Confessions of an Unconscious Interdisciplinarian

Abstract

This is a cautionary tale, told by one whose venture into interdisciplinary work began with a social psychology experiment. Realizing there were moral dimensions to the experiment, he began following his interests across conventional boundaries. Ultimately, this led to studies of how people think about responsibility and, more recently, the ethical dilemmas faced by nurses and doctors who care for seriously ill newborns, an area that reaches far beyond the boundaries of moral philosophy into economics, sociology, and health policy. These experiences suggest that interdisciplinary theorists would do well to study what actually happens when people do interdisciplinary research. By creating and studying narratives about cases of interdisciplinary research, those who study interdisciplinarity will be able to temper abstract theory with experience.