Heterogeneous assemblages of bioethics and science: the “pre-embryo” debate in America

This paper explores the “pre-embryo” debate in America to analyze the relationship between scientific uncertainty and moral decision-making. This paper explores how an ethical debate among bioethicists around the term “pre-embryo” has been transformed into a scientific “fact” debate between developmental biology and embryology. This transformation is driven by the scientism of ethical reasoning that stresses scientific claims to increase the credibility of ethical claims. This paper concludes that the “pre-embryo” debate is not an ethical controversy over a unified science but rather credibility struggles between two heterogeneous assemblages of science and bioethics.     

IS HOMEOPATHY REALLY ‘MORALLY AND ETHICALLY UNACCEPTABLE’? A CRITIQUE OF PURE SCIENTISM

In this short response we show that Kevin Smith's moral and ethical rejections of homeopathy 1 are fallacious and rest on questionable epistemology. Further, we suggest Smith's presumption of a utilitarian stance is an example of scientism encroaching into medicine.