Toni Pustovrh

The article examines the role played by policy advice institutions in the governance of ethically controversial new and emerging science and technology in Europe. The empirical analysis, which aims to help close a gap in the literature, focuses on the evolution, role and functioning of national ethics advisory bodies (EABs) in Europe. EABs are expert bodies whose remit is to issue recommendations regarding ethical aspects of new and emerging science and technology. Negative experiences with the impacts of science and technology in the past have resulted in calls for increased transparency and broader participation and pluralism in expert advice and policy decision-making. Do national EABs function as inclusive, anticipatory “hybrid forums”? Or do they resemble more “classical” expert-oriented bodies, inspired by technocratic or decisionist approaches? As part of the empirical analysis of the role and functioning of institutional ethical advisory structures in 32 European countries, an extensive analysis of EAB websites and the content of publicly available documents on such institutions has been carried out, supplemented by an online survey of representatives of the EABs. One major finding of the empirical analysis is the very uneven distribution of “hybrid forum” features of EABs across Europe

The article explores some of the issues that have arisen in the discourse on pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement (PCE), that is, the use of stimulant drugs such as methylphenidate, amphetamine and modafinil by healthy individuals of various populations with the aim of improving cognitive performance. Specifically, we explore the presumed sizes of existing PCE user populations and the policy actions that have been proposed regarding the trend of PCE. We begin with an introductory examination of the academic stances and philosophical issues involved in defining PCE. We then focus on an examination of the population sizes of presumed current PCE users that have been listed in the academic literature on PCE, on presuppositions, which have been problematized by some authors as based on anecdotal or misinterpreted survey data. We follow this with an empirical examination of a potential PCE user population in a national context (students at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia). We then proceed to examine the regulatory options proposed in the academic literature to address PCE, finally comparing them with an empirical overview of the policy recommendations on PCE produced in the multinational context of several national ethics advisory bodies (EABs) in Europe. Our main conclusion is that there is still little debate among the national EABs on what type of public policy responses, if any, are needed to address PCE in European countries, and that the issues they do address are similar to those discussed and proposed in the academic articles on PCE

Over the past decades, ethical expertise has been gaining considerable influence in decision-making processes on various levels, but the nature and role of bioethical expertise and experts has only rarely been subject to empirical investigation in institutional contexts. One of the characteristics of modern ethics is its “empirical” and “policy” turn, which has led to the formation of institutions that were given the remit to provide political decision-makers with ethical advice on dealing with contentious developments in new and emerging sciences and technologies. In Europe, such national Ethical Advisory Bodies have become a key mechanism in the legitimization of contested sociopolitical decisions. ethicists can be seen as important experts in the workings of such institutions, but the role and function of ethical expertise and ethicists have so far not been systematically investigated in European national EABs. The present article thus tackles some of the theoretical and practical questions concerning ethicists and ethics in the context of EABs by combining theoretical reflection with empirical investigation. The first part provides a brief sketch of the development of modern ethics and its institutionalization in various expert bodies, especially EABs at the national level in Europe. The second part explores theoretical questions relating to the notion of ethical and moral expertise, as well as the attributes that ethicists should possess in order to be able to perform the role of experts in ethics within EABs. The third part compares theory to practice by examining the results of a survey conducted among European national EABs on how ethicists and ethical expertise are actually perceived by EABs and what functions they perform in such institutions.