Cohering the normative and the empirical. Jonathan Ives's ‘A method of reflexive balancing in a pragmatic, interdisciplinary and reflexive bioethics’

This chapter argues that, despite its relative youth, Jonathan Ives’s ‘A method of reflexive balancing in a pragmatic, interdisciplinary and reflexive bioethics’ is a leading work in health law and ethics. Reflexive balancing is a method that seeks to find answers to research questions by cohering normative and empirical perspectives. This chapter contends that its development of the concept of boundary principles as a means of addressing the nature of coherence sets it apart from other accounts. Drawing upon Austin’s own research, this chapter illustrates that reflexive balancing allows the integration of empirical bioethics and socio-legal research, as well as the coherence of the normative and the empirical. This offers new understandings of well-trodden topics such as informed consent, while leaving scope for development of those understandings in the context of technological and scientific advances.