The structure of analogical reasoning in bioethics.

Casuistry, which involves analogical reasoning, is a popular methodological approach in bioethics. The method has its advantages and challenges, which are widely acknowledged. Meta-philosophical reflection on exactly how bioethical casuistry works and how the challenges can be addressed is limited. In this paper we propose a framework for structuring casuistry and analogical reasoning in bioethics. The framework is developed by incorporating theories and insights from the philosophy of science: Mary Hesse's ideas on horizontal and vertical relations in analogical reasoning in the sciences, Paul Bartha's articulation model of analogical reasoning and Daniel Steel's insights on mechanism-based extrapolation in biomedical research. Adopting our framework results in two practical benefits: it sets methodological standards for analogical reasoning and enables us to compare and evaluate diverging lines of analogical reasoning in a systematic way. Adopting the framework also has theoretical benefits: it helps to understand how analogical reasoning can have moral normativity; it pinpoints exactly where moral principles or theories enter analogical reasoning; and it helps to understand why casuistry is an attractive method in bioethics and in applied ethics more generally.

Casuistry: On a Method of Ethical Judgement in Patient Care.

The article is dedicated to the application questions of a case study method known as casuistry. In its long tradition, it focuses on an influential variant of the early modern period and reconstructs its functionality. In the course of reading recent receptions, it is noted that some studies speak of a "casuistic revival" in moral case deliberation in health care. As a result of this revival, casuistry has been modified in such a way that it guides case discussions in practice with the help of a tripartite methodology (morphology, taxonomy, and kinetics). However, as it turns out, casuistry, a case comparison method of ethical judgement based on reasoning logic, is less suitable for moral case deliberations in direct patient care. This stems from the fact that casuistry is a detailed procedure of ethical learning beneficial to institutionalized ethics committees or similar forms of ethics consultation in health care.

Clinical decision-making: the case against the new casuistry.

Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin have argued that the best way to resolve the complex issues in medical settings is to focus on the actual details of cases and then determine what to do in the given cases. This approach to medical decision-making, labeled "casuistry," has met with much criticism. In response, Carson Strong has attempted to save much of Jonsen and Toulmin's version of casuistry. This analysis reveals that Strong's recent salvage efforts fail to deflect the major criticisms. The upshot of this analysis is that Jonsen and Toulmin's version of casuistry is not an appropriate framework from which to resolve complex issues in clinical settings.

Evaluating the use of casuistry during moral case deliberation in the ICU: A multiple qualitative case study.

Intensive care unit (ICU) professionals engage in ethical decision making under conditions of high stakes, great uncertainty, time-sensitivity and frequent irreversibility of action. Casuistry is a way by which actionable knowledge is obtained through comparing a patient case to previous cases from experience in clinical practice. However, within the field of study as well as in practice, evidence-based medicine is the dominant epistemic framework. This multiple case study evaluated the use of casuistic reasoning by intensive care unit (ICU) professionals during moral case deliberation. It took place in two Dutch hospitals between June 2020 and June 2022. Twentyfive moral case deliberations from ICU practice were recorded and analyzed using discourse analysis. Additionally, 47 interviews were held with ICU professionals who participated in these deliberations, analyzed using thematic analysis. We found that ICU professionals made considerable use of case comparisons when discussing continuation, withdrawal or limitation. Analogies played a role in justifying or complicating moral judgements, and also played a role in addressing moral distress. The language of case-based arguments is most often not overtly normative. Rather, the data shows that casuistic reasoning deals with the medical, ethical and contextual elements of decisions in an integrated manner. Facilitators of MCD have an essential role in (supporting ICU professionals in) scrutinizing casuistic arguments. The data shows that during MCD, actual reasoning often deviated from principle- and rule-based reasoning which ICU professionals preferred themselves. Evidence-based arguments often gained the character of analogical arguments, especially when a patient-at-hand was seen as highly unique from the average patients in the literature. Casuistic arguments disguised as evidence-based arguments may therefore provide ICU professionals with a false sense of certainty. Within education, we should strive to train clinicians and ethics facilitators so that they can recognize and evaluate casuistic arguments.

Chapitre 3. La casuistique de la relation numérique du justiciable.

The digital transformation of justice is the vector of profound change for the litigant. If it can have advantages (speed, accessibility, efficiency), it also presents risks, whether it is the dehumanization of justice or the risk of a digital divide. The study seeks to highlight all the ambivalence of the digital transition in the light of the diversity of litigants.

Abuse and misuse of prescription opioids: is it only an Ameri- can problem? An observational study on an Italian casuistry.

ABSTRACT: Medical use of prescription opioids has steadily increased since the 1990s, particularly in the U.S.A. and Canada, along with abuse of these substances and significant increases in rates of addiction and death related to prescription opioids. The American authorities speak of an "addiction epidemic" and are launching a series of countermeasures to better address the problem. In Europe, there is an increasing use of prescription opioids and related problems, but the European context is much less dramatic than the American and Canadian ones. Never-theless, based on the data, it cannot be ruled out that a similar crisis will occur on the Old Continent. The aim of this study is to analyze the Italian context to better understand whether there is a possibility of an addiction epidemic. Twenty-four cases of death of people under treatment with pre-scription opioids have been retrospectively analyzed. Toxicological samples were collected with routine methods during the autopsy, followed by systematic screening for substances by diverse methods. Volatile compounds were identified using gas chromatography-flame ionization detection (GC-FID). Medical drugs and drugs of abuse were identified via the use of gas chromatography-mass spectrome-try (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS). Of a total of 24 subjects, 14 died due to an overdose of Tramadol, while 7 died due to an overdose of Buprenorphine and 3 dues to a Fentanyl overdose. The most used drug was Tramadol. Histological examination was performed with hematoxylin/eosin staining, though no significant findings emerged apart from widespread edema and focal sclerosis of the myocardium, and interstitial and alveolar edema of the lungs. Our data show that attention must be paid to prescription opioids. European institutions, as soon as possible, must implement preventive measures that avoid the recurrence of the North American situation.

Reversible Splenial Lesion Syndrome as a Challenging Casuistry.

The corpus callosum plays a vital role in brain function. In particular, in the trunk of the corpus callosum, in the course of various diseases, there may be temporary, reversible changes (reversible splenial lesion syndrome (RESLES)), as well as partially reversible and irreversible changes. This article discusses the differentiation of RESLES and other conditions with changes in the corpus callosum lobe, as well as the accompanying clinical symptoms. Moreover, a case report of a patient in whom the above changes appeared in the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) image is presented. A 20-year-old patient with the diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome type VI was admitted to the psychiatric ward in an emergency because of psychomotor agitation, refusal to take food and fluids, delusional statements with a message, grandeur, and auditory hallucinations. In the performed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, the corpus callosum non-characteristic in T2-weighted images revealed a hyperintensive area, which was significantly hyperintensive in diffusion magnetic resonance (DWI) sequences and in apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) sequences with reduced signal intensity and no signs of bleeding. The hypothesis of subacute ischemic stroke of the corpus callosum was presented. In the control MRI of the brain, changes in the corpus callosum completely regressed, thus excluding an ischemic etiology and favoring the diagnosis of RESLES. During hospitalization, the patient experienced significant fluctuations in mental status, with the dominant symptoms typical of the paranoid syndrome in the form of disturbances in the course and structure of thinking and perception, and a clear and stable improvement was obtained after the administration of long-acting intramuscular olanzapine. Taking into account the clinical and radiological picture, the age of the episode, the rapidity of the disease development, the persistence of its clinical symptoms after the withdrawal of radiological changes in the brain NMR image, as well as the significant improvement in the clinical condition after the introduction of antipsychotic drugs, the final diagnosis was made of schizophrenia.

Different methods for ethical analysis in health technology assessment: an empirical study.

OBJECTIVES: Ethical analysis can highlight important ethical issues related to implementing a technology, values inherent in the technology itself, and value-decisions underlying the health technology assessment (HTA) process. Ethical analysis is a well-acknowledged part of HTA, yet seldom included in practice. One reason for this is lack of knowledge about the properties and differences between the methods available. This study compares different methods for ethical analysis within HTA. METHODS: Ethical issues related to bariatric (obesity) surgery were independently evaluated using axiological, casuist, principlist, and EUnetHTA models for ethical analysis within HTA. The methods and results are presented and compared. RESULTS: Despite varying theoretical underpinnings and practical approaches, the four methods identified similar themes: personal responsibility, self-infliction, discrimination, justice, public funding, and stakeholder involvement. The axiological and EUnetHTA models identified a wider range of arguments, whereas casuistry and principlism concentrated more on analyzing a narrower set of arguments deemed more important. CONCLUSIONS: Different methods can be successfully used for conducting ethical analysis within HTA. Although our study does not show that different methods in ethics always produce similar results, it supports the view that different methods of ethics can yield relevantly similar results. This suggests that the key conclusions of ethical analyses within HTA can be transferable between methods and countries. The systematic and transparent use of some method of ethics appears more important than the choice of the exact method.

Tying care and respect into a single bioethical principle: On Dall'Agnol's respectful care theory.

OBJECTIVE: In this article, we offer an extended critical review of a new conception of bioethics, presented by Darlei Dall'Agnol, in the book Care and Respect in Bioethics. METHODS: Critical philosophical analysis of background assumptions of a new approach to bioethics, enriched with critical discussion of related philosophical literature. RESULTS: In Care and Respect in Bioethics, through an approach filled with hard cases, Dall'Agnol argues that the metaethics of respectful care has theoretical advantages over the intuitionist metaethics of principlism and the particularism of casuistry, offering an original comprehensive approach that crosses the three dimensions of ethical inquiry: metaethical, normative, and applied ethics. CONCLUSIONS: Dall'Agnol offers an insightful and persuasive account of how the single attitude of respectful care can express practical moral knowledge in healthcare. In this paper, we evaluate, criticize, and suggest refinements. One of them concerns Dall'Agnol's interpretation about Stephen Darwall's views on care and respect as two attitudes supported, respectively, by a third- and a second-personal moral point-of-view. Other is about the Dall'Agnol's Wittgensteinian description of the moral language-games of Clinical Bioethics, adding to the approach the "language-game of rights."

Medical reasoning and doctor-patient communication.

Nineteenth-century American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce offered a picture of the scientific method that can be fruitfully applied to the practice of medical diagnosis. Physicians can use this framework to become more self-consciously aware of what they are doing when they diagnose medical conditions, and they can also learn more about the potential pitfalls of communication between physicians and their patients.

Theory can be relevant: an overview of bioethics for the practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist.

Familiarity with medical ethical theory and the history of bioethics is helpful for the understanding of the current state of bioethics, as well as possible future developments that will affect physicians and patients alike. This article reviews major schools of thought in bioethics and their relevance to clinical work with children, adolescents, and families. Child and adolescent psychiatrists need to be familiar with major ethical issues in general medicine, psychiatry, and pediatrics, in addition to those controversies that are more specific to their subspecialty. Employing a systematic approach for the identification and analysis of ethical concerns, such as the Four Topics Model of Jonsen and colleagues, improves child and adolescent psychiatrists' confidence that they are aware of ethical quandaries in practice and are addressing these issues in a transparent, well-informed manner.

[Values of the autopsy in the university hospitals illustrated by the casuistry]. / Intérêts de l'autopsie hospitalière illustrés par la casuistique.

PURPOSE: Clinical autopsy rate have been declining since the 1950s, but it remains a useful investigation tool. METHODS AND RESULTS: Through six examples of our experience, we underline its interest for clinical, didactic and public health purposes. CONCLUSIONS: We try to understand the reasons for its decline and, as demonstrated, it can be attributed to a number of factors. These need to be addressed in order to reassert the status of the autopsy as an investigation and audit tool which is crucial to the future effectiveness of modern medicine.

Family Resemblances: Human Reproductive Cloning as an Example for Reconsidering the Mutual Relationships between Bioethics and Science Fiction.

In the traditions of narrative ethics and casuistry, stories have a well-established role. Specifically, illness narratives provide insight into patients' perspectives and histories. However, because they tend to see fiction as an aesthetic endeavour, practitioners in these traditions often do not realize that fictional stories are valuable moral sources of their own. In this paper I employ two arguments to show the mutual relationship between bioethics and fiction, specifically, science fiction. First, both discourses use imagination to set a scene and determine a perspective. Second, bioethics and science fiction share the family resemblance of expressing moral beliefs. I then consider how understanding bioethics and science fiction as interrelated discourses can be the basis of a methodology for inquiry into relational autonomy in the context of biotechnologies and medicine. As an example of this methodology, I analyse Fay Weldon's novel The Cloning of Joanna May (1989).

Casuística das intoxicações por inibidores das colinesterases pelo Centro de Informação e Assistência Toxicológica do Paraná (CIATox/PR) entre 2015 e 2019 / Casuistics of poisonings by cholinesterases inhibitors by the Information and Toxicological Assistance Center of Paraná (CIATox/PR) between 2015 and 2019

Esta pesquisa buscou analisar os casos de intoxicações por organofosforados e carbamatos, presentes em agrotóxicos e pesticidas, registrados na base de dados do Centro de Informação e Assistência Toxicológica do Paraná (CIATox/PR). Trata-se de estudo retrospectivo em que foram avaliadas variáveis sociodemográficas e clínicas relacionadas à intoxicação, à forma de exposição, à causa e ao desfecho. Para a análise estatística foram utilizados testes de Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Shapiro-Wilk, Qui-Quadrado e Teste Exato de Fisher, considerando p<0,05. A amostra foi composta por 426 casos, sendo 218 (51,2%) mulheres. O principal agente foi raticida clandestino em 278 (65,2%) pacientes. A principal circunstância das intoxicações foi tentativa de suicídio com 293 (68,8%) casos. Houve predominância de exposição via oral (89,9%) e zona urbana em 349 (81,9%) casos, a maioria considerados leves (52,6%) e assistidos em serviços médicos (66,4%). Cerca de 327 (76,8%) indivíduos apresentavam manifestações clínicas. O tempo decorrido entre a exposição e o contato com o CIATox/PR foi maior nos casos considerados graves (p= 0,041). A atropina foi utilizada em 94 (49%) pacientes intoxicados por carbamatos, em 31 (33,3%) por organofosforados e em 84 (59,6%) por outros inibidores da colinesterase não especificados. Duas mulheres e um adolescente apresentaram desfecho fatal, tendo em comum a ingesta intencional de "chumbinho". A casuística predominante nesta série histórica foi paciente do sexo feminino, faixa etária adulta, residente na região metropolitana, exposta a agrotóxico por via oral, sintomática, classificada como gravidade leve, sem necessidade de atropina, contudo ocorreram três casos com desfecho para o óbito.

This research aimed to analyze the cases of poisoning by organophosphates and carbamates, present in agrochemicals and pesticides, registered in the database of the Information and Toxicological Assistance Center of Paraná (CIATox/PR). This is a retrospective study in which sociodemographic and clinical variables related to intoxication, form of exposure, cause and outcome were evaluated. For the statistical analysis, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Shapiro-Wilk, Chi-Square and Fisher's Exact Test were used, considering p<0.05. The sample consisted of 426 cases, 218 (51.2%) of which were women. The main agent was clandestine rodenticide in 278 (65.2%) patients. The main circumstance of intoxication was a suicide attempt with 293 (68.8%) cases. There was a predominance of oral exposure (89.9%) and urban areas in 349 (81.9%) cases, most considered mild (52.6%) and assisted in medical services (66.4%). About 327 (76.8%) individuals had clinical manifestations. The time elapsed between exposure and contact with CIATox/PR was longer in cases considered severe (p=0.041). Atropine was used in 94 (49%) patients intoxicated by carbamates, in 31 (33.3%) by organophosphates and in 84 (59.6%) by other unspecified cholinesterase inhibitors. Two women and one teenager had a fatal outcome, having in common the intentional ingestion of "chumbinho". The predominant casuistry in this historical series was a female patient, adult age, living in the metropolitan region, exposed to pesticides orally, symptomatic, classified as mild severity, without the need for atropine, however, there were three cases with an outcome of death.