynamics of that change are like, and how we might want to sort of think about them and and maybe sometimes interfere with them. So so I think sort of this much of my interest in bioethics sort of points in the direction of the sort of more ambitious theoretical articulation of moral moral change.

Very interesting. We I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for that, because I will be very keen to read about it. Thank you so much for joining me, Nora.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to this episode of FAB Gab. You can find the paper that we've discussed linked in this episode's notes along with a full transcript of this episode. FAB Gab is hosted by me Kathryn MacKay and produced by Madeline Goldberger. You can find our other episodes on Spotify, Radio Public, Anchor or wherever else you get your podcasts of quality. Thanks again for listening. Bye.