The research project FoLAB, A Form of Life Approach to Bioethics, aims at shifting the bioethical debate and the debate on issues related to life from a theoretical, principled based to an ethnographical, form of life approach.
Traditionally issues in bioethics are dealt with through a value conferring model. The discussion is on the moral notions and principles which are taken to be relevant in order to be applied to a given circumstance. Circumstances are described in factual terms asking the details to the sciences and are considered to be devoid of any conceptual articulation, of any form which instructs moral thought. Diverse lines such Utilitarian and Kantian theories are examples of such an approach. Against this family of views it can be argued that life has a form found in the ways in which beings persist in living organized in bundles of relations of dependancy, coexistence and meaning. Questions about value and normativity can be dealt with within the conceptual articulation offered by the shape taken by life in specific circumstances.
Traditional issues such as the new ways of being brought to life and ending one's life and new issues related to how human life is transformed in its intimacy and autonomy by new technologies and how the concept of life itself tends to migrate to robots should be treated from within the forms of life which such new circumstances contribute to create. A shift is required from the approach which applies a theory to a circumstance of life to the one which works from within the normativity offered by life itself. FoLAB indicates the project of exploring the details of how life persists and hosts spaces of creativity and critical reflection. An ethnography of ordinary life, explored especially within popular culture, is required in order to ground normative and critical reflection within the details of life.
The theoretical and methodological framework of the project is that of relations with, or living-with, others and the environment. This move defines what could be considered as a new empiricism, where mere empirical evidences (old empiricism) are to be replaced by imaginative connections which is up to us to visualize, value, and transform by strokes of practices. This is not the experimentalism of "Experimental Philosophy" which joins together empirical evidence and theoretical models, but rather of ordinary philosophy, unearthing humanity from within our practices so to clarify them and possibly transform them. Tv series and films help us appreciating realities already (or very soon to be) engrained in our cultures and societies.
As an example of this ongoing change within society as depicted by these media - among those which we wish to cover in the research - , people are getting accustomed to the humanization of robots and to our relationships with them. This is not only intellectually stimulating, but also dramatically practical. An ethnographical look at popular culture is thus crucial in order to work out our conceptual place within changing forms of life. Robots, which (or who?) populate our homes, hospitals, caring institutions, entertainment environments, as well as cinemas, screens, and very soon virtual reality are in fact ever-present companions and fellow-beings which (or whom) sustain us, entertain us, care for us, and make us either blending in or rather dropping out of society. The key question is not the metaphysical one around the alleged humanity of robots. In the TV series "Westworld", the guest asks the humanoid assistant: 'Are you real?', and she answers: 'Well, if you can't tell, does it matter?'. The show can be read as exploring how the differences which matter do not lie in some assumed ontological set of criteria but in the forms of life and living with robots ordinarily. The question thus is not that of the transgression of the limits of life, which has shaped the discussion about many issues in bioethics with defenders and opposers (see on this Donatelli 2012). Rather the question is that of knowing how, by living with such artifacts, the human forms of life change in novel directions and that of reflecting on what is a matter of human and ethical importance from within such perspective.
This single example of life with robots shows how radical transformations in the dimension of the vital require an exploration of the details of ordinary life and are not set by addressing metaphysical questions of what is human, what is a living entity, what is love, what is trust, what is health, etc. The revision of the traditional paradigm in bioethics goes in the direction of resisting the temptation of shifting to the metaphysical ground and rather exploring how human experience is concretely shaped by these new forms of life with robots as well as with giving birth to babies, with fading away from life, and with dying in the new technological and social circumstances.
REASEARCH OUTCOMES
1) The research outcomes include a number of actives among which yearly workshops and a final conference based at Sapienza Università di Roma, as well as research trips by the members of the project aimed at promoting international collaborations and the activities of the research group.
2) An updated and interactive website of the research group will be registered and taken care of for the length of the project in order to account for and promote the activities of the group. Also, a dedicated section will be created for building up a library with the growing literature on the research topic in order to fostering cross-fertilization with kindred or rather distant approaches and disciplines.
3) Furthermore, the meetings at Sapienza and abroad will be functional to the edition of a book defending a forms of life approach to bioethics directed by the proponent and with contributions from members of the research group, which will be the first of its kind. The volume will offer a comprehensive review of the major bioethical topics from the point of view of a form of life approach, with chapters dedicated to the ethical impact of the new technological advancements on the way we take care of our bodies, widen our imagination, redefine our nextness to our fellow beings, and rethink our inhabiting the environment, natural or otherwise.
4) A number of corollary publications will be submitted to major journals as monographic issues on the topics of the FoLAB research group.