Diverse origins of bioethics
The origins of bioethics, self-defined as “science of survival”, are diverse (1).
They can be traced back to the Code of Hammurabi (1754 B.C.), which introduced specific
rules and drastic penalties for physicians in the cases of therapeutic failure. Using
a connection between responsibility for a medical intervention (rules 215-225) and
measurable outcome, the Code represents an early attempt to establish strict behavioral
guidelines: “If a physician make a large incision with the operating knife, and kill
him, or open a tumor with the operating knife, and cut out the eye, his hands shall
be cut off” (2). There is a significant difference between the evidence collected
to make a value judgment for a particular case and the evidence that serves in the
process of testing a certain hypothesis about the nature of things (3). The Judgment
of Solomon represents the model and the case for a peculiar bioethical method and
approach in a “life-or-death situation” decision-making. When King Solomon of Israel
was called to make a judgment regarding two women who both claimed to be the mother
of a child, he employed a wise and intuitive method. He was tricking the “mothers”
into revealing their true feelings. From a bioethical point of view, his task was
to distinguish the right outcome from the wrong outcome without any empirical evidence.
The episode has become an example of a middle ground argument (argumentum ad temperantiam),
where an impartial judge displays wisdom in making a decision. Solomon was collecting
evidence with a non-standard, non-epidemiological method for informed decision making.
The Case of Re A (Separation of Conjoined Twins and a decision of the Court of Appeal
of England and Wales) likewise demonstrates the complexity of bioethical decision-making
(4). The Hippocratic Oath (500 B.C.E.) marks the beginning of Western ethical reasoning
and decision-making in medicine. However, the well-known phrase “primum non nocere”
(first, do no harm), which became the binding ethical rule of the utmost importance
is not in the Hippocratic Oath. It comes from The History of Epidemics, which is part
of the Hippocratic corpus (5). The same applies to the well-known principles of non-maleficence
and beneficence “salus aegroti suprema lex” (well-being of the patient is the most
important law).
From Hammurabi's Code to the moment when the German theologian Fritz Jahr published
articles using the German term “Bio-Ethik” in 1927 (6) there were 3681 years of non-interrupted
efforts directed toward establishing the ground for decision-making that would be
ethical, objective, and life-saving. Finally, an important academic and professional
“boost” for bioethics came with van Ransselaer Potter's “Bioethics, the Science of
Survival” (7) and Callahan’s “Bioethics as a Discipline” (8). What where the key drivers
for increased professional, public and institutional interest in bioethics in the
late 1960s and early 1970s?
Joint interests and parallel history of evidence-based medicine and evidence-based
bioethics
The first and most important stimulus for establishing evidence-based bioethics was
fostered by a series of important events in research and clinical medicine: the Harvard
Definition of Brain Death (9), the Roe v. Wade case (10), the Karen Ann Quinlan case
(11), and the Baby Doe case (12). The second important stimulus came from the institutional
background. The Joint Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations that
accredited hospitals in the USA introduced clinical ethics consultation as a must-have
method for the improvement of quality assurance through the newly established hospital
ethics committees (13).
The first to use the term “evidence-based medicine” was David M. Eddy in his work
on population-level policies. He was also the first to link clinical practice guidelines
and insurance coverage of new technologies with the idea of evidence-based bioethics.
Two associations, the American College of Physicians and the American Heart Association,
followed the initiative immediately in 1987 by publishing evidence-based guidelines
for cardiovascular disease prevention. Another important step toward establishing
evidence based medicine was made in the United Kingdom by Richard Smith's editorial
in the British Medical Journal introducing the notion of evidence-based policies (14).
Finally, five years later, the Cochrane Collaboration gathered a network of experts
aiming to produce systematic reviews and guidelines. A similar tendency in the development
of practice guidelines applies to evidence-based bioethics. A major difference in
the intensity and pace of development is the level of specificity and a ten-to-fifteen-year
delay. However, there are two similarities. One is the evaluation of ethical practices
in the terms of effectiveness when issuing clinical practice guidelines and public
health and population-based policies. The other is the introduction of epidemiological
methods into individual patient-level decision-making (15).
A parallel history of evidence-based bioethics started in 1979, when Tom Beauchamp
and James Childress published Principles of Biomedical Ethics (16), connecting efforts
to resolve ethical issues in clinical medicine with the development of defined and
concrete ethical principles – defining it as principalism (17). In the Belmont Report,
principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice were identified as guidelines
for responsible research using human subjects (18). However, efforts to regulate physicians'
behavior through codes of ethics as specific ethical guidelines started already in
1847 in Philadelphia, when the American Medical Association established uniform standards
for professional education, training, and conduct. The Code was adapted from the ethical
code of conduct published in 1794 by Thomas Percival (19). After the World War 2,
numerous international organizations joined the practice of developing bioethical
codes for specific bioethical problems: the World Medical Association (WMA) accepted
The Declaration of Helsinki (20); the Council for International Organizations of Medical
Sciences (CIOMS), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), issued
International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects
(21); the Council of Europe (CoE) issued the Oviedo Convention – the Convention on
Human Rights and Biomedicine (ETS No 164) (22); and the European Council and the European
Parliament issued Directive 2001/20/EC (23). At the clinical level, practical approaches
to ethical problem solving developed, and new institutions specialized for operational
research in bioethics were established. The National Institute for Health Care Excellence
became a model institution for quality improvement in health care through the development
of evidence-based guidance that increasingly considers bioethical aspects of clinical
decision-making (24). The Nuffield Council on Bioethics systematically identifies
ethical questions raised by recent advances in biological and medical research, publishing
reports and guidance on specific bioethical topics such as biological and health data,
mitochondrial DNA disorders, Zika ethical considerations, genome editing and public
dialogue, dementia, and invasive cosmetic procedures, just to mention a few (25).
A case example of development of utilitarian bioethics: from Bentham's Felicific Calculus
to World Happiness Report
How do we define and measure good and bad ethical outcomes in medicine and health
care? How to even measure the bioethics of happiness? Pragmatic ethics attempts to
use philosophical methods to identify the morally correct course of action concerned
with legal issues in the life sciences. Ethical pragmatists, such as John Dewey, thought
that norms, principles, and moral criteria were likely to be improved as a result
of philosophical inquiry. Henry Sidgwick introduced the idea of motive or intent in
morality, and Peter Singer conceptualized the idea of preference into moral decision
making.
The idea of human happiness is a good example of the utilitarian theory approach to
bioethics. The “greatest happiness principle” or the principle of utility, forms the
cornerstone of Bentham's thought. Bentham tried to develop an operational concept
for the scientific approach to human happiness by proposing a technical instrument
“Felicific Calculus.” By “happiness,” he understood a predominance of “pleasure” over
“pain.” In the Principles of Morals and Legislation he wrote: “The word utility does
not so clearly point to the ideas of pleasure and pain as the words happiness, and
felicity do: nor does it lead us to the consideration of the number, of the interests
affected ” (26). Bentham’s disciple, John Stuart Mill, took a step further by trying
to develop a system to measure pain and pleasure. Mill distinguished between higher
and lower pleasures, understanding that certain human goods are irreducible to the
calculation of the amount of pleasure or pain. Jeremy Bentham, or at least his auto-icon
now on public display at the University College London, would be delighted to know
that less than two centuries after his death, the United Nations Sustainable Development
Solutions Network published the World 2015 Happiness Report. The report outlined the
state of world happiness, causes of happiness and misery, and policy implications
highlighted by case studies (27). The Gallup World Poll database was used as a rich
source of information. Each variable from the Galupp Poll represents a population-weighted
average score on a 0-t0-10 scale, and it is tracked over time and compared across
more than 150 countries. These variables are healthy life expectancy, GDP per capita
expressed in parity purchasing power (PPP), the freedom to make life choices, social
support, generosity, and perceptions of corruption. Each country is compared to a
hypothetical nation called Dystopia, a nation with the lowest averages for key variables
and, along with the residual error, used as a regression benchmark (28). Psychologists,
sociologists, economists, and statisticians analyze the feeling of happiness as related
to general mental illness, the benefits of happiness, the relevance of bioethics,
and policy implications, and link it to the Human Development Report (29).
A critique of evidence-based bioethics
Empirical research in bioethics started at the end of the 20th century and was mostly
influenced by developments in biological and clinical research, using methods from
epidemiology and medical statistics. Writing during the first decade of the HIV/AIDS
epidemic, Benjamin Freedman noted that “perception, rather than reality, controls
the generation and resolution of ethical issues” (30). Freedman was referring to the
debate on doctors' duties to provide care to AIDS patients and how they perceived
the risk that patients might transmit the virus to them as vastly different from the
actual risk involved. Halpern tried to establish an argument in support of the development
and implementation of evidence-based bioethics by asking a logical question “but what
ought to guide ethical deliberations once evidence becomes available?” (31) Value
conflicts may emerge not only in clinical care or epidemiology of infectious diseases.
The group of researchers from the Hastings Center demonstrated how values conflicts
regularly emerged in health care organizations, public health, the regulatory context,
and among payers. Conflicting situations may be resolved through a transparent public
dialog about evidence involving patients, as well as public engagement (32). Societies
also need to develop strategies for managing values conflicts, as well as any other
health care-related complex behavioral and social situations.
After two decades of development, there is a long list of studies in favor of evidence-based
bioethics. However, the scope of scientific evidence behind bioethics should not be
limited exclusively to medical outcomes. As Goldenberg claimed “The qualitative, ethnographic,
and phenomenological methods typically undertaken in empirical ethics are ranked low
on the evidence-based hierarchy of knowledge…” (33). It is a consequence of the widespread
practice and dominating convictions throughout the history of medicine that the primary
goal of medical treatment should be “efficacy.” Such a reductionist approach creates
space for health care policies that are frequently driven by ideologies and hidden
agendas, rather than evidence. Influenced by ideology, many countries are enacting
arbitrary health care, reproductive health, or pharmaceutical policies, and the only
real strategies that might oppose such arbitrary policies are evidence-based bioethics
principles implemented in everyday practice. The limits imposed on current research
in empirical ethics by evidence-based approaches deserve further attention. There
is a strong need for a discussion regarding the kind of normative (34) background
and evidence that forms bioethical theories and informs bioethics.