[10-12] Imagining experimental philosophy of medicine
Presentation language：English
Experimental philosophy has tackled philosophical questions using empirical methods (mainly quantitative methods such as as vignette studies). Now, twenty years after the first seminal X-Phi study, experimental philosophers have investigated intuitions regarding epistemology, moral psychology, religion…, thus contributing to a better understanding of the concepts that these philosophical subdisciplines tend to focus on. Although conceptual questions are also central to philosophy of medicine, experimental philosophy of medicine (XPhiMed) is still in its infancy. In this talk we reflect on our own experience with doing XPhiMed (vignette study, corpus analysis) as well as with editing a special issue (in Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics) and edited volume (in Bloomsbury’s Advances in Experimental Philosophy series) on XPhiMed. We argue that an experimental approach can shed valuable light conceptual issues in philosophy of medicine, and also on its relation to empirical bioethics. However, because moral and epistemic values are intertwined in clinical research and clinical practice, and because it covers both the public domain and individual experience, XPhiMed must go beyond traditional quantitative approaches. We argue that corpus analysis and qualitative methods should supplement vignette studies, and that empirical studies of medical concepts can and should be sensitive to cross-cultural aspects.