Abstract
High chronic illness rates and the increased prevalence of comorbidities put the current curative and evidence-based medical model under considerable pressure. In this context, precision medicine (PM) emerges as a novel data-driven approach to medical research and clinical practice. This new paradigm in medicine introduces distinct bio-ethical and (social) epistemological issues. In this proposal I present standpoint epistemology (SPE) as an innovative, potentially fruitful way to explore PM. SPE states that social position plays a role in establishing knowledge, which is therefore partial. SPE is also committed to the epistemic advantage thesis, which states that historically underrepresented perspectives have a distinct advantage in identifying knowledge gaps. In this project, I explore potentially fruitful applications of SPE in PM on three distinct levels, using both empirical (interviews) and theoretical methodologies. First, SPE offers a moral and epistemological incentive to include the perspectives of historically underrepresented groups in PM research (methodological level). Secondly, it motivates us to expand bioethical inquiry and attend to empirically informed bioethics in PM (bioethical level). And finally, based on the situated knowledge thesis, SPE can help us identify moral-epistemological issues in PM (moral-epistemological level). This project intends to further the bioethical debate on PM and PM practice by investigating the usefulness of an SPE approach.
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