Stephen Toulmin's article "How medicine saved the life of ethics" is a classic paper within the field now often referred to as Applied ethics. When philosophers turned to the specific problems of medicine something happened. Ethics was somewhat rescued from the abstract irrelevance of the field. Toulmin's article was first published back in 1973. Ten years later Ian Hacking published his book Representing and intervening. Hackings book draw attention to a parallel story I shall focus on. The empirical case-studies of the 1980'ties rescued philosophy of science from the abstract irrelevance much of philosophy of science had fallen into. What motivates me here, is the question of what role empirical material can and should play in philosophical argumentation, whether we are talking about ethical or epistemic issues.