The intellectual and moral integrity of bioethics: response to commentaries on \u22A case study in unethical transgressive bioethics: \u27Letter of concern from bioethicists\u27 about the prenatal administration of dexamethasone\u22.

摘要

In our target article we showed that the Letter of Concern (LoC) fails to meet accepted standards for presenting empirical data for the purpose of supplementing a normative claim and for argument-based normative ethics. The LoC fails to meet the standards of evidence-based reasoning by making false claims, failing to reference data that undermine its key premises, and misrepresenting and misinterpreting the scientific publications it selectively references. The LoC fails to meet the standards of argument-based reasoning by treating as settled matters what are, instead, ongoing controversies, offering “mere opinion” as a substitute for argument, and making contradictory claims. The LoC is methodologically defective and thus a case study in unethical transgressive bioethics. Not withdrawing the LoC will damage the field of bioethics, making this case study in unethical transgressive bioethics important for the entire field.