Arguing that ecological thinking can animate an epistemology capable of addressing feminist, multicultural, and other post-colonial concerns, this book critiques the instrumental rationality, hyperbolized autonomy, abstract individualism, and exploitation of people and places that western epistemologies of mastery have legitimated. It proposes a politics of epistemic location, sensitive to the interplay of particularity and diversity, and focused on responsible epistemic practices. Starting from an epistemological approach implicit in Rachel Carson’s scientific projects, the book draws, constructively and critically, on ecological theory (...) and practice, on (post-Quinean) naturalized epistemology, and on feminist and post-colonial theory. Analyzing extended examples from developmental psychology, from medicine and law, and from circumstances where vulnerability, credibility, and public trust are at issue, the argument addresses the constitutive part played by an instituted social imaginary in shaping and regulating human lives. The practices and examples discussed invoke the responsibility requirements central to this text’s larger purpose of imagining, crafting, articulating a creative, innovative, instituting social imaginary, committed to interrogating entrenched hierarchical social structures, en route to enacting principles of ideal cohabitation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Loopholes, Gaps, and What Is Held Fast”Lorraine Code (bio)Keywordsepistemology, incredulity, knowing other people, memory, testimonyNancy Potter’s compelling essay points to some of the limitations of the theoretical apparatus that the post-positivist empiricist epistemologies of the Anglo-American mainstream make available for evaluating experiential memory claims in general, and “false memory syndrome” in particular. The loopholes and gaps in these theories of knowledge push urgent questions about testimony, (...) trust, and the politics of knowledge into a prominent place on the agendas of successor epistemology projects. These politics are enacted in societies whose dominant rhetoric privileges eye-witness evidence and “knowledge by acquaintance” as sources of objective knowledge, yet whose practices of incredulity—of granting and withholding acknowledgement to testimonial knowledge claims—expose power-saturated structures of dominance and subordination and of arbitrarily uneven distributions of epistemic authority. 1For classical empiricists and their successors, perception, memory and testimony, hierarchically ordered with perception on top, count as the principal sources of empirical knowledge. This ordering maps the relative reliability of the processes, with perception ranking as most stable, reliable and secure, memory coming second on all of these scores, and testimony ranking a poor third, closer to opinion, hearsay and rumor than to the other more respectable sources. Perception, for these theories, is “immediate” in that it is direct, bare, uncontaminated either by the particularities of the perceiving subject or of the perceptual event: from its presumed (but contestable) immediacy, all the rest follows. Memory counts as perception at one remove, its reliability a function of the relative “vividness” of the perceptions it commemorates. The esteem commonly claimed for eye-witness testimony derives from this conception of memory, which is believed to ground the testimony because of its presumed proximity to “immediate” perception. Yet testimony, even in its restricted “knowledge by description” form, tends by contrast with perception and memory to be a shaky affair; and as the temporal distance between event and testimony increases, so knowledge of matters unavailable to direct observation fares less and less well in classical and post-positivist epistemologies. A distrust of testimony is at once understandable and odd, because so small a proportion both of communal and of “individual” knowledge indeed derives from first-hand observations and experiences: most of it comes from testimony in an extended sense that encompasses books, teachings, media reports, all of the sources and resources on which both secular and scholarly knowledge relies for much of its substance. This expanded construction of the term runs alongside [End Page 255] the first-personal “testimonial” sense that is more plainly operative in discussions of false memory syndrome which, despite its experiential source, is often likewise contested on grounds that discredit the “privileged access” status that these same epistemologies claim for experience at first hand.Epistemologists commonly assimilate testimony to monologic, observational knowledge, deriving its constitutive features from instances where a testimonial utterance can pose as another perception—this time an auditory one—in a personal set of knowledge-producing observations (e.g., Fricker 1987). Because the speaker may be lying or mistaken, the process may fail to transmit knowledge; but this failure can be read as a simple perceptual error or a misremembering. Such approaches ignore the constitutive function of an interpreter/listener in fostering or thwarting testimonial knowledge to subsume it, too, much under an observational model. Indeed, not only do they separate the knower from the known and the process of knowing, as Potter observes, they also separate the knower from other knowers to guard against their influencing (= contaminating) the knowledge-production process. Experiences where an interlocutor actually enables the production of knowledge do not figure in such analyses, 2 whose effect is to suggest that giving or hearing testimony invokes no more significant moral-political issues than do acts of perceiving tables and chairs: that hearing, like seeing, is believing. (Norman Malcolm’s analysis of memory, which Potter cites, would also underwrite such a view of testimony.) Yet standard empiricist and post-positivist epistemologies generate an inquisitorial model of eliciting testimony in which the more generalized “testimony” in the knowledge that people acquire from books, media reports, conversation, reference sources recedes from... (shrink)

I offer an examination of trust relations in scientific inquiry as they seem to contrast with a lack of trust in an example of knowledge imposed from above by an unaccountable institutional power structure. On this basis I argue for a re-reading of John Hardwig's account of the place of trust in knowledge, and suggest that it translates less well than social epistemologists and others have assumed into a model for democratic epistemic practice.

Background Professional communities such as the medical community are acutely concerned with negligence: the category of misconduct where a professional does not live up to the standards expected of a professional of similar qualifications. Since science is currently strengthening its structures of self-regulation in parallel to the professions, this raises the question to what extent the scientific community is concerned with negligence, and if not, whether it should be. By means of comparative analysis of medical and scientific codes of conduct, (...) we aim to highlight the role of negligence provisions in codes of conduct for scientists, and to discuss the normative consequences for future codes of conduct. -/- Methods We collected scientific and medical codes of conduct in a selection of OECD countries, and submitted each code of conduct to comparative textual analysis. -/- Results Negligence is invariably listed as an infraction of the norms of integrity in medical codes of conduct, but only rarely so in the scientific codes. When the latter list negligence, they typically do not provide any detail on the meaning of ‘negligence’. -/- Discussion Unlike codes of conduct for professionals, current codes of conduct for scientists are largely silent on the issue of negligence, or explicitly exclude negligence as a type of misconduct. In the few cases where negligence is stipulated to constitute misconduct, no responsibilities are identified that would help prevent negligence. While we caution against unreasonable negligence provisions as well as disproportionate sanctioning systems, we do argue that negligence provisions are crucial for justified trust in the scientific community, and hence that there is a very strong rationale for including negligence provisions in codes of conduct. (shrink)

Digital farming technologies promise to help farmers make well-informed decisions that improve the quality and quantity of their production, with less labour and less impact on the environment. This future, however, can only become a reality if farmers are willing to share their data with agribusinesses that develop digital technologies. To foster trust in data sharing, in Europe the EU Code of Conduct for agricultural data sharing by contractual agreement was launched in 2018 which encourages transparency about data (...) use. This article looks at the EU Code through the lens of literature on trust and contract agreements. We agree with the makers of the EU Code that a contract can make an important contribution to trust relationships as it is needed to mitigate the detrimental effects of power relationships between experts and non-experts. Building on Onora O’Neills perspective to trust, however, we argued that a contract can only be successful in fostering trust when information is comprehended by the more vulnerable party in this relationship who has to sign the contract, the more powerful partner takes responsibility to provide that information, and information is tailored to the information needs of the party signing the contract, even when data are re-used over a longer period. In addition, we think that differences between trust relationships and relationships of accountability, give reason to add to informed consent other more substantive ethical components in a more encompassing code of conduct. (shrink)

The UK Government’s Code of Conduct for data-driven health and care technologies, specifically artificial intelligence -driven technologies, comprises 10 principles that outline a gold-standard of ethical conduct for AI developers and implementers within the National Health Service. Considering the importance of trust in medicine, in this essay I aim to evaluate the conceptualisation of trust within this piece of ethical governance. I examine the Code of Conduct, specifically Principle 7, and extract two positions: a principle of (...) rationally justified trust that posits trust should be made on sound epistemological bases and a principle of value-based trust that views trust in an all-things-considered manner. I argue rationally justified trust is largely infeasible in trusting AI due to AI’s complexity and inexplicability. Contrarily, I show how value-based trust is more feasible as it is intuitively used by individuals. Furthermore, it better complies with Principle 1. I therefore conclude this essay by suggesting the Code of Conduct to hold the principle of value-based trust more explicitly. (shrink)

Common morality has been the touchstone of medical ethics since the publication of Beauchamp and Childress's Principles of Biomedical Ethics in 1979. Rosamond Rhodes challenges this dominant view by presenting an original and novel account of the ethics of medicine, one deeply rooted in the actual experience of medical professionals. She argues that common morality accounts of medical ethics are unsuitable for the profession, and inadequate for responding to the particular issues that arise in medical practice. Instead, Rhodes argues that (...) medicine's distinctive ethics should be explained in terms of the trust that society allows to the profession. Trust is the core and starting point of Rhodes' moral framework, which states that the most basic duty of doctors0is to "seek trust and be trustworthy." 0Building from this foundation, Rhodes explicates the sixteen specific duties that doctors take on when they join the profession, and demonstrates how her view of these duties is largely consistent with the codes of medical ethics of medical societies around the world. She then explains why it is critical for physicians to develop the attitudes or "doctorly" virtues that comprise the character of trustworthy doctors and buttress physicians' efforts to fulfil their professional obligations. Her book's presentation of physicians' duties and the elements that comprise a doctorly character, together add up to a cohesive and comprehensive description of what medical professionalism really entails. Rhodes's analysis provides a clear understanding of medical professionalism as well as a guide for doctors navigating the ethically challenging situations that arise in clinical practice. (shrink)

The activities of the life sciences are essential to provide solutions for the future, for both individuals and society. Society has demanded growing accountability from the scientific community as implications of life science research rise in influence and there are concerns about the credibility, integrity and motives of science. While the scientific community has responded to concerns about its integrity in part by initiating training in research integrity and the responsible conduct of research, this approach is minimal. The scientific community (...) justifies itself by appealing to the ethos of science, claiming academic freedom, self-direction, and self-regulation, but no comprehensive codification of this foundational ethos has been forthcoming. A review of the professional norms of science and a prototype code of ethics for the life sciences provide a framework to spur discussions within the scientific community to define scientific professionalism. A formalization of implicit principles can provide guidance for recognizing divergence from the norms, place these norms within a context that would enhance education of trainees, and provide a framework for discussing externally and internally applied pressures that are influencing the practice of science. The prototype code articulates the goal for life sciences research and the responsibilities associated with the freedom of exploration, the principles for the practice of science, and the virtues of the scientists themselves. The time is ripe for scientific communities to reinvigorate professionalism and define the basis of their social contract. Codifying the basis of the social contract between science and society will sustain public trust in the scientific enterprise. (shrink)

Ambiguity associated with everyday practice of science has made it difficult to reach a consensus on how to define misconduct in science. This essay outlines some of the important ambiguities of practice such as distinguishing data from noise, deciding whether results falsify a hypothesis, and converting research into research publications. The problem of ambiguity is further compounded by the prior intellectual commitments inherent in choosing problems and in dealing with the skepticism of one's colleagues. In preparing a draft code (...) of ethics for the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), an attempt was made to take into account the ambiguities of practice. Also, the draft code adopted trust as its leading principle, specifically the importance of trust as a condition necessary for there to be science. During revision of the code, the focus on trust was changed. The new orientation was on trust as a consequence of carrying out science responsibly. By addressing the obligations necessary to engender trust, the ASBMB ethics code not only sets professional standards, but also makes a clear statement of public accountability. (shrink)

Partly as a result of much recent evidence of business and government crime, a large proportion of major corporations have adopted codes of ethics; government service is also making more use of them. The electrical manufacturing anti-trust conspiracy and 1973–1976 investigation of foreign and domestic bribery were immediate prods. There are also government codes of which the ASPA code is most widely distributed. Corporate codes discuss relations to employees, interemployee relationships, whistle blowing, effect on environment, commercial bribery, insider (...) information, other conflicts of interest, anti-trust, accounting, consumer relations, and political activities. A discussion of use of codes shows partly favorable results. A number of corporation decisions have not yet become a subject of code provisions. Codes will be more useful if the reasons behind each order are stated and team work is encouraged. (shrink)

I explore Baier, Held, Okin, Code, Noddings, and Eisler on trust and distrust. This reveals a need for reflection on the analysis, ethics, and dynamics of trust and distrust-especially the distinction between trusting and taking for granted, the feasibility of choosing greater trust, and the possibility of moving from situations of warranted distrust to trust. It is impossible to overcome the need for trust through surveillance, recourse to contracts, or legal institutions.

A main identifying factor of professions is professionals' willingness to comply with ethical and professional standards, often defined in a code of ethics and conduct. In a period of intense nursing mobility, if the public are aware that health professionals have committed themselves to the drawing up of a code of ethics and conduct, they will have more trust in the health professional they choose, especially if this person comes from another European Member State. The Code (...) of Ethics and Conduct for European Nursing is a programmatic document for the nursing profession constructed by the FEPI (European Federation of Nursing Regulators) according to Directive 2005/36/EC On recognition of professional qualifications , and Directive 2006/123/EC On services in the internal market, set out by the European Commission. This article describes the construction of the Code and gives an overview of some specific areas of importance. The main text of the Code is reproduced in Appendix 1. (shrink)

The rapid and dynamic nature of digital transformation challenges companies that wish to develop and deploy novel digital technologies. Like other actors faced with this transformation, companies need to find robust ways to ethically guide their innovations and business decisions. Digital ethics has recently featured in a plethora of both practical corporate guidelines and compilations of high-level principles, but there remains a gap concerning the development of sound ethical guidance in specific business contexts. As a multinational science and technology company (...) faced with a broad range of digital ventures and associated ethical challenges, Merck KGaA has laid the foundations for bridging this gap by developing a Code of Digital Ethics (CoDE) tailored for this context. Following a comprehensive analysis of existing digital ethics guidelines, we used a reconstructive social research approach to identify 20 relevant principles and derive a code designed as a multi-purpose tool. Versatility was prioritised by defining non-prescriptive guidelines that are open to different perspectives and thus well-suited for operationalisation for varied business purposes. We also chose a clear nested structure that highlights the relationships between five core and fifteen subsidiary principles as well as the different levels of reference—data and algorithmic systems—to which they apply. The CoDE will serve Merck KGaA and its new Digital Ethics Advisory Panel to guide ethical reflection, evaluation and decision-making across the full spectrum of digital developments encountered and undertaken by the company whilst also offering an opportunity to increase transparency for external partners, and thus trust. (shrink)

Governments, companies, and citizens all think trust is important. Especially today, in the networked era, where we make use of all sorts of e-services and increasingly interact and buy online, trust has become a necessary condition for society to thrive. But what do we mean when we talk about trust and how does the rise of the Internet transform the functioning of trust? This books starts off with a thorough conceptual analysis of trust, drawing on (...) insights from - amongst others philosophy and sociology - to sharpen our understanding of the topic. The book explains how the arrival of large systems - such as the internet - has changed the character of trust which today is no longer based on interpersonal interactions but has become completely mediated by technologies. Based on the layered building plan of the Internet itself, a new conceptual lens called 4 Cs is developed to analyse and understand trust in the networked era. The 4Cs refer to the 4 layers which all have to be taken into account to assess trust online, namely: context, code, codification, and curation. The 4Cs bring together the firsthand experiences of the user (context), the sort of technology that is being used (code), the legal implication (codification) and business interests (curation) in order to get a clear picture of the trust issues that may arise. In the final part of the book some real-life cases are discussed (digital hotel keys, Airbnb, online personalization) to illustrate how trust -analysed through the 4 Cs lens- might flourish or be challenged in our current networked era. (shrink)

This paper examines trust as a fundamental aspect of fiduciary relationships in education. The specific relationship under examination is that of academic employee and university employer. Both have the value of trust assigned to them as an implicit part of their social and professional contract. The setting is Australia, but the principles apply to any democratic jurisdiction and educational level or location, where fiduciary principles are a pre-condition for healthy and trustworthy working relationships. The paper firstly discusses the (...) meaning and application of ‘trust’ and ‘fiduciary’, and considers the codes that regulate fiduciary relationships in education. It then asks what happens if and when the fiduciary duties and obligations are not upheld, advancing that question through an employment law case against an Australian university, for alleged breach of the Fair Work Act. The analysis shows what may be the outcome when fiduciary trust between employee and employer is breached, how it may happen, and the consequences of this. The aim of the paper is to throw light on the value of trust for robust working relationships in academic life. Ultimately, the paper shows that trust is axiomatic to a working system of justice in a healthy educational workplace. (shrink)

This article reconsiders the theoretical role of the genetic code. By drawing on published and unpublished sources from the 1950s, I analyse how the code metaphor was actually employed by the scientists who first promoted its use. The analysis shows that the term ‘code’ picked out mechanism sketches, consisting of more or less detailed descriptions of ordinary molecular components, processes, and structural properties of the mechanism of protein synthesis. The sketches provided how-possibly explanations for the ordering of (...) amino acids by nucleic acids. I argue that employing the code metaphor was justified in virtue of its descriptive-denotational and explanatory roles, and because it highlighted a similarity with conventional codes that was particularly salient at the time. 1 Introduction2 Coding Schemes in the 1950s2.1 The research problem: Determining amino acid sequences2.2 The solution: Mapping schemes or ‘codes’3 The Code Metaphor Played Descriptive and Explanatory Roles4 Theness of Codes and the Expendability of the Code Metaphor5 The Role of Arbitrariness6 Conclusions. (shrink)

Beyond the adoption of codes of ethics for moderating behaviours within an organization, there is need for change in the dynamism of ethics management in construction companies. This change is necessitated due to inability of ethical codes to function by its mere existence without proper integration into organization’s web. This study aims at identifying supporting factors for code integration and the resultant factors as well as the relationship between the two sets of factors. Questionnaire survey was used to gather (...) data from practitioners in Hong Kong construction organizations. Using Relative Importance Index and correlation analysis, findings revealed that commitment of managing director to ethics, communicating codes with employees and managers acting as role models ranked highest among the input factors, whereas building public trust, enhanced organization’s reputation and increased protection against lawsuits ranked highest among the resultant factors. There were great numbers of significant positive correlations between the input factors and the resultant factors with the exception of consistence of codes with international standards and increased company’s profitability which exhibited negative correlation. The highest significant positive correlation coefficient existed between training about the importance of ethics and subjective and inconsistent management standards are minimized which points to the importance of ethics training in establishing ethical standards. The findings can help construction practitioners to improve organizational ethical standard and be more result-focused in managing ethics. (shrink)

Sabatello et al. make a compelling case for structural racism as the root cause of the health inequities experienced by communities of color during the COVID-19 pandemic. As public health pr...

Background: Scholarly work is needed to develop the conceptual and theoretical understanding of trust to nursing practice. The transition from hospital care to complex pediatric homecare involves nurses in myriad roles, including management and care provision. Complex pediatric homecare transforms children, families, professionals, and communities, but its exact implications are unclear. Research objectives: To conduct an ethical inquiry into the role and responsibilities of nurses in the qualitative experience of adults involved in the hospital-to-home transition of young, ventilator-dependent children. (...) Research design: We followed methods described by Franco Carnevale. We used a sociologically grounded theoretical orientation—trust—to re-interpret qualitative data for an ethical inquiry into a specific facet of that data. Participants and study context: The participants included 26 adults, including 14 nurses, involved in the hospital-to-home transition in a Canadian province. Participants represented family, hospital, home, and government. Ethical considerations: The Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board at the University of Calgary approved this study. Findings: First, the concept and practice of trust was salient to the experience of transition. For example, responsibilities’ allocation between hospital-based professionals to mothers, home-based nurses, and non-professionals necessitated reliance and vulnerability. Second, the consequences of distrust connected to recognized challenges. For example, tensions along rural–urban, medical-family, and professional–personal divide each revealed suspicion and uncertainty that led to isolation and anxiety for all involved. Third, recommendations to improve the experience and mitigate the challenges of transition can be grounded in trust promotion. For example, transition-specific education programs and codes of ethics would promote openness, recognize mutual vulnerability, and advance trust in transition. Conclusions: The challenges to transition evidenced distrust, while trust represents a powerful tool to counter these challenges and their implications. A climate of trust could bridge divides between mothers and professionals; rural and urban professionals; and professionals with differing relationships with the family. (shrink)

According to the Finnish Penal Code a corporation may be sentenced to a corporate fine if a person who is part of its statutory organ or other management or who exercises actual decision-making authority therein 1) has been an accomplice in an offence or allowed the commission of the offence, or 2) if the care and diligence necessary for the prevention of the offence has not been observed in the operations of the corporation. Criminal liability of legal persons is (...) based on the intentional or negligent acts of individuals who are in a certain relationship with the corporation. The Finnish legal doctrine clearly rejects the identification theory according to which an individual is considered as acting not for a company but as a company. According to Finnish scholarly writings, the acts of an individual offender could be attributed to the legal person under certain conditions not as acts of the legal person but as acts of the individual for the company. Nonetheless, Finnish law does not abandon the fault requirement. In this respect, Finnish law differs from the traditional common law theory of vicarious liability. (shrink)

I begin with a discussion of code and its primary types: embedded, source, binary and interpreted. I then consider three measures in which code is fundamentally different than print. In particular I speak of the trust inherent in connectivity, the organizational difficulties of information, and the problem of archiving information that may change rapidly. Following each of these explanations I offer my own hypotheses about how code and ubiquitous digital media might alter society and the sensibilities (...) of its participants. (shrink)

Does private regulation of workers’ rights in global value chains improve working conditions on the factory floor? Drawing on one of the first systematic longitudinal studies of supplier compliance with multinational corporation (MNC) codes of conduct, this paper finds—in contrast to previous research—substantial improvements over time. While in 2004, the four examined Chinese toy suppliers violated most of the evaluated code of conduct criteria and consciously decoupled the code of conduct policy from actual practices, by 2009 they had (...) recoupled policy and practice and complied with nearly all examined criteria (except working hours). The paper contributes to the private regulation literature by challenging previous research claims, identifying factors that could make private regulation effective, and outlining a research method for empirically studying the effects of codes of conduct over time. The paper also contributes to new institutional theory by discussing how recoupling could be influenced by two factors not identified in previous research: (i) trusting relationships between the organization and the stakeholder exerting pressure and (ii) factors unrelated to main external pressures leading to “accidental” recoupling. (shrink)

Over the last 20+ years, multinational corporations have been confronted with accusations of abuse of market power and unfair and unethical business conduct especially as it relates to their overseas operations and supply chain management. These accusations include, among others, worker exploitation in terms of unfairly low wages, excessive work hours, and unsafe work environment; pollution and contamination of air, ground water and land resources; and, undermining the ability of natural government to protect the well-being of their citizens. MNCs have (...) responded to these accusations by creating voluntary codes of conduct which commit them to specific standards for addressing these issues. These codes are created at both the industry-wide and the individual company level. Unfortunately, these codes have generated little credibility and public trust because their compliance claims cannot be independently verified, and they lack transparency and full public disclosure. In this article, we present a case study of the voluntary code of conduct by Mattel, Inc., the world’s largest toy company. The code, called the Global Manufacturing Principles, confronts the general criticism leveled against voluntary codes of conduct by creating detailed standards of compliance, independent external monitoring of the company’s compliance with its code of conduct, and making full, and uncensored public disclosure of the audit findings and company’s response in terms of remedial action. We present a detailed account of how Mattel’s voluntary code of conduct was created, implemented, and ultimately abandoned over 9 years. We provide an evaluative analysis of the company’s GMP compliance throughout its life span, which suggests a bell-shaped curve, where early top management commitments were met with pockets of resistance from operational groups, who were concerned about balancing GMP compliance efforts with traditional performance criteria. The early stage response from Mattel’s top management was quick and supported with the requisite resources. As a result, the compliance process accelerated, becoming increasingly more robust and effective. The success of code compliance and increased transparency in public disclosure energized field managers with a sense of professional satisfaction and publicly recognized accomplishments. The decline in GMP compliance was equally steep. When all the easily attainable targets had been reached at the company-operated plants, addressing vendor plants’ compliance presented a new set of challenges, which taxed corporate resources and management commitment. It would seem that value-based and ethics-oriented considerations, i.e., doing the right thing for the right reason, were no longer the driving force for Mattel’s management. Mattel did not see any economic benefit from its proactive stance, when competitors did not seem to suffer adverse consequences for not following suit. The final contributing factor to the code’s abandonment was a widely publicized series of product recalls which absorbed top management’s attention. (shrink)

Organizations are increasingly adopting “Emotional AI” to monitor and influence employee emotions, aiming to create more empathetic workplaces. However, we argue that automating empathy risks fostering empathy skepticism, alienating employees, exacerbating mental health issues, and eroding trust. We call on organizations to address the root causes of negative workplace emotions and leverage AI as a tool to complement—rather than replace—empathy, fostering workplaces that genuinely prioritize care and trust.

Faith healing deaths occur infrequently in Canada, but when they do they pose a considerable challenge for criminal justice. Similar to caregivers who absent-mindedly and fatally forget a child in a hot vehicle, faith healers do not intentionally harm their children. It can seem legally excessive and unjust to prosecute achingly bereaved parents. But unlike ‘hot-car’ deaths, faith healing parents are not absent minded in the deaths they cause. Rather, significant deliberation and strength of will is necessary to treat their (...) child’s ailment with faith alone. Two different Criminal Code provisions can be brought to bear upon these deaths, namely, s. 215 ‘Failing to provide the necessaries of life’ and s. 219 ‘Criminal negligence’. From a public, medical, and scientific perspective treating potentially fatal ailments with ‘faith’ and ‘prayer’ seems like reckless endangerment, giving apparent justification to the more serious criminal negligence charge. But, the fault element in the criminal negligence offence continues to be a vexing issue in Canadian jurisprudence. People accused of negligence-based offences are commonly held to the standard of what a reasonable person might predictably have done in similar circumstances. While it is unnecessary for the impartial trier of fact to conceive of faith healing as ‘reasonable’, it is an open question whether faith healers are sufficiently unreasonable to warrant serious criminal condemnation and possible incarceration when their course of action causes death. Is it justifiable to think of faith healers who cause death as criminally unreasonable? That is, do they depart markedly enough from the standard that criminal negligence is rightly attributed to them? Public attitudes toward religion, religious fundamentalism, and healthcare must be considered when trying to discern what a reasonable person does when treating an ailing child at risk of death. (shrink)

The role that trust plays in blockchain-based systems is understood and portrayed in various manners. The blockchain technology is said to enable and establish trust as well as to redirect it, to substitute for it, and to make it obsolete. Furthermore, there is disagreement on whom or what users have to trust when using the blockchain technology: code, math, algorithms, and machines, or still human actors. This paper hypothesizes that the divergences of the depictions largely rest (...) on implicitly adhering to different accounts of trust. Thus, the goal of this paper is to outline how the current lack of a shared understanding of the term “trust” leads to diverging interpretations of the blockchain technology’s core features. Furthermore, it shows how this lack of common understanding obstructs scholars from referring to one another meaningfully in the discourse on blockchain technology. To do so, this paper outlines the most prominent depictions of the setup of relevant trust relationships within blockchain-based systems and traces their roots to different underlying assumptions on the nature of trust. (shrink)

Over the past twenty years there has been a shift in medical law and practise to increasingly distrust the judgement of health professionals. An increasing number of codes of conduct, disciplinary bodies, ethics committees and bureaucratic policies now prescribe how health professional and health researchers should act and relate to their patients. The result of this, Mark Henaghan argues, has been to undermine trust and professional judgement in health professionals, while simultaneously failing to trust the patient to make (...) decisions about their care. This book will look at the issue of health professionals and trust comparatively in a number of countries including the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. The book will show by historical analysis of legislation, case law, disciplinary proceedings reports, articles in medical and law journals and protocols produced by management teams in hospitals, how the shift from trust to lack of trust has happened. Drawing comparisons between situations where trust is respected such as in emergency situations, and where it is not for example routine decisions such as obtaining consent for an anaesthetic procedure, the book shows how this erosion of trust has the potential to dehumanise the special nature of the relationship between healthcare professionals and patients. The effect of this is that the practice of health care is turned into a mechanistic enterprise controlled by "management processes" rather than governed by trust and individual care and judgement. This book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of medical law and medical sociology, public policy-makers and a range of associated professionals, from health service managers to medical science and clinical researchers. (shrink)

In recent decades, implementing a code of conduct (CoC) as part of an organization's CSR infrastructure has become a sine qua non for gaining trust and fostering credibility. Despite numerous studies aimed at identifying cultural differences in the content of CoCs, little is known about what causes those differences and how they relate to an organization's communicative endeavor to gain trust and strengthen its legitimacy. In response, this article examines potential cultural differences in the public availability, design, (...) and content of CoCs of corporations headquartered in countries in the Confucian Asian versus Anglo cultural clusters from the perspective of strategic communication. Drawing on the concepts of individualist versus collectivist culture and low- versus high-context communication, the findings reveal significant differences, including that Anglo-based companies more often make their CoCs publicly available and, in turn, significantly more comprehensive than Confucian Asian codes. Furthermore, compared with Anglo CoCs, significantly fewer CoCs of companies headquartered in Confucian Asia address the importance of moral values in daily business practices and sensitive issues such as prohibited behavior, whistleblowing, and sanctions following code violations. Those findings indicate significant institutional and cultural differences in companies' communication about ethical principles and corresponding conduct and suggest that, across cultures, CoCs differ in their content and are not accorded equal relevance as a means to foster legitimacy via CSR communication. (shrink)

Media ethics codes concerning privacy must be updated considering the ease with which information now can be gathered from social networks and disseminated widely. Existing codes allow for deception and privacy invasion in cases of overriding public need when no alternate means are available but do not adequately define what constitutes need or alternate means, or weigh in the harm such acts do to the public trust and the profession. Building on the ethics theories of Sissela Bok and Helen (...) Nissenbaum, balancing tests can be developed under a mixed-rule deontology that confines online misrepresentation and exposing the private information of private people only to cases where good most clearly is served. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the contribution of meta-regulation in responding to the regulatory needs of a field beset by significant uncertainties concerning risks, benefits and development trajectories and characterised by fast development. Meta-regulation allows regulators to address problems when they lack the resources or information needed to develop sound “discretion-limiting rules”; meta-regulators exploit the information advantages of those actors to be regulated by leveraging them into the task of regulating itself. The contribution of meta-regulation to the governance of nanotechnologies is (...) assessed in terms of responsibilisation. Responsibilisation is regarded as a pre -requisite for regulatory actors to internalise social values (such as consumer safety and occupational health) and to ensure that these values are built into regulatory practice. In order to explore the potential of responsibilisation, the Code of Conduct for Responsible Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies Research launched by the European Commission in 2008 is evaluated. The Code is a good case of meta-regulation that aims to steer the self-regulation of nanotechnological business and research organisations. The paper concludes that, while efforts were made on the part of meta-regulators and self-regulators to contribute to responsibilisation, important opportunities for responsibilisation such as dissemination and promotion of the Code, trust-building activities, and failure to provide rewards, incentives and stakeholder guidance were not taken up. In order to foster responsibilisation within the meta-regulatory instrument of the EC Code, a number of crucial activities to be undertaken by meta-regulators are recommended. (shrink)

The development of a professional code of ethics should provide an explanation of the professional values and principals that guide a body of persons engaged in an important role in society. Most professions find ethical standards of conduct are necessary to codify acceptable behavior to develop public trust, reliability, and consistency in their performance. The proposed AMS Code of Ethics for Marketing Educators is the first step in developing communication, debate, and hopefully, agreement about the social responsibility (...) of the marekting discipline. It is important to note that the AMS code was not developed to punish wrongdoers but to provide a positive guide to help marketing educators understand how their actions may be viewed by society. It is an attempt to establish standards that are collectively viewed as important to the marketing education profession. (shrink)

A review of the PRSA Code of Professional Standards reveals that despite the messianic strains of its originators, the code has become in part a public relations device to allow claims of adherence to virtue and in part a matter of constraining free competition. The author maintains that to date the code has not even helped the public relations of public relations. ?Responsibility to the public?; remains undefinable, but trust in individual ethical judgment becomes problematic when (...) there is no common sense of what such responsibility entails. An effective public relations code must include not only pious sentiments, but painful penalties. What is needed are more ?'public relations watchers,?; monitoring the publicity and communication channels and blowing whistles when necessary. News media and trade journals should expose and bring shame to bear on unscrupulous PR practitioners, the essay concludes. In addition, two deeper types of changes are suggested. First, clear distinctions must be made between what is public and what is private information, so the tendency to deceive will be decreased. Second, PR people should return to a different understanding of the word ?truth?; than is common in contemporary culture, and rely upon objective truth and honest service rather than pandering to public opinion. (shrink)

Achieving equity in international research is one of the pressing concerns of the twenty-first century. In this era of progressive globalization, there are many opportunities for the deliberate or accidental export of unethical research practices from high-income regions to low- and middle-income countries and emerging economies. The export of unethical practices, termed “ethics dumping,” may occur through all forms of research and can affect individuals, communities, countries, animals, and the environment. Ethics dumping may be the result of purposeful exploitation but (...) often arises from lack of awareness of good ethical and governance practice. This chapter describes the work of the TRUST project toward counteracting the practice of ethics dumping through the development of tools for the improvement of research governance structures. Multi-stakeholder consultation informs all of TRUST’s developments. Most importantly, this gives voice to marginalized vulnerable groups and indigenous people, who have been equal and active partners throughout the project. At the heart of the TRUST project is an ambitious aim to develop a Global Code of Conduct for Research in Resource-Poor Settings. Uniquely, the Code provides guidance across all research disciplines in clear, short statements, focusing on research collaborations that entail considerable imbalances of power, resources and knowledge and using a new framework based on the values of fairness, respect, care, and honesty. The code was recently adopted by the European Commission as a reference document for Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe. (shrink)

So-called ‘anonymous’ tissue samples are widely used in research. Because they lack externally identifying information, they are viewed as useful in reconciling conflicts between the control, privacy and confidentiality interests of those from whom the samples originated and the public (or commercial) interest in carrying out research, as reflected in ‘consent or anonymise’ policies. High level guidance documents suggest that withdrawal of consent and samples and the provision of feedback are impossible in the case of anonymous samples. In view of (...) recent developments in science and consumer-driven genomics the authors argue that such statements are misleading and only muddle complex ethical questions about possible entitlements to control over samples. The authors therefore propose that terms such as ‘anonymised’, ‘anonymous’ or ‘non-identifiable’ be removed entirely from documents describing research samples, especially from those aimed at the public. This is necessary as a matter of conceptual clarity and because failure to do so may jeopardise public trust in the governance of large scale databases. As there is wide variation in the taxonomy for tissue samples and no uniform national or international standards, the authors propose that a numeral-based universal coding system be implemented that focuses on specifying incremental levels of identifiability, rather than use terms that imply that the reidentification of research samples and associated actions are categorically impossible. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility has an impact on many areas of society, and it has recently been active in the digital space, a growing area of business activity. However, certain factors prevent it from firmly establishing itself in this area. One of these factors is the lack of user trust. Certain instruments have been created to address this issue, such as codes of conduct that seek to mitigate the causes of distrust by making significant improvements in the regulations and ethical (...) standards applicable to business transactions. These instruments are the product of industry self-regulation and complement rather than substitute for effective legal regulations. In light of some European Community directives, European legislators are addressing certain issues in this area, especially unfair business practices. (shrink)

Background Central to the involvement of children in health research is the notion of risk. In this paper we present one of the factors, a matter of trust, that shaped Canadian parents' and children's perceptions and assessments of risk in child health research. Participants and methods Part of a larger qualitative research study, 82 parents took part an in-depth qualitative interview, with 51 parents having children who had participated in health research and 31 having children with no research history. (...) 51 children ranging from 6 to 19 years of age were also interviewed, with 28 having a history of participation in child health research and 23 having no history. Children also took part in 3 focus groups interviews. Themes emerged through a grounded theory analysis of coded interview transcripts. Findings The presence or absence of trust was not only perceived by parents and children as a contributing factor to involving children in health research, but also shaped their perceptions and assessments of risk. Three interrelated subthemes identified were: (1) relationships of trust; (2) placing trust in symbols of authority; and (3) the continuum of trust. Conclusions Our study reinforces that trust is an important factor when parents assess risk in child health research and shows that children use the language of trust in relation to risk. More discussion regarding trust in training researchers is warranted given the trust in researchers and institutions evident in this study. We also recommend further study of the continuum of trust in child health research. (shrink)

Recent professional guidelines published by the General Medical Council instruct physicians in the UK to be honest and open in any financial agreements they have with their patients and third parties. These guidelines are in addition to a European policy addressing disclosure of physician financial interests in the industry. Similarly, In the US, a national open payments program as well as Federal regulations under the Affordable Care Act re-address the issue of disclosure of physician financial interests in America. These new (...) professional and legal changes make us rethink the fiduciary duties of providers working under new organizational and financial schemes, specifically their clinical fidelity and their moral and professional obligations to act in the best interests of patients. The article describes the legal changes providing the background for such proposals and offers a prima facie ethical analysis of these evolving issues. It is argued that although disclosure of conflicting interest may increase trust it may not necessarily be beneficial to patients nor accord with their expectations and needs. Due to the extra burden associated with disclosure as well as its implications on the medical profession and the therapeutic relationship, it should be held that transparency of physician financial interest should not result in mandatory disclosure of such interest by physicians. It could lead, as some initiatives in Europe and the US already demonstrate, to voluntary or mandatory disclosure schemes carried out by the industry itself. Such schemes should be in addition to medical education and the address of the more general phenomenon of physician conflict of interest in ethical codes and ethical training of the parties involved. (shrink)

PurposeThis paper scrutinizes the impact of socioeconomic, political, legal and religious factors on the internal ethical values of human rights organizations worldwide. The authors aim to examine the Code of Ethics for 279 HROs in 67 countries and the social and legal settings in which they operate.Design/methodology/approachUsing the framework of protect, respect and remedy, the authors look for keywords that represent the human rights lexicon in these three areas. In the protection of human rights, the authors select the terms: (...) peace, transparency, freedom and security. For the respect of humans, the authors use the terms: dignity, equality, respect and rights. Sources of remedies come from justice and ethics. The analysis seeks to determine what political economy settings drive the ethical value choices of the organizations. Those choices are proxied by those keywords they mention in their Code of Ethics.FindingsThe analysis show that the scope of ethical values mentioned are higher when the HRO is in a country with more domestic violence, lower income inequality, French civil or Islamic legal origin and higher trust in politicians. In regard to the determinants of the ten keywords individually, the authors conclude that the status of the socioeconomic, political, religious and legal settings impact with local HROs mention each of the keywords: peace, justice, transparency, dignity, equality, ethics, respect, freedom, security and rights.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis is based on HROs that have a webpage in English and list the employee Code of Conduct.Originality/valueThis study is the first to examine the Code of Ethics for HROs. The authors demonstrate that country-specific characteristics help to drive their internal ethical values. (shrink)

The earthquakes which struck Nepal’s capital in 2015 were humanitarian disasters. Not only did they inflict tragic loss of life and livelihoods, they also destroyed parts of the Kathmandu Valley’s unique UNESCO World Heritage site. These monuments were not just ornate structures but living monuments playing central roles in the daily lives of thousands, representing portals where the heavens touch earth and people commune with guiding deities. Their rehabilitation was also of economic importance as they represent a major source of (...) tourist income and employment. Unfortunately, the social and political desire for rapid reconstruction resulted in the swift removal of many traditionally constructed foundations and their replacement with modern materials without assessments of whether they contributed towards the collapse of individual monuments. These actions, combined with the wholesale removal, mixing and dumping of modern and historic debris, contributed to a second, equally destructive, cultural catastrophe – irreversible damage to Kathmandu’s Medieval fabric, in a process which frequently excluded local communities and custodians. This case study draws from our collective reflections and lessons learned from our attempts to enable equitable and ethical research partnerships between UK and Nepali colleagues as well as local communities in the debris of the Kasthamandap, Kathmandu’s eponymous monument. After briefly describing the potential of mobilising archaeologists in post-disaster contexts and outlining the challenges of undertaking research in such a setting, our case study utilises the TRUST Code to assess the character and success of our multidisciplinary collaboration in a time of crises. (shrink)

To ensure ethical employee behavior, companies often utilize several forms of mostly one-way communication such as codes of conduct. The extent to which these efforts, in addition to informing about the company stance on ethics, are able to positively influence behavior is disputed. In contrast, research on business ethics communication and behavior indicates a relatively clear, positive link between open workplace dialogue about ethical issues and ethical conduct. In this article, I therefore address the question: What influences employee attitudes to (...) talking openly about ethical issues? Answers are proposed on the basis of focus group interviews with staff at the Denmark and Brazil affiliates of the global healthcare company Novo Nordisk. It was found that interest in discussing ethical issues was influenced by two main factors: employee conceptualizations of business ethics and the level of inter-collegial trust, credibility, and confidence. In this article, by examining these phenomena, I aim at providing insight that can both inform scholars in these fields as well as help managers in their attempts to promote open workplace dialogue about ethical issues. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ (AICPA) efforts to conceal the offshoring of tax return preparation services by U.S. Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) through recommending an inadequate disclosure format for this type of work. We draw on Giddens’ theory of trust and expert systems, the professionalism literature, and Flyvbjerg’s concept of power to analyze the underlying agenda behind the revised ethics rulings (AICPA Ethics Ruling No. 112 under Rule 102, No. 12 under Rule (...) 201, and No. 1 under Rule 301). Specifically, we examine (1) the AICPA leadership’s stated professional justifications for outsourcing and its recommended client disclosures, (2) risks associated with outsourcing tax return preparation work overseas and the trust issues that result, and (3) the resistance to the AICPA leadership’s recommended outsourcing disclosure rules within the rank and file of the CPA profession. We argue that our analysis reveals the AICPA’s on-going promotion of their private interests, thus continuing to raise systemic concerns regarding the public’s trust in the U.S. public accounting profession. (shrink)

This study aims to enhance the understanding about the influence of perceived ethical work climate dimensions on employees’ trust in co-workers. The instrument used was Victor and Cullen’s (1988) questionnaire containing five empirically derived types of ethical climate (caring, law and code, rules, instrumentalism, and independence). As hypothesized, the study revealed that the instrumental ethical climate dimension was negatively related, and independent climate was positively related to co-worker trust. Thus, two ethical climate dimensions (independent and instrumental) account (...) for the 22.7 percent variation taking place in co-worker trust while the remaining climate types had no significant impact. The findings may be of help particularly to human resource staff in developing policies to better off relations among employees acknowledging differing potential of ethical climate types. (shrink)

"The Rules" are found in a collaborative document that states principles for responsibility when a computer artifact is designed, developed and deployed into a sociotechnical system. At this writing, over 50 people from nine countries have signed onto The Rules. Unlike codes of ethics, The Rules are not tied to any organization, and computer users as well as computing professionals are invited to sign onto The Rules. The emphasis in The Rules is that both users and professionals have responsibilities in (...) the production and use of computing artifacts. In this paper, we use The Rules to examine issues of trust. (shrink)

As a key constituent of China's approach to fighting COVID-19, Health Code apps (HCAs) not only serve the pandemic control imperatives but also exercise the agency of digital surveillance. As such, HCAs pave a new avenue for ongoing discussions on contact tracing solutions and privacy amid the global pandemic. This article attends to the perceived privacy protection among HCA users via the lens of the contextual integrity theory. Drawing on an online survey of adult HCA users in Wuhan and (...) Hangzhou (N = 1551), we find users’ perceived convenience, attention towards privacy policy, trust in government, and acceptance of government purposes regarding HCA data management are significant contributors to users’ perceived privacy protection in using the apps. By contrast, users’ frequency of mobile privacy protection behaviors has limited influence, and their degrees of perceived protection do not vary by sociodemographic status. These findings shed new light on China's distinctive approach to pandemic control with respect to the state's expansion of big data-driven surveillance capacity. Also, the findings foreground the heuristic value of contextual integrity theory to examine controversial digital surveillance in non-Western contexts. Put tougher, our findings contribute to the thriving scholarly conversations around digital privacy and surveillance in China, as well as contact tracing solutions and privacy amid the global pandemic. (shrink)

This paper examines the establishment and enforcement of codes of conduct governing the use of Internet technology as a means of providing a basis of trust in the e‐business context. The discussion draws on the findings of a survey of 80 UK organisations, and considers the relationship between factors such as organisation size, type, use of IT, the length of time with an Internet connection and the use of a code of conduct, as well as the specific areas (...) of Internet technology covered by codes of conduct. The paper also investigates the extent of disciplinary cases associated with the misuse of Internet technology, as well as the ownership and responsibility for implementing codes of conduct. The survey results suggest that the use of codes of conduct varies significantly from organisation to organisation, and that those who initiate such codes are not those seen as being responsible for implementing them. The results also indicate that a growing number of employees are disciplined for misuse of facilities offered by Internet technology. (shrink)

BackgroundWhat can the analysis of the evolution of a code of ethics tell us about the dental profession and the association that develops it? The establishment of codes of ethics are foundational events in the social history of a profession. Within these documents it is possible to find statements of values and culture that serve a variety of purposes. Codes of ethics in dentistry have not frequently presented as the subjects of analyses despite containing rich information about the priorities (...) and anxieties within the profession’s membership at the time that the code was written.Main textThis essay uses critical discourse analysis to explore the 2012 and 2018 versions of the Code of Ethics produced by the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Dental Association. This method of discourse analysis examines contradictions between the discourses within the codes and how these relate to broader social realties that surround the dental profession in New South Wales. By analysing the 2012 and 2018 codes together, it is possible to understand how the dental profession views its commitments to society as established through the social contract. Through this assessment, it will be demonstrated that both codes suffer due to their failure to consider the public as a key stakeholder in the creation and curation of the Code of Ethics and how this this relates intimately with the social contract between the profession and the public.ConclusionWithout the public being the central consideration, both codes amount to declarations of professional privilege and dominance. Although the more recent 2018 Code of Ethics demonstrates insight into the changes in public trust placed in the professions, this analysis shows that that the current code of ethics is still reluctant to recognise and engage with the public as an equal stakeholder in the planning and provision of oral health care and the development of the profession’s values and cultural trajectory. (shrink)