Is corporate money bad for bioethics?
Introduction
The commercialisation of bioethics has attracted a significant amount of scholarly attention in North America. This debate has left those of us working in the United Kingdom a bit puzzled and perhaps even a little envious. Instead of being worried about the temptations offered by large corporations, it’s more worrying that those with large wallets are not interested in buying what the UK bioethicist has to sell. In any case this debate is relevant because it raises questions about the role of bioethics. Most of the objections to corporate payment rely upon the view that ethics advice differs from other kinds of service that might be provided to corporations. Whether or not corporate payment is a bad thing for bioethics depends upon whether there is anything about bioethics that distinguishes it from consultancy that might be offered by a historian, accountant or philosopher. Some people believe that the primary role of bioethics is moral criticism, whereas others believe that it is moral analysis. I will suggest that what you think about the primary role of bioethics will influence what you think about corporate payment and bioethics.
While I am not aware of any UK bioethicist accepting corporate money, a well-known British philosopher found himself under attack for publishing moral arguments in exchange for money. Roger Scruton wrote columns for The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Independent. These publications were less than pleased when The Guardian disclosed that Scruton had been receiving over £50,000 per annum from Japan Tobacco allegedly to write pro-smoking articles.1 Needless to say it is hard to construct a tougher test case for someone who believes that it is always right to sell ethical opinions. This example involves a very substantial amount of money, from what must be one of the most dubious sources, with the effect that the interests of companies who do much more harm than good are promoted. However, it’s still an open question whether Scruton did anything seriously wrong.
In the seventeenth century Francis Bacon pleaded guilty to charges of bribery and corruption after it became known that he was accepting backhanders. In his defence he claimed that he didn’t let bribes interfere with his judgement. Scruton is likely to make a similar kind of response. He has argued a consistent line on the right to smoke for a number of years and it seems highly likely that he didn’t claim to believe anything that he does not in fact believe. However it seems reasonable to suppose that he might have published prosmoking columns that he wouldn’t have if it weren’t for the fact that he was being paid to do so.
Given that Scruton has a high public profile for a British philosopher there might be cause for concern about the impact of his actions upon the standing of philosophy. If there was ever a case which would damage the ethical credibility of philosophy this is it. However, I have not read or heard a single comment to the effect that this has damaged the reputation of philosophy or philosophers. People that are critical of Scruton’s actions are only critical of him, so perhaps we might expect a similar response to a bioethicist in the same position.
Section snippets
All bioethicists are moral critics
It is the impact of corporate payment upon the status of the academic or professional ethicist that is addressed by Carl Elliott in a number of recent publications.2 He thinks that part of the resistance to the growing corporatisation of American bioethics is due to aesthetic reasons, but he also thinks that it raises serious questions about the credibility of bioethicists; he says, ‘How can bioethicists continue to be taken seriously if they
Professional capture
More subtle kinds of worry are articulated by Zoloth, Elliott and Callahan. I think they can all be described as forms of ‘professional capture’. By that I mean that there are worries about the ability of bioethics as a discipline to be a source of moral criticism without being corrupted by involvement with large corporations.
Zoloth is concerned that bioethicists may be seduced by the epistemic privilege that can be a feature of consulting with large companies. She thinks that the lure of
What should be done?
Some potential pitfalls of corporate payment apply to both the critic and the analyst. For both roles bioethicists need to know why it is that a corporation wants them as a consultant and what the consequences of giving ethical advice are likely to be. Whereas the critic is unlikely to think this sufficient, an analyst is more likely to think that this will make consultancy acceptable. To a significant extent the “badness” of being a corporate consultant depends upon whether you think of the
Acknowledgements
I’m indebted to Richard Ashcroft, Tim Lewens, Kathleen Liddell and Neil Manson for their comments on this paper.
References (11)
- Allison, R. (2002). Wall Street Journal drops Scruton over tobacco cash. The Guardian, 5 February, p. 11. (Available at...
Truth or consequences: The role of philosophers in policy making
Doing good and doing well
Hastings Center Report
(2001)Moral expertise: A problem in the professional ethics of professional ethicists
Bioethics
(1995)Throwing a bone to the watchdog
Hastings Center Report
(2001)
Cited by (4)
Writing history in the age of biomedicine
2013, Writing History in the Age of BiomedicineAnimals as biotechnology: Ethics, sustainability and critical animal studies
2010, Animals as Biotechnology: Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal StudiesThe ethics of reality and virtual reality: Latour, facts and values
2006, History of the Human SciencesConstructing critical bioethics by deconstructing culture/nature dualism
2005, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy