From applied ethics to empirical ethics to contextual ethics.

Bioethics became applied ethics when it was assimilated to moral philosophy. Because deduction is the rationality of moral philosophy, subsuming facts under moral principles to deduce conclusions about what ought to be done became the prescribed reasoning of bioethics, and bioethics became a theory comprised of moral principles. Bioethicists now realize that applied ethics is too abstract and spare to apprehend the specificity, particularity, complexity and contingency of real moral issues. Empirical ethics and contextual ethics are needed to incorporate these features into morality, not just bioethics. The relevant facts and features of problems have to be identified, investigated and framed coherently, and potential resolutions have to be constructed and assessed. Moreover, these tasks are pursued and melded within manifold contexts, for example, families, work and health care systems, as well as societal, economic, legal and political backgrounds and encompassing worldviews. This naturalist orientation and both empirical ethics and contextual ethics require judgment, but how can judgment be rational? Rationality, fortunately, is more expansive than deductive reasoning. Judgment is rational when it emanates from a rational process of deliberation, and a process of deliberation is rational when it uses the resources of non-formal reason: observation, creative construction, formal and informal reasoning methods and systematic critical assessment. Empirical ethics and contextual ethics recognize that finite, fallible human beings live in complex, dynamic, contingent worlds, and they foster creative, critical deliberation and employ non-formal reason to make rational moral judgments.

Tragic choices and moral compromise: the ethics of allocating kidneys for transplantation.

CONTEXT: For almost a decade, the Kidney Transplantation Committee of the United Network for Organ Sharing has been striving to revise its approach to allocating kidneys from deceased donors for transplantation. Two fundamental values, equality and efficiency, are central to distributing this scarce resource. The prevailing approach gives primacy to equality in the temporal form of first-come, first-served, whereas the motivation for a new approach is to redeem efficiency by increasing the length of survival of transplanted kidneys and their recipients. But decision making about a better way of allocating kidneys flounders because it is constrained by the amorphous notion of "balancing" values. METHODS: This article develops a more fitting, productive approach to resolving the conflict between equality and efficiency by embedding the notion of compromise in the analysis of a tragic choice provided by Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbitt. For Calabresi and Bobbitt, the goals of public policy with respect to tragic choices are to limit tragedy and to deal with the irreducible minimum of tragedy in the least offensive way. Satisfying the value of efficiency limits tragedy, and satisfying the value of equality deals with the irreducible minimum of tragedy in the least offensive way. But both values cannot be completely satisfied simultaneously. Compromise is occasioned when not all the several obligations that exist in a situation can be met and when neglecting some obligations entirely in order to fulfill others entirely is improper. Compromise is amalgamated with the notion of a tragic choice and then used to assess proposals for revising the allocation of kidneys considered by the Kidney Transplantation Committee. FINDINGS: Compromise takes two forms in allocating kidneys: it occurs within particular approaches to allocating kidneys because neither equality nor efficiency can be fully satisfied, and it occurs over the course of sequential approaches to allocating kidneys that cycle between preferring equality and efficiency. Ross and colleagues' Equal Opportunity Supplemented by Fair Innings proposal for allocating kidneys best exemplifies the rationality of compromise as a way of achieving the goals of making a tragic choice. CONCLUSIONS: The attempt to design a policy for allocating kidneys from deceased donors for transplantation by balancing the values of equality and efficiency is misguided and unhelpful. Instead policymaking should both incorporate compromise into discrete approaches to allocating kidneys and extend compromise over sequential approaches to allocating kidneys.

The rationality and morality of dying children.

Formal reason is not adequate to explain how we think through real-life problems and make moral decisions about them. A far richer account of rationality is necessary. Interviews conducted with children who have leukemia, and who must figure out by themselves that they are dying and how they should handle that information, illustrate a range on informal tools that must be part of that account.

How experience confronts ethics.

Analytic moral philosophy's strong divide between empirical and normative restricts facts to providing information for the application of norms and does not allow them to confront or challenge norms. So any genuine attempt to incorporate experience and empirical research into bioethics--to give the empirical more than the status of mere 'descriptive ethics'--must make a sharp break with the kind of analytic moral philosophy that has dominated contemporary bioethics. Examples from bioethics and science are used to illustrate the problems with the method of application that philosophically prevails in both domains and with the conception of rationality that underlies this method. Cues from how these problems can be handled in science then introduce summaries of richer, more productive naturalist and constructivist accounts of reason and normative knowledge. Liberated by a naturalist approach to ethics and an enlarged conception of rationality, empirical work can be recognized not just as essential to bioethics but also as contributing to normative knowledge.

Downward delegation of implantable cardioverter defibrillator decision-making in a restricted-resource environment: the pitfalls of bedside rationing.

Implantable cardioverter defibrillators have been shown to reduce all-cause mortality in some patient populations at risk of sudden death. New Canadian guidelines recommend implantable cardioverter defibrillator therapy for these patients. However, the need for these devices exceeds the funded volumes in many Canadian jurisdictions. As a result, rationing of this resource has been necessary. While rationing at the macro (Ministry of Health) and meso (hospital) levels has achieved some level of acceptance by society, the responsibility for the decisions taken at the micro (individual) patient level actually rests with the physician at the bedside. This 'bedside rationing' creates a moral dilemma for physicians, who are torn between their traditional fiduciary role as 'patient advocate' and the competing role of 'gatekeeper'. This 'downward delegation' of rationing decision-making obscures the reality that rationing occurs, and encourages covert, opaque and inconsistent approaches. The remedy is the development of fair, legitimate procedures for making rationing decisions that include guidelines that structure and constrain those decisions. Macro- and meso-level stakeholders must also recognize and take responsibility for their part in restricting resources in a broadly inclusive and transparent process.

Attitudes regarding organ donation from non-heart-beating donors.

PURPOSE: To determine the attitudes toward organ donation from non-heart-beating cadaver donors in a sample of the general public and health care workers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A moderator-administered questionnaire was completed by members of the general public, recruited randomly from a professional consumer research group's database, and health care workers recruited from the same database, family practice clinics, and local hospitals. Two primary scenarios were tested: (1) patient in coma, not going to survive intensive care unit (ICU), and (2) patient lapsing in and out of consciousness, lifetime institutional care. RESULTS: Sixty members of the general public and 68 health care workers completed the questionnaire. The majority of both groups were aware life support could be withdrawn in Scenario 1, however, significantly fewer were aware life support could also be withdrawn in Scenario 2 (83% general public vs 34% general public, P <.001 and 94% health care workers vs 78% health care workers, P =.012). Uncertainty in prognosis was cited as the primary concern. The issue of organ donation was directly linked with withdrawal of life support. The majority of both groups believed that organ donation would be permissible if further life support were deemed to be not in the patient's best interest because of poor short-term prognosis (94% health care workers and 98% general public for Scenario 1 and 87% health care workers and 81% general public for Scenario 2). The greatest difficulty arose in defining futility of care. Expected quality of life, patient's and family's values, opinions, and religious beliefs were felt to be most important in determining decisions regarding futility and withdrawal of life support. Physician beliefs and values were felt to influence decisions more than they should. CONCLUSIONS: Both the general public and health care workers support the use of non-heart-beating cadaver donors once a decision has been made to withdraw life support. However, both groups raised concerns regarding how the decision to withdraw life support is made.

Mandatory physician reporting of drivers with cardiac disease: ethical and practical considerations.

Many jurisdictions in Canada have enacted legislation that requires physicians to report their patients to the Ministry of Transport if they have a medical condition that may put them at increased risk to operate a motor vehicle. The Canadian Cardiovascular Society has published guidelines that are designed to assist physicians and policy-makers in their decision-making. Legislation is designed to protect society, and the guidelines are designed to fulfill that mandate. However, in the present paper, important issues that have not been addressed to date are discussed. What is the efficacy of mandatory reporting legislation? What are the harms done to patients who are restricted from driving? What are the costs of the mandatory reporting system? How can the scientific/technical assessment of risk be reconciled with the social/ethical view of risk assessment? Until these issues are addressed, important questions about the ethics, efficacy and cost of mandatory physician reporting will remain unanswered.

Canadian Cardiovascular Society/Canadian Heart Rhythm Society position paper on implantable cardioverter defibrillator use in Canada.

The Canadian Heart Rhythm Society in conjunction with the Canadian Cardiovascular Society is committed to the promotion of evidence-based practice in Canada. Since the last Canadian guidelines on the management of sudden cardiac death were published in 2000, several well-conducted clinical trials evaluating the implantable cardioverter defibrillator have been completed and published. The Canadian Cardiovascular Society Council has granted permission to review and update guidelines for the indications for implantable cardioverter defibrillators. Furthermore, data are emerging on the potential benefits of biventricular pacing therapy (cardiac resynchronization) for heart failure; recommendations for the use of this therapy have been included in the present paper. Ethical considerations and the economic implications of these recommendations are also included. Canada's heart rhythm specialists, represented by the Canadian Heart Rhythm Society, have been joined by two heart failure specialists, a medical ethicist and an economist, to develop the present position paper. Members of the Canadian Heart Rhythm Society participated in the discussion of these recommendations in open forum meetings and by electronic communication.

Values in preventive medicine: the hidden agenda.

We know how lifestyle affects health, yet concern for preventing illness by promoting healthy lifestyles remains marginal in medical practice. Effective preventive strategies can raise daunting moral and political problems about the extent to which individual freedoms may be infringed, particularly on paternalistic grounds. Evaluative questions also arise about more specific matters, such as identifying risk and causal factors, determining what level of risk is acceptable, and deciding how compelling the evidence must be to take preventive action.