Moral imagination as a tool for biomedical ethics education

Moral sensitivity - recognizing ethically charged situations - and moral reasoning - figuring out which action or choice is morally right - are seen as important competencies for biomedical scientists to make ethical decisions in their work. Although there is consensus that these competencies can be developed through educational activities, it is unclear what mechanisms underlie the development of these competencies. We argue that moral imagination and matching teaching strategies contribute to the development of these competencies. Moral imagination is viewed in this article as the use of narratives, metaphors and images during the process of ethical reflection on a specific situation.

Teaching strategies can focus on learning to recognize ethically charged situations using moral values, principles, virtues and theories. This can be accomplished, for example, by discussing a scenario with students using moral principles, values, virtues and theories. Teaching strategies can also focus on taking in other perspectives, such as through role-playing or rewriting a story using a different perspective. Still other strategies focus on exploring what moral consequences certain choices or actions might have. For example, students can write their own realistic future scenarios that incorporate scientific, political, social and economic factors. Discussions based on the scenarios can help reflect on which future scenario is most desirable.

Offering biomedical science students ethics education that activates their moral imagination can help them better recognize the ethical dimension of their field and make ethically motivated choices. Also, such education can contribute to the (future) collaboration between biomedical scientists, ethicists and other stakeholders in order to steer biomedical innovations in the right direction.
 

Read the full publication, titled "Moral imagination as an instrument for ethics education for biomedical researchers," here.
Elianne M. Gerrits, Lars S. Assen, Liesbeth Noordegraaf-Eelens, Annelien L. Bredenoord and Marc H. W. van Mil. International Journal of Ethics Education (2023).