The Kass Council and the Politicization of Ethics Advice

Bibliographic Data

ID11923577
AuthorsAdam Briggle (University of Twente, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume39
Issue2
Pages309-326
Publication date2009-03-17
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Studies of Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0306-3127 • E-ISSN: 1460-3659
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0306312708101048
OpenAlexW2011757376
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited27

The borders between science, ethics and politics are important areas of public life and academic inquiry. One of the most significant border zones are federal advisory bodies tasked with bringing scientific and ethical knowledge to bear on matters of public concern. This paper uses the President's Council on Bioethics during Leon Kass' tenure as Chair as a case study to investigate the norms governing the interface between expert knowledge and democratic decision-making. It first introduces the Kass Council and examines legitimation, politicization and their relationships within federal advisory bodies. The paper then evaluates the Kass Council using the standards derived from this conceptual normative investigation. Three case studies of the Kass Council provide evidence that charges of politicization were sometimes accurate, while at other times they were mischaracterizations

Bioethics · Democracy · Legitimation · Normative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Ethics in Clinical Research · Ethics in medical practice · Law · Public Administration · Risk Perception and Management

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