#92 Ashley Moyse: Techno-Ontology, Bioethics, and the “Provider” Problem in Modern Medicine

Ashley Moyse is a bioethicist and theologian at Baylor University. In America, he hails from the political left. If he was in his native Saskatchewan, he'd be centre-left or perhaps even right-wing to some people.  Our conversation tackled technology, ethics, and humanity in professional education. How we can keep clinicians human and prevent them from becoming robots? Although we situate the conversation in the health sciences, the concepts apply to every corner of society: engineering, finance, public policy, and more.  Dr. Moyse has had some success in helping students see beyond the materialist reductionism of modern science. His work offers hope for other fields. Let me know what you think in the comments! Thanks for listening. Shawn Book mentioned: The Art of Living for a Technological Age   Chapters and AI summary Host Shawn Whatley interviews Dr. Ashley Moyse, associate professor of bioethics at Baylor University, about how technology, markets, and policy language reshape medicine and moral life. Moyse traces his path from neurophysiology and cancer-clinic work to theology and bioethics, including training in Australia and Oxford and creating the Columbia Character Cooperatives to form medical students through virtue-based practices. They critique the market metaphor of “provider,” arguing it distorts the clinician–patient relationship and turns people into producers and consumers of information. Moyse explains his book The Art of Living for a Technological Age and “techno-ontology,” expanding technology beyond devices to include moral and political techniques, and challenges Beauchamp and Childress’ four-principles framework as flattening ethics into efficient tools rather than lived moral struggle, formation, and attention over time. 00:00 Patients Not Data 00:45 Meet Dr Ashley Moyse 05:35 From Neurophysiology To Theology 08:39 Oxford Columbia Baylor Path 13:49 Techno Ontology Explained 14:54 Tools Beyond Gadgets 25:21 Four Principles Under Fire 32:55 Ethics As Struggle 33:46 Medicine as Craft 37:15 Virtue in Clinical Risk 39:19 Ethics Beyond Principles 43:05 Provider Language Critique 47:04 Metrics and Managerialism 49:53 Mentoring Against Positivism 58:32 Phenomenology in Practice 01:03:16 Technology as Principality 01:09:55 Closing Reflections