Law's Indigenous Ethics examines the revitalization of Indigenous peoples' relationship to their own laws and, in so doing, attempts to enrich Canadian constitutional law more generally. Organized around the seven Anishinaabe grandmother and grandfather teachings of love, truth, bravery, humility, wisdom, honesty, and respect, this book explores ethics in relation to Aboriginal issues including title, treaties, legal education, and residential schools. With characteristic depth and sensitivity, John Borrows brings insights drawn from philosophy, law, and political science to (...) bear on some of the most pressing issues that arise in contemplating the interaction between Canadian state law and Indigenous legal traditions. In the course of a wide-ranging but accessible inquiry, he discusses such topics as Indigenous agency, self-determination, legal pluralism, and power. In its use of Anishinaabe stories and methodologies drawn from the emerging field of Indigenous studies, Law's Indigenous Ethics makes a significant contribution to scholarly debate and is an essential resource for readers seeking a deeper understanding of Indigenous rights, societies, and cultures. (shrink)

Various types of health settings use clinical ethics committees (CEC) to deal with the ethical issues that confront both healthcare providers and their patients. Although these committees are now more common than ever, changes in the content of ethical dilemmas through the years is still a relatively unexplored area of research. The current study examines the major topics brought to the CEC of a psychiatric hospital in Israel and explores whether there were changes in their frequency across nearly three (...) decades. The present paper reports on a thematic analysis of the written verbatim transcripts from 466 ethical topics brought to the CEC between the years 1991 and 2016. The following major topics related to ethical dilemmas were identified: confidentiality (30%), patient autonomy (23%), health records (14%), dual relationship (12%), allocation of resources (11%), inappropriate professional and personal conduct (9%), and multicultural sensitivity (1%). Topics related to confidentiality increased significantly over the years, as did inappropriate professional and personal conduct. In addition, the analysis showed that the content of the ethical cases and the resolutions suggested by the CEC also varied over the years. In conclusion, although most ethical topics have remained relatively stable over time, the discourse around them has evolved, requiring a dynamic assessment and reflection by the mental health practitioners serving as members of a CEC. (shrink)

Although the ethical and legal worlds are often at odds, a wealth of information is gained by evaluating legal decisions from an ethical perspective. Evaluating court decisions from an ethical viewpoint, increases our knowledge, and helps to beneficially influence future court precedent. Of particular importance to the relationship between the law, business, and ethics, is the ideal of beneficence and non-maleficence. It is the court’s role to protect the rights of individuals, especially with regards to their health (...) care provision. These issues are especially present in conflicts that relate to the availability and access to health care and insurance coverage. Patient autonomy, physician malpractice and informed consent are all influenced by such current court precedent as addressed bythe Employee Retirement Income and Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). This leads us to the central theme of this discussion on the ethical implications of the Supreme Court precedent on ERISA. (shrink)

Louise Brown's birth in 1978 heralded a new era not just in reproductive technology, but in the relationship between science, cells, and society. For the first time, human embryos could be created, selected, studied, manipulated, frozen, altered, or destroyed, outside the human body. But with this possibility came a plethora of ethical questions. Is it acceptable to destroy a human embryo for the purpose of research? Or to create an embryo with the specific purpose of destroying it for (...) research? In an attempt to construct ethical and legal frameworks for the new era of cellular reprogramming, legislators and ethicists have tried to distinguish between different kinds of biological entity. We treat cells differently depending on whether they are human or animal, somatic cells or gametes, and on whether they are embryos or not. But this approach to the ethics of cellular reprogramming is doomed to failure for the simple reason that cellular reprogramming in itself destroys the distinctions that the law requires to function. In this article, we explore the historical trajectory of cellular reprogramming and its relationship with ethics and society. We suggest that the early hype of embryo research has not obviously fulfilled expectations, but since new avenues of research are continuously opening, it is hard to say definitely that these promises have been broken. We explore the forthcoming challenges posed by the creation of DNA from scratch in the laboratory, and the implications of this for understandings of identity, privacy, and reproduction. We conclude that while ethics used to seek answers in biological facts, this is no longer possible, and a new approach is required. (shrink)

This paper presents a qualitative study investigating the application of physiotherapists’ professional ethics in practice with respect to touch, intimacy, and corporeality during therapy, based on the experiences of elderly patients. As the relationship in a physiotherapy session is multidimensional, the study considered three levels: physical contact, verbal contact, and the conditions in which the therapy took place. The aim of this study was to find out what values are of importance to older people during a physiotherapy session, (...) with emphasis on the categories of touch, corporeality, and intimacy. The studied group consisted of sixteen male and female physiotherapy patients aged between sixty-six and ninety-two years. The study was conducted according to the grounded theory methodology. The research material consisted of transcriptions of free targeted interviews, which were subjected to a process of coding and analysis. As a result of data analyses, three superior categories have been identified—safety, anxiety, interpersonal relationship—and three a priori categories stemming from the characteristic features of the study area—touch, corporeality, and intimacy. The a priori categories did not appear independently in statements made by the respondents, but instead seemed to be components of superior categories. The most important values indicated by the respondents concerned the interpersonal relationship with their physiotherapist and the feeling of safety and care. In terms of touch, corporeality, and intimacy, the respondents indicated, among others, the importance of predictability, a sense of security, privacy, and acceptance of the body. (shrink)

The concept of Conciliation Ethics in the Qurʾan is a crucial aspect of Islamic Law: Conciliation features notably in the Qurʾanic text which gives rise to Islamic rules and regulations, Conciliation is an important dispute resolution method in an Islamic legal system, and Conciliation-related Qurʾanic textual analysis reveals a broad range of legal language and concepts. Traditional studies of Conciliation in the Qurʾan have often focussed on the process of ṣulḥ through intermediaries, particularly in marriage and between groups (...) of Muslims, whilst there is a dearth of Western scholarship in this area. Using Classical Arabic tafsīr and Western literature on Conciliation as a general concept, this paper examines holistically and analytically the concept of Conciliation Ethics in the Qurʾan, investigating its scope, constituent elements, emphasis and purpose. This paper argues, based on a manual survey of the entire Qurʾan, that Conciliation is not limited to isolated contexts or verses where ṣulḥ is mentioned explicitly. The paper finds that Conciliation is a pervasive concept throughout the hierarchy of social relationships. It is achieved through behaviours such as good conduct, attitudes such as ‘Differentiation’ and ‘Externalisation’ and preventative strategies of dispute avoidance, and sometimes includes a contract or Reconciliation process. It is emphasised in the Qurʾan through a range of stylistic features and is of fundamental importance in maintaining the fabric of society. (shrink)

The purpose of this contribution is to shed some light on the inter-relationships between ethics and economics in Islamic religion, and mainly to assert that ethics constitute endogenous phenomena in Islamic economics. In Islam, economic behaviours and transactions cannot be separated from ethics and values. The Islamic principles are intended to govern, direct and control human beings’ behaviours in their daily economic lives. They are aimed at helping people to distinguish between good and bad things (...) while they do any economic activity. It is worth noting that the moral values in Islamic economics are derived from the main sources of Islam namely: the Quran (the holy book of Islamic religion) and Sunnah (the teachings and behaviours of the prophet of Islam: Muhammad PBUH 570-632 AD). Both of them represent the principal pillars of Shariah (Islamic laws and guidelines), which is seen by Muslims as the proper way to happiness, not only in economic life but in all aspects of life. (shrink)

Journalists in many Afiican countries have long been caught between differing ideals i n their relationship between press and government. Two models viefor dominance-the western, libertarian and development journalism models. This article uses Walzer's (1983) theory of distributive justice to illuminate the ethical significance of this debate. A t issue is political power. A case study of the 1996 proposed press law i n Kenya illustrates the ethical arguments mounted for each press model and how the arguments (...) are marshaled not necessarily for moral purposes but to gain political advantage. Finally, a viable third alternative avoids a false dilemma between the libertarian and development journalism models. Communitarianism preserves the independence from government SO central to the libertarian model while providing a basis for activist journalism. (shrink)

Physicians in Islamic countries might be requested to participate in the Islamic legal code of qiṣāṣ, in which the victim or family has the right to an eye-for-an-eye retaliation. Qiṣāṣ is only used as a punishment in the case of murder or intentional physical injury. In situations such as throwing acid, the national legal system of some Islamic countries asks for assistance from physicians, because the punishment should be identical to the crime. The perpetrator could not be punished without a (...) physician’s participation, because there is no way to guarantee that the sentence would be carried out without inflicting more injury than the initial victim had suffered. By examining two cases of acid throwing, this paper discusses issues related to physicians’ participation in qiṣāṣ from the perspective of medical ethics and Islamic Shari’a law. From the standpoint of medical ethics, physicians’ participation in qiṣāṣ is not appropriate. First, qiṣāṣ is in sharp contrast to the Hippocratic Oath and other codes of medical ethics. Second, by physicians’ participation in qiṣāṣ, medical practices are being used improperly to carry out government mandates. Third, physician participation in activities that cause intentional harm to people destroys the trust between patients and physicians and may adversely affect the patient–physician relationship more generally. From the standpoint of Shari’a, there is no consensus among Muslim scholars whether qiṣāṣ should be performed on every occasion. We argue that disallowing physician involvement in qiṣāṣ is necessary from the perspectives of both medical ethics and Shari’a law. (shrink)

The risks associated with the techniques of medically assisted procreation (MAP) rapidly became well-known, and in such a short space of time that no biomedical domain remained untouched by the great deal of thinking and the expression of a multitude of opinions it provoked. MAP is evolving between two poles: quality/misuse (even violation) and evidence/fantasy. The ethics will be evoked in the clinical reality from which they spring and where their justification lies. The three objects common to these (...) ethics, the oocyte, the embryo and the child, are illustrated in this context. MAP has as its corollary access to the oocyte, the fertilization of which will take place in vitro. Access to the embryo, on the other hand, enables the clinician, for the purposes of diagnosis [preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), predictive medicine], or even soon for therapeutic purposes (gene therapy) to draw close to a boundary, to trespass beyond which may be seen by humanity to threaten its very origins and integrity: the alienation of the human genome. For the infertile couple, the missing child may take on a dimension of which they would have been unaware, had they not been forced to express their desire. The burden of the imaginary child may, in this way, become a heavier load to bear when, after such desire, he comes into being. MAP puts the goal of normalisation within reach and, in doing so, accentuates the risk of the burden of the attributed representation of the child. On the one hand, MAP offers a tremendous diagnostic and therapeutic potential, while on the other it opens the door to excess and delirium. In this melting pot, ethics, catalysed by this new source of problematics, has discovered a favourite area in which to define and redefine itself. We propose the intervention of ethics on three different levels. Before the elaboration of the law: on first reflection, ethics may influence the responsibilities of the legislator, by taking care that the law does not obscure the biomedical and socioeconomic contexts of MAP and, thereby, also include other related and complementary aspects dealing with the same subject. The secondary discussion of ethics should influence the application of legal protection, by taking into account the rapid technological and social development of MAP, there too, by discussing the whole, rather than the details which will obscure the object. The ethical reflection of the clinician, who is aware of these difficulties, is guided by elements that are specific to his position as a doctor. The cohesion of the team around the clinician and the ethics specialist enables us to develop consensual clinical ethics that are transmissible and therefore teachable. This complex role can, in our view, only be acted out directly in the clinical situation, where the constant, direct relationship with the object of the reflection and the treatment allows ethics to take into account the contingencies of medical practice: we invite the ethics specialist to take part in our clinical activity on a daily basis. (shrink)

The existent ethical relationships are the result of the historical amalgamation of objective and subjective conditions. Ethical relationships are essential relationships in the real and rational order, which are maintained by a system of regulations on morals, laws and customs, and infused with a spirit of subjectivity. Rationality and legitimacy are the primary concerns of those relationships. A distinction between morals and ethos needs to be made when studying ethical order. Sound ethical order lies in effective regulation of morals (...) and effective control of law. In the process of social reform, ethical order promotes social development through the dialectical movement of freedom and necessity. A harmonious society is a society which is based on legitimate and just ethical order. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to determine empirically the state of the art of the medical care, when healthcare personal is confronted with ethical dilemmas related with the care they give to the geriatric population. An observational, longitudinal, prospective and qualitative study was conducted by analyzing the correlation between healthcare personnel–patient relationship, and ethical judgments regarding dilemmas that arise in daily clinical practice with geriatric patients. Mexican healthcare personnel with current active practices were asked to write up (...) an ethical dilemma that arose frequently or that had impacted their medical practice. From the narrative input, we were able to draw up a database with 421 dilemmas, and those corresponding to patients 60 years and older were selected (n = 54, 12.8 %). The axiological analysis of the narrative dilemmas of geriatric patients was made using dialectical empiricism. The axiological analysis values found most frequently were classified into three groups: the impact of healthcare, the roles of the physician, and refusal of therapy; the healthcare role of educator, caring for the patients’ life and the risk of imminent death where the values found more often. The persistence and universality of certain dilemmas in geriatrics calls for awareness and requires a good training in the ethical discernment of these dilemmas. This would help to improve substantially the care and the life quality of this population. (shrink)

Due to society's need to control health care costs and to the failure of legislated health care reform, managed care is expanding at a rapid rate and will soon be the predominate form of health care delivery. Plans by Congress to bring Medicare and Medicaid under managed care will further consolidate this trend. Barring some legislative fiat, managed care is here to stay.The term managed care describes a diverse set of organizational forms. Wide variations in approach, financing, physician involvement, and (...) philosophy exist among the different types of managed care organizations. While many articles on the ethics of managed care acknowledge this variety, most analyses focus on the for-profit entities, paying less attention to the ethical distinctions among the different forms of managed care. This paper discusses the key distinctions among MCO types, in particular the difference between for-profit and non-profit plans; the relationship of the physician to the MCO; the incentives used to control costs; the incentives that improve patient care; and the organizational features that nurture the principled practice of medicine. (shrink)

Whereas in the 1970s early bioethicists believed that bioethics is an arena for the application of philosophical theories of utilitarianism, deontology, and natural law thinking, contemporary policy-oriented bioethicists seem rather to be keen on framing ethical issues through political ideologies. Bioethicists today are often labeled “liberal” or “communitarian,” referring to their different understandings of the relationship between the individual and society. Liberal individualism, with its conceptual base of autonomy, dignity, and privacy, enjoyed a long period of dominance in (...) bioethics, but it has increasingly come under attack from ideologies promoting a more salient role for concepts of solidarity, community, and public interest. (shrink)

There is no subject at the interface of law, psychiatry and medical ethics which is more controversial than psychosurgery. The divergent views of the treatment begin with its definition. The World Health Organisation1 and others2 define psychosurgery as the selective surgical removal or destruction of nerve pathways or normal brain tissue with a view to influencing behaviour. However, proponents of psychosurgery demur on the basis that the `modern' treatment is concerned predominantly with emotional illness, without any specific effect upon (...) behaviour. The alternative definition offered is `the surgical treatment of certain psychiatric illnesses by means of localised lesions placed in specific cerebral sites.3It is difficult entirely to accept this definition because, as examined below, scientific psychiatry is not yet in a position to directly treat psychiatric illness solely through surgical intervention. There is no reliable theoretical relationship between particular cerebral sites (which are normal and healthy) and an identifiable psychiatric illness or symptomatology. Given this state of psychiatric understanding, it is misleading to suggest fine distinctions between generalised alteration of behaviour or mood and treatment of an illness. Highly divergent practices and theories (relating to the multiplicity of conditions treated, surgical methods adopted and areas of the brain operated upon) further undermine exaggerated claims that psychosurgery can scientifically `treat' specific illness through precise surgical intervention. Nonetheless, contemporary psychosurgery does not contain quite the same `broadbrush' approach of its ancestors and it can lay some legitimate claim as an effective empirical treatment in narrowly limited circumstances. Major ethical problems still, however, arise and these will be discussed in this article. (shrink)

Background: Ambulance professionals often address conflicts between ethical values. As individuals’ values represent basic convictions of what is right or good and motivate behaviour, research is needed to understand their value profiles. Objectives: To translate and adapt the Managerial Values Profile to Spanish and Swedish, and measure the presence of utilitarianism, moral rights and/or social justice in ambulance professionals’ value profiles in Spain and Sweden. Methods: The instrument was translated and culturally adapted. A content validity index was calculated. Pilot (...) tests were carried out with 46 participants. Ethical considerations: This study conforms to the ethical principles for research involving human subjects and adheres to national laws and regulations concerning informed consent and confidentiality. Findings: Spanish professionals favoured justice and Swedish professionals’ rights in their ambulance organizations. Both countries favoured utilitarianism least. Gender differences across countries showed that males favoured rights. Spanish female professionals favoured justice most strongly of all. Discussion: Swedes favour rights while Spaniards favour justice. Both contexts scored low on utilitarianism focusing on total population effect, preferring the opposite, individualized approach of the rights and justice perspectives. Organizational investment in a utilitarian perspective might jeopardize ambulance professionals’ moral right to make individual assessments based on the needs of the patient at hand. Utilitarianism and a caring ethos appear as stark opposites. However, a caring ethos in its turn might well involve unreasonable demands on the individual carer’s professional role. Since both the justice and rights perspectives portrayed in the survey mainly concern relationship to the organization and peers within the organization, this relationship might at worst be given priority over the equal treatment and moral rights of the patient. Conclusion: A balanced view on ethical perspectives is needed to make professionals observant and ready to act optimally – especially if these perspectives are used in patient care. Research is needed to clarify how justice and rights are prioritized by ambulance services and whether or not these organization-related values are also implemented in patient care. (shrink)

This article re-examines and fundamentally re-assesses the symbiotic relationship between law and ethics in the governance and regulation of biobanks as a global phenomenon. Set against the two decades of experience of set-up, management and most recently granting access to biobanks to promote advances in human health, it is argued that the boundaries—and so the legitimacy—of the respective roles of ethics and law have become blurred and, potentially, blunted. The caricature of law as a tool of (...) command and control—resulting in compliance culture—is well recognised in regulation studies, but parallels with this can now also be seen within certain ethical regimes pertaining to biobanks and human health research more generally. At the same time, the ethical content of certain legal responses to biobanks can be lacking, as some legal systems seek to regulate biobanking in inflexible and unreflective ways that potentially undermine the entire enterprise. This can result in a net failure to capture adequately particular features of biobanking that make this field so potentially rich in terms of ultimate social value and human benefit. The argument is made that the interconnected, yet distinct, nature of the contributions of law and ethics must be better understood in this setting. The central message is unapologetically sceptical about the role of law in regulating biobanking, except when we see law as process. Rather, the position is advanced that more work is required to develop governance regimes that are ‘Ethics+’ : that is, rooted in the core values and principles at stake while able to adapt and accommodate the inevitable changing landscape of biobank research and practice. While ethics are always a necessary component of a robust and defensible regimes of health research, the notion of Ethics+ directs our attention to processes in which ethical discourse and engagement can be optimised to respond to particular features of biobanks and their operation. (shrink)

In this article the predominant, purely theoretical perspectives on animal ethics are questioned and two important sources for empirical data in the context of animal ethics are discussed: methods of the social and methods of the natural sciences. Including these methods can lead to an empirical animal ethics approach that is far more adapted to the needs of humans and nonhuman animals and more appropriate in different circumstances than a purely theoretical concept solely premised on rational arguments. (...) However, the potential tension between lay people’s moral judgements and ethical theory must be handled with care. The thorough analysis of qualitative data can lead to a deep insight into e.g. ethical problems with the application of laws and guidelines, practicality issues with ethical theories, personal ambivalence, and cognitive biases. The interaction between animal ethics theory and empirical findings can lead to both a more context-sensitive and applicable ethical theory and a less arbitrary folk moral system. Findings from the natural sciences can also contribute valuable information to animal ethics theory—the more we know about the properties and preferences of nonhuman animals the better we can respect them. Here, however, it is vital not to justify invasive procedures for the sake of “ethical progress”. It might be ethically required to forego some scientific findings about nonhuman animals if it is not clear how much a procedure would harm them. Only with robust empirical methods will light ultimately be shed on the nature of our moral relationship with animals. (shrink)

Elements of Ethics examines Meinong's value theory from an epistemological standpoint and gives a critical exposition of Meinong's first attempts at a deontic logic; special consideration is given to the Law of Omission. For that purpose his theory of the a priori is examined, which is entwined with his theory of objects. The book begins with an epistemological and ontological consideration and simplification of Meinong's universe. In consequence of the mathematical development of his time, especially non-Euclidean geometries, Meinong developed (...) the notion of precision objects and precision concepts. They are discussed along with the so-called `incomplete objects' and problems associated with them. These discussions are relevant for understanding various technical terms, particularly concepts of values and valuations. These discussions also assist in assessing the possibility of knowing these concepts a priori, and in understanding the logical relationships between them and actual valuations. We find in Meinong's ethical writings a mixture of experiential and a priori knowledge. A translation is included of the fragment Ethische Bausteine (Elements of Ethics), together with Meinong's own notes and those of the editors of the text. Vocabulary and Index are attached. (shrink)

Is the virtue of the good citizen the same as the virtue of the good man? Aristotle addresses this in Politics 3.4. His answer is twofold. On the one hand, (the account for Difference) they are not the same both because what the citizen’s virtue is depends on the constitution, on what preserves it, and on the role the citizen plays in it, and because the good citizens in the best constitution cannot all be good men, whereas the good man’s (...) virtue is uniform. On the other hand, (the account for Identity) the two virtues are identical in the good men in the best constitution, in which all are good citizens, each possessing the ability for ruling and for being ruled. This nuanced answer can be seen as Aristotle’s synthesis of a Periclean view (contribution to state blots out personal wrongs) and a Socratic view (no good citizen is without justice). Its nuances reflect the extent to which Aristotle’s conceptions of good citizenship and the best constitution accommodate deviations of what is probable from the human ideal set out in his ethical writings. In the present chapter, I will first address three puzzles regarding the nuances of Aristotle’s answer. Second, I will consider one question about its implication: Does Aristotle’s account for Difference turn out to entail something ultra-Periclean: that no one can simultaneously be a good man and a good citizen in any constitution other than the best? I shall argue the negative. (shrink)

Bioethics is a field in which innovation is required to help prevent and respond to zoonotic diseases with the potential to cause epidemics and pandemics. Some of the developments necessary to fight pandemics, such as COVID-19 vaccines, require public debate on the benefits and risks of individual choice versus responsibility to society. While these debates are necessary, a more fundamental ethical innovation to rebalance human, animal, and environmental interests is also needed. One Health (OH) can be characterized as a strategy (...) that recognizes and promotes the synergy between human, animal, and environmental health. Yet, despite the recognition that these entities are interdependent, there is a pronounced inequality in the power relations between human, non-human animal, and the environmental interests which threatens the well-being of all. Until OH can ensure the moral status of animals and the environment and thereby the equal consideration of these interests, it will struggle to protect non-human interests and, as a result, human health. To create a sustainable health system requires a renewed concept of justice that is ecocentric in nature and an application of OH that is flexible and responsive to different ethical interests (e.g., person-centred care and physician responsibilities). Ultimately, to save themselves, humans must now think beyond themselves. Bioethics must assume a key role in supporting the developments required to create and maintain relationships able to sustain environmental and human health. (shrink)

From Descartes to Spinoza, Western philosophers have attempted to propose an axiomatic systemization of ethics. However, without consensus on the contents and objects of ethics, the system remains incomplete. This four-volume set presents a model that highlights a Chinese philosopher's insights on ethics after a 22 year study. Three essential components of ethics are examined: metaethics, normative ethics, and virtue ethics. This volume is the second part of the discussion on normative ethics. The (...) author analyzes humanity, liberty, justice, happiness, and systems of moral rules. He puts forward 26 value standards that construct a system of measuring state instruction; reveals the relationship between humanity, liberty and justice; puts forward three objective laws of happiness; and discusses the goodness of important moral rules, such as honesty, self-respect and courage. This set is an essential read for students and scholars of ethics and philosophy in general. (shrink)

The vision of legendary criminologist Cesare Lombroso to use scientific theories of individual causes of crime as a basis for screening and prevention programmes targeting individuals at risk for future criminal behaviour has resurfaced, following advances in genetics, neuroscience and psychiatric epidemiology. This article analyses this idea and maps its ethical implications from a public health ethical standpoint. Twenty-seven variants of the new Lombrosian vision of forensic screening and prevention are distinguished, and some scientific and technical limitations are noted. Some (...) lures, biases and structural factors, making the application of the Lombrosian idea likely in spite of weak evidence are pointed out and noted as a specific type of ethical aspect. Many classic and complex ethical challenges for health screening programmes are shown to apply to the identified variants and the choice between them, albeit with peculiar and often provoking variations. These variations are shown to actualize an underlying theoretical conundrum in need of further study, pertaining to the relationship between public health ethics and the ethics and values of criminal law policy. (shrink)

In this article the predominant, purely theoretical perspectives on animal ethics are questioned and two important sources for empirical data in the context of animal ethics are discussed: methods of the social and methods of the natural sciences. Including these methods can lead to an empirical animal ethics approach that is far more adapted to the needs of humans and nonhuman animals and more appropriate in different circumstances than a purely theoretical concept solely premised on rational arguments. (...) However, the potential tension between lay people’s moral judgements and ethical theory must be handled with care. The thorough analysis of qualitative data can lead to a deep insight into e.g. ethical problems with the application of laws and guidelines, practicality issues with ethical theories, personal ambivalence, and cognitive biases. The interaction between animal ethics theory and empirical findings can lead to both a more context-sensitive and applicable ethical theory and a less arbitrary folk moral system. Findings from the natural sciences can also contribute valuable information to animal ethics theory—the more we know about the properties and preferences of nonhuman animals the better we can respect them. Here, however, it is vital not to justify invasive procedures for the sake of “ethical progress”. It might be ethically required to forego some scientific findings about nonhuman animals if it is not clear how much a procedure would harm them. Only with robust empirical methods will light ultimately be shed on the nature of our moral relationship with animals. (shrink)

The most pronounced and fundamental characteristic of Chinese ethical thought was the integration of ethical principles and the lineage relationships under the rule of the clan law , which brought about the formation of a clan-law system whose core components were the concepts of loyalty and filial obedience . All other characteristics of Chinese ethics in other areas stemmed from, or can be extrapolated from, this particular characteristic. The difference between China's traditional society and those of classical Greece (...) or Rome lies in the fact that it came to the stage of being a civilized society through its own peculiar route. Comrade Hou Wailu once summed up these different routes of entrance into civilized society in the following way: [The path followed by the] ancient world of the classical era [in the West] is a path represented by the transition from the tribes or clans to private property ownership, and then to the state . It is a model of transition in which the state took the place of the clan. On the other hand, [the path followed by] ancient and traditional Asia was a [more direct] transition from the clan to the state, in which the state came to be mingled with the clan—this is what is meant in Chinese by the term society . The fundamental difference between these two patterns is that in the former model, the state demolished the relationships that had existed in the lineage-bound clans, and therefore, in that model, innate and necessary connections did not exist between the clan and the state. The latter model was quite the opposite. Not only were the lineage clans never demolished; on the contrary, they became the foundation on which the state relied for its existence. The state was mingled in with the clan, and there was no separation between clan and state. It is precisely this odd mixture, or integration, of clan and state that produced the feudal clan-law system that not only existed in China for several thousands of years, but also persisted stubbornly throughout Chinese history. It is also this mixture that produced the corresponding political-ethical feudalistic clanlaw ideology. (shrink)

Conflict resolution is a core component of healthcare ethics consultation (HEC) and proficiency in this skill set is recognized by the national bioethics organization and its HEC certification process. Difficult interpersonal interactions between the clinical team and patients or their families are often inexorably connected to the normative disputes that are the catalyst for the consult. Ethics consultants are often required to navigate challenging dynamics that have become entrenched and work with patient-provider or family-provider relationships that have (...) already broken down. The first step in conflict resolution is diagnosing the source of the conflict. Because so many interpersonal and normative conflicts rest on misunderstanding and mischaracterization, the diagnosis of the problem requires untangling the actual positions and perspectives of the conflicting parties from the fallacious assumptions made about the parties’ respective positions and views. Developed in management science, the Ladder of Inference (LOI) is a diagnostic tool for assisting stakeholders in re-examining the process they used to form beliefs about others involved in the conflict. The LOI is a device that detects errors in reasoning, including implicit racial bias, that lead to false judgments and counterproductive responses to those judgments. The LOI is an instrument that can be used by ethics consultants to help resolve contentious bedside conflicts, but the LOI can also be employed as a teaching tool used by healthcare ethics consultants in training the clinical staff in how to avoid such conflicts in the first place. (shrink)

Thomas Williams presents the most extensive collection of John Duns Scotus's work on ethics and moral psychology available in English. John Duns Scotus: Selected Writings on Ethics includes extended discussions-and as far as possible, complete questions-on divine and human freedom, the moral attributes of God, the relationship between will and intellect, moral and intellectual virtue, practical reasoning, charity, the metaphysics of goodness and rightness, the various acts, affections, and passions of the will, justice, the natural law, (...) sin, marriage and divorce, the justification for private property, and lying and perjury. 00Relying on the recently completed critical edition of the Ordinatio and other critically edited texts, this collection presents the most reliable and up-to-date versions of Scotus's work in an accessible and philosophically informed translation. (shrink)

*North American Society for Social Philosophy (NASSP) Book Award 2019.* -/- *International Studies Association (ISA) - International Ethics Section Book Award 2021.* -/- Although military mores have relied primarily on just war theory, the ethic of cooperation in warfare (ECW)—between enemies even as they are trying to kill each other—is as central to the practice of warfare and to conceptualization of its morality. Neither game theory nor unilateral moral duties (God-given or otherwise) can explain the explicit language of (...) cooperation in developing and enforcing principles of military ethics and the law of armed conflict. -/- The ethic of cooperation is borne of various motivations: reciprocity, self-preservation, and efficiency, to be sure, but also a sense of warrior honor and concern with human rights. This shared morality can persist despite making it more difficult for one side or the other to win and, unfortunately, its well-meaning motivations often lead to unintended tragic consequences. -/- This book explores three manifestations of this significant yet overlooked ethic of cooperation in warfare: (1) for a “fair fight,” (2) to protect classes of individuals (e.g., non-combatants or prisoners of war), and (3) to end the war quickly. Such cooperation can take unexpected forms, from ad hoc decisions on the battlefield to institutionalization in international law, and is the source of some critical tensions in one of the most significant developments in warfare in recent years: namely, how to handle terrorism or other forms of warfare that lie outside the purview of international law. -/- Each type of ECW raises questions internal to that ethic, such as inconsistencies in the concept of “parity” across different weapons bans, contradictions within the warrior ethic that heavily influence—and therefore confuse—notions of the “fair fight,” the disconnect between what protections a person receives and his responsibility for the war (e.g., political leaders), or the limited decisiveness of outcomes generated by very short wars. -/- Their simultaneous application also generates significant tensions and raises questions about the proper relationship of ECW to the immediate goal of war itself, which is to win, and thus yield either a political settlement or a justicial decision. For example, the ECWs for a “fair fight” and to protect classes of individuals can make it harder to win the war, but even more concerning is that they can also kill more people, which in the latter case contravenes its very purpose. -/- Human history is in some ways the story of trying to concurrently wage and tame war, and the architecture of warfare itself is informed by the ECW, in particular: (a) the political nature of war, (b) the abdication from jus ad bellum judgments in order to concentrate on justice within war (jus in bello), and (c) the ways in which modern nation-states collude to define “legitimacy” in war. -/- The combination of these three features leave questions of justicial right and responsibility for war disturbingly unresolved, it also generates new challenges in a geopolitical context in which cooperative and non-cooperative (e.g. contemporary terrorism) forms of warfare clash. (shrink)

Individuals with chronic spinal cord injury (CSCI) require complex and lengthy health services based on ethical philosophy. The virtue character that is most relevant to the egalitarian concept is fairness. The aim of the study is whether the character of fairness becomes the character of a doctor serving individuals with CSCI. It is a mixed method cross-sectional explanatory study, with questionnaires sent to doctors and individuals with CSCI, interviews with doctors, and healthcare system field observation. Sixty-two doctors and 33 patients (...) with CSCI participated in the study. The virtues most frequently chosen by doctors were love, gratitude, spirituality, zest, fairness, and kindness. The CSCI patients’ views regarding doctors’ characters were a postponement of personal interest, compassion, and loyalty to trust. All interviewed doctors indicated that they supported more than five of the 24 virtues. Doctors serve with ethical principles of virtue, even though the rewards received are inadequate. In fact, the use of health services by CSCI is still limited. Virtue ethics, especially the character of fairness, is necessary as a base of positive relationships between doctors and patients, to achieve equality of benefits for CSCI patients. Data obtained that the doctors’ character of fairness is still not the main choice. (shrink)

Human beings can be ethically frail under the pressure of situational forces, therefore the constraining force of the law is required. The ethics community need to have the confidence and courage to seek for the best ethical guidelines to become such constraining laws. However laws are themselves only ethical when they informed by a consensus that includes and represents the needs of the parties they are intended to protect, therefore the voice of the volunteer must be heard. Specific examples (...) are adduced to show how the current Clinical Trials Regulations are either insufficient in their scope, or not being fully met. To conclude eight suggestions are given as to how volunteers might be better protected. These include the establishment of an independent funded body to inform and support volunteers, a volunteers charter, greater consultation with volunteers, and a change in ethos involving a more egalitarian partnership between all those involved in the development of new medicines. (shrink)

Introduction: to the student -- Ethics and Christian ethics -- An overview of ethics -- Definitions -- Subject matter -- Assumptions -- Cautions -- Alternatives to Christian ethics -- Religious systems -- Judaism -- Islam -- Hinduism -- Buddhism -- Humanism -- Objectivism -- Behaviorism -- Alternatives within Christian ethics -- Obedience to external authority -- In Roman Catholicism -- In Protestantism -- Responsibility for personal decisions -- What am I to do? -- What am (...) I to be? -- Transforming society -- Reinhold Neibuhr's "impossible possibility" -- Paul Ramsey's "obedient love" -- James Gustafson's "theocentric ethics" -- Liberation theology -- Ethics and the Christian faith -- Sources of guidance -- The Bible -- The Christian community -- The nature of the church -- The function of the church -- The Christian in the church -- Personal experience -- The use of the mind -- The prompting of the conscience -- The leadership of the spirit -- Biblical ethics -- The Hebrew Scripture -- General characteristics of Hebrew morality -- The law, the prophets, and the writings -- Jesus and the Gospels -- Jesus and Judaism -- Characteristics of Jesus's ethical teachings -- Basic concepts in Jesus's ethical teachings -- The example of Jesus -- The ethical teachings of Paul -- Theology and ethics -- An ethic of responsible freedom -- An ethic of love -- An ethic of a new life -- Faith working through love -- Theological premises -- Beliefs about God -- Beliefs about humankind -- Beliefs about history -- Faith -- Faith and salvation -- Life in the Christian community -- The instruction of Scripture -- Worship and morality -- Love (agape) -- The nature of love -- The source of love -- The demands of love -- The relationship between love and justice -- Decision -- Christian ethics and contemporary issues -- Human sexuality and the marriage relationship -- The current scene -- A Christian interpretation of sexuality -- A theological perspective -- Questions about the relationship -- A Christian interpretation of marriage -- Homosexuality and the Christian faith -- Contemporary social perspective -- A biblical perspective -- Varying Christian interpretations -- Homosexuality and the Christian way of live. (shrink)

This book is an unusually readable and lucid account of the development of Derrida's work, from his early writings on phenomenology and structuralism to his most recent interventions in debates on psychoanalysis, ethics and politics. Christina Howells gives a clear explanation of many of the key terms of deconstruction - including differance, trace, supplement and logocentrism - and shows how they function in Derrida's writing. She explores his critique of the notion of self-presence through his engagement with Husserl, and (...) his critique of humanist conceptions of the subject through an account of his ambivalent and evolving relationship to the philosophy of Sartre. The question of the relationship between philosophy and literature is examined through an analysis of the texts of the 1970s, and in particular Glas, where Derrida confronts Hegel's totalizing dialectics with the fragmentary and iconoclastic writings of Jean Genet. The author addresses directly the vexed questions of the extreme difficulty of Derrida's own writing and of the passionate hostility it arouses in philosophers as diverse as Searle and Habermas. She argues that deconstruction is a vital stimulus to vigilance in both the ethical and political spheres, contributing significantly to debate on issues such as democracy, the legacy of Marxism, responsibility, and the relationship between law and justice. Comprehensive, cogently argued and up to date, this book will be an invaluable text for students and scholars alike. (shrink)

Offering a format that is significantly different than that offered by other books, Ethical Health Care beings by asking what is meant by health and how it is achieved. The book then proceeds to explore with care and context the nature of the relationship between patients and clinicians, health care providers and the societies in which they inhabit, and finally the relationship between the health care enterprise and the international community. By emphasizing the ethical issues that (...) arise in the broad quest to foster human health, and appreciating that health is not primarily a function of medical interventions, Ethical Health Care introduces students to problems such as the international distribution of pharmaceuticals and the dangers of reemerging infections. To a far greater extent than is done traditionally, Ethical Health Care provides an interdisciplinary perspective to bioethics, relying heavily upon the teachings of economics, law, and public health. (shrink)

Genome editing, for instance by CRISPR-Cas, is a major advancement of the last 10 years in medicine but questions ethically our practices. In particular, human embryo heritable genome editing is a source of great controversy. We explored how this ethical question was debated in the literature from PubMed database, in a period of 4 years (2016–2020) around the announcement of the ‘CRISPR babies’ Chinese experiment in November 2018. We evaluated the weight of the arguments for and against this topic, through (...) an analysis of reviews published on this question. The most important arguments come from the technical perspective: safety issues and benefits, putative long-term effects on the future generations and the need to assess this aspect. Next, foreseeable clinical benefits and the alternatives to these methods are discussed. The number of people that would benefit from such techniques is also considered. However, social and anthropological issues are addressed in a more disparate way. Parenthood and desire for children are sometimes overlooked. Few authors mention social justice, stigmatisation and equality of access. Consent and information are more clearly addressed, as well as the question of the relationship between generations. Finally, the effects on the nature of humankind or human species are far from being consensual; the risks of enhancement, eugenics and transhumanism are raised. We conclude that the risks associated with the immaturity of the technique were at the forefront of the ethical debate on human embryo heritable genome editing. Their consequences were seen as more immediate and easier to handle than those of sociological or anthropological projections, which are more speculative in nature. (shrink)

In this article, we examined the relationship between abusive supervision and deviant workplace behavior and the moderating role of an Islamic Work Ethic. Three hundred and thirty‐six employees in different organizations (specializing in software development, medicine, law enforcement, telecommunication, pharmaceutics, and banking) across Pakistan completed our questionnaire. The results revealed that abusive supervision was positively related to deviant workplace behavior. Moreover, the moderation of an Islamic Work Ethic on the relationship between abusive supervision and deviant work (...) behavior was confirmed. The study contributed in many ways. It expanded literature by revealing a weaker relationship between abusive supervision and deviant behavior when Islamic Work Ethic (IWE) was high. It also tested the conservation of resources theory by providing a plausible reasoning of the role of IWE in employee motivation. By integrating IWE as a resource in the workplace, practitioners would learn that the proper use of resources would produce satisfied workers who would not indulge in deviant workplace behaviors. (shrink)

Kantian deontology is one of three classic moral theories, among virtue ethics and consequentialism. Issues in medical ethics are frequently addressed within a Kantian paradigm, at least – although not exclusively – in European medical ethics. At the same time, critical voices have pointed to deficits of Kantian moral philosophy which must be examined and discussed. It is argued that taking concrete situations and complex relationships into account is of paramount importance in medical ethics. Encounters (...) class='Hi'>between medical or nursing staff and patients are rarely symmetrical relationships between autonomous and rational agents. Kantian ethics, the criticism reads, builds on the lofty ideal of such a relationship. In addition to the charge of an individualist and rationalist focus on autonomy, Kantian ethics has been accused of excluding those not actually in possession of these properties or of its rigorism. It is said to be focussed on laws and imperatives to an extent that it cannot appreciate the complex nuances of real conflicts. As a more detailed analysis will show, these charges are inadequate in at least some regards. This will be demonstrated by drawing on the Kantian notion of autonomy, the role of maxims and judgment and the conception of duties, as well as the role of emotions. Nevertheless the objections brought forward against Kantian moral theory can help determine, with greater precision, its strengths and shortcomings as an approach to current problems in medical ethics. (shrink)

This classic textbook focuses on medical law and its relationship with medical practice and modern ethics. It provides thorough coverage of all of the topics found on medical law courses, and in depth analysis of recent court decisions, encouraging students to think analytically about the subject.

The primary claim of this paper is that intellectual conflicts of interest (COIs) exist but are of lower ethical priority than COIs flowing from relationships between health professionals and commercial industry characterized by financial exchange. The paper begins by defining intellectual COIs and framing them in the context of scholarship on non-financial COIs. However, the paper explains that the crucial distinction is not between financial and non-financial COIs but is rather between motivations for bias that flow from (...) relationships and those that do not. While commitments to particular ideas or perspectives can cause all manner of cognitive bias, that fact does not justify denying the enormous power that relationships featuring pecuniary gain have on professional behaviour in term of care, policy, or both. Sufficient reason exists to take both intellectual COIs and financial COIs seriously, but this paper demonstrates why the latter is of higher ethical priority. Multiple reasons will be provided, but the primary rationale grounding the claim is that intellectual COIs may provide reasons to suspect cognitive bias but they do not typically involve a loss of trust in a social role. The same cannot be said for COIs flowing from relationships between health professionals and commercial industries involving financial exchange. The paper then assumes arguendo that the primary rationale is mistaken and proceeds to show why the claims that intellectual COIs are more significant than relationship-based COIs are dubious on their own merits. The final section of the paper summarizes and concludes. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to explain the relationship between the ethical evaluation of scientific research involving personal data and the assessment of compliance with data protection law. The article presents the mutual relationship between the protection of personal data and scientific activity from a dogmatic perspective, the legal regulation of the processing of personal data in scientific research, and the so-called research exceptions that apply when data are processed for scientific research. It also covers (...) the importance of meeting the ethical requirements of scientific research in order to profit from the indicated exceptions. Finally, it provides a comparison between the ethical and the legal systems of personal data protection in research (objectives, criteria, authorities, and procedures). (shrink)

In an increasingly litigious society where ritual demands for accountability and “taking responsibility” are now commonplace, it is not surprising that members of clinical ethics committees (CECs) are becoming more aware of their potential legal liability. Yet the vulnerability of committee members to legal action is difficult to assess with any certainty. This is because the CECs which have been set up in the UK are—if the American experience is followed—likely to vary significantly in terms of their functions, procedures, (...) composition, structures and authority. As a consequence it is difficult to generalise about the legal implications. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties this article will outline the broad legal principles governing the potential liability of committee members. It will also consider the relationship between CECs and the courts. It begins, however, with a brief analysis of the relationship between ethics and law in committee deliberations, and in particular of the role of law and legal expertise on CECs. (shrink)

In this paper, we employ Extended Cognition as a background for a series of thought experiments about privacy and common used information technology devices. Laptops and smart phones are now widely used devices, but current privacy standards do not adequately address the relationship between the owners of these devices and the information stored on them. Law enforcement treats laptops and smart phones are potential sources of information about criminal activity, but this treatment ignores the use of smart devices (...) as extensions of users’ cognitive capability. In Philosophy of Mind, Extended Cognition is a metaphysical theory about the relationship between consciousness or cognitive activity and various external tools or aids that agents employ in the service of cognition. Supporters of Extended Cognition argue that mental activity must be understood as taking place both within the brain and by way of tools such as a logician’s pen and paper, a mathematician’s calculator, or a writer’s word processing program. While Extended Cognition does not have universal support among philosophers of mind, the theory nevertheless describes how agents interact with their “smart devices.” We explore the the implications of taking Extended Cognition seriously with regard to privacy concerns by way of a series of thought experiments. By comparing the differences in expectations of privacy between a citizen and the government, between an employee of a corporate firm, and between citizens alone, we show that expectations of privacy and injury are significantly affected by taking the cognitive role of smart devices into account. (shrink)

Background A combination of theoretical and practical approaches is required to learn and acquire ethical competencies in caring. Occasionally, reflection on practical action differs from theoretical learning. In the context of reflective learning, issues such as ethical values can be discussed since they evoke conflict among nursing students. Aim To identify ethical conflicts encountered by nursing students during clinical placements and to determine their cooperation strategies. Research design Qualitative study with a content analysis according to Elo and Kinglas framework. Participants (...) and research context Students enrolled in a nursing program at a Spanish university aged between 22 and 35, mainly women. Methodology The study includes 134 ethical reflections from nursing students in the last year of the nursing program, written during their clinical practices in a variety of learning environments. The research team analyzed the reflections using an inductive content analysis method. Ethical considerations Ethical permission was obtained by the management center according to Law 3/2028, and all the participants accepted to participate through the informed consent form. Findings Three main categories emerged from the analysis of the ethical reflections: (1) evaluation of professional performance and patient care; (2) the student as the protagonist of the dilemma; (3) student coping. Student dilemmas and concerns are related to ignorance, student-patient communication, mistakes made and self-confidence. Some situations conflict with the autonomy of patients and their rights, and can contribute to stressful situations for patients. Stress factors include hospital routines, which the patient cannot modify, and asymmetric relationships with staff, which encourage passivity. Conclusion All ethical problems detected by the students begin with the professional-patient relationship, including issues related to bad news, errors or malpractice. Reflection on the ethical values of nursing, both in the classroom and in clinical practices, allows students to develop a greater ethical awareness of care, enhancing their decision-making skills in ethical dilemmas. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Being Benevolence: The Social Ethics of Engaged BuddhismRita M. GrossBeing Benevolence: The Social Ethics of Engaged Buddhism. By Sallie B. King. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. 291 pp.This discussion of the social ethics of Engaged Buddhism is organized into chapters on four basic issues: the relationship between individual and society, human rights, nonviolence and its limits, and justice/reconciliation. Setting the context for (...) these issues are an introduction, a chapter on how Engaged Buddhist social ethics is built from Buddhist tradition, and another surveying Engaged Buddhist [End Page 174] ethical theory. The author's conclusions and evaluations of the movement, for the most part, are found in the last chapter, the book's eighth.In her preface, King explains a crucial decision she made regarding the extent of her analysis of Engaged Buddhism. She realized that an important question about Engaged Buddhism concerns its relationship with Western thought and decided that she could better focus on that question and "avoid muddying the waters" (p. xii) by not including Western Engaged Buddhist thinking in her survey. She further justifies this decision by claiming that Western Buddhists are still largely students of Asian Buddhists who need to overcome familiar cultural habits "to clearly perceive the otherness of Buddhism and what it has to offer" (p. xii). This decision makes sense in its own context, and I agree that many Western Buddhists seem to not understand that the spiritual and philosophical foundations of Buddhism are quite different from those of Western religions. Unfortunately, the decision to not include Western Engaged Buddhists also furthers a view that Buddhism is "foreign," and, therefore, not directly relevant to Westerners or to the issues that most occupy Westerners in our day. Many Western Buddhists are at pains to undercut precisely that view of Buddhism. However, I do concede that including Western Engaged Buddhists in her analysis would have complicated her task enormously.King's concerns about the relationship between Engaged Buddhist thinking and Western thinking have more to do with refuting the claim made by "traditional" Buddhists, both Asian and Western, that the Engaged Buddhist movement is merely the product of Western influences and, therefore, not truly Buddhist. She refutes this claim by demonstrating that the most influential Asian Engaged Buddhist leaders are intelligent, well-educated people who are unlikely to meekly adopt foreign ideas. Cogently, she argues that Western influences on Engaged Buddhism do not make Engaged Buddhism "the product of Western influences" and that the claim that Engaged Buddhism is the result of Western cultural imperialism denies what it is trying to protect: "the subjectivity and agency of the Engaged Buddhist leaders themselves" (p. 3). She demonstrates that Asian Engaged Buddhist leaders are selective about which Western concepts they include in their discussions of social ethics and that their thinking about social ethics has deep consonance with utterly basic Buddhist concerns, such as interdependence, the Four Noble Truths, anatman (lack of independent abiding self), the enlightenability of human beings, the importance of compassion, the importance of varied self-transformative practices, and nonviolence.Before delving into Engaged Buddhism's major concerns in depth, King provides a lengthy chapter in which she outlines Engaged Buddhist ethical theory. She does not claim that Engaged Buddhists have worked out a systematic ethical philosophy, but rather that certain ideas and claims underlie their recommendations and actions, although not all of them are used by every Engaged Buddhist or in every situation. Natural law ethics, which claims that ethical requirements are not culturally relative because they stem from the nature of reality itself, not human invention, is an important element in Engaged Buddhist thinking, she [End Page 175] claims. (King, however, does not discuss the difficulty that the different religions have very different analyses of the nature of reality.) Engaged Buddhists also use a developmental perspective, recognizing that, as individuals develop, ethical understanding also develops. That developmental perspective implies that ethics is more about principles than about rules. Engaged Buddhist ethics are holistic, in that intellect and emotion are not thought of as at odds with each other in ethical decision making, but are well integrated with each other. A nonadversarial stance is critical... (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), a French Philosopher and a Jew, became known first for his role in the introduction of Husserl’s phenomenology to France, and later for his criticisms of Husserl and Heidegger. As the Holocaust gave a significant impact on many theologians and philosophers to establish their theoretical systems, Levinas realized how ethic of responsibility was important through his personal tragic experience. What most peculiar character of his experience is that it leads him to cast a doubt a subject-oriented modern (...) reason. I will explore the modern subjectivity through the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. As Nietzsche mentioned earlier in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is subject dead? Is it no longer meaningful to discuss the modernity in the postmodern ear?Should the trend of anti-subjectivity in the postmodernity be the only alternative? Those questions are underlain this study. For him, the preeminence of the inviolability of the human being must be regarded as the initial point of departure and final destiny. According to Levinas, philosophy is open to its role of significance only insofar as it describes the ethical situation of the responsible self that precedes the metaphysical subject. A bold assertion against the modern perquisite of theory becomes a signature aphorism of Livinas’ work: “ethics is first philosophy.” For Levinas, ethics is not a question of adjusting one’s adherence to transcendent or historical laws or inner principles. Whereas philosophy traditionally gives priority to inner subjectivity and treats ethics as derivative, Levinas’ philosophy stresses that knowing occurs within and is a result of the intersubjective relation. The subject as hostage to the Other, he writes, “has been neither the experience nor the proof of the infinite, but the witnessing of the infinite.” This subjective condition of the ‘I’ is what Levinas calls the responsible self. This article explores whether Emmanuel Levinas's ethic of the Other can be regarded as a theological discourse. After publishing Totality and Infinity, there have been manyserious questions of the relationship between transcendence and immanence; infinity and the finite among many philosophers and theologians. Interestingly enough, Levinas tries to mediate these concepts by his ethic of the Other. I examine how Levinas deals with the tension and difficulty of these two areas in his ethic of the Other. As a French phenomenologist, Jean-Luc Marion already mentioned, this kind of attempt has confronted a double-bind dilemma. One is that it would be a question of phenomena that are objectively definable but lose their religious specialty; and the other is that it would be a question of phenomena that are especially religious but cannot be described objectively. In this sense, Levinas’s ethic of the Other gives us an insight that what philosophy of religion would be. A great deal of information about such great philosophers does not always guarantee sound philosophical reflection. As Levinas’ philosophy was developed in his struggle with Heidegger’s philosophy in the matrix of Husserl’s phenomenology, my philosophical reflection on Levinas’ ethics has to be examined by those who are experts in various philosophical areas. Many members of WCP from all around the world will provide me more mature philosophical thinking, and their advice and expertise will be invaluable. In addition, chances to meet great visiting scholars who will come from all over the world will be also one of the prestigious privileges to articulate my thinking. I look forward to interacting with the great scholars who will visit Seoul National University, and in these interactions, to clarify and better articulate my ideas. (shrink)

This chapter provides an outline of consent in the history of medical ethics. In doing so, it ranges over attitudes towards consent in medicine in ancient Greece, medieval Europe and the Middle East, as well as the history of Western law and medical ethics from the early modern period onwards. It considers the relationship between consent and both the disclosure of information to patients and the need to indemnify physicians, while attempting to avoid an anachronistic projection (...) of concern with patient autonomy too far back into the historical record. The chapter also includes a survey of the development of the social and intellectual infrastructure that underpins modern medical consent. It concludes with a brief discussion of possible future directions for ethical approaches to medical consent and competence that would depart from the models that arose in the twentieth-century. (shrink)

The objective of this study was to assess the beliefs of parents of youth soccer players about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, concussion, and retirement from sport decisions and compare them to those of concussion-specialized clinicians. An electronic survey was completed by parents of youth club soccer players and concussion-specialized clinicians located in a large U.S. urban center. Parents believed more strongly in the causal relationship between concussions and CTE, and between CTE and harm than did clinicians. Parents who (...) themselves had participated in sport at a high level had more conservative beliefs than other parents about the number of concussions after which an athlete should retire from contact or collision sport. Results are discussed in the context of ethical risk communication between clinicians and parents. This includes the importance of communicating information about CTE to parents and youth athletes in an understandable way so that they can make informed choices about contact and collision sport participation. Further research is encouraged to evaluate approaches of communicating evidence about CTE to a diverse population of families of youth athletes. (shrink)

This study explores the linear logic between consumer ethical beliefs (CEBs) and consumer unethical behavior (CUB) in a Chinese context. A relational view helps fill the belief–behavior gap by exploring the moderating role of relationship quality in reducing CUBs. Specifically, when consumers are more receptive to a set of actions that may be deemed inappropriate by moral principles, they are more likely to engage in unethical behaviors. However, when consumers perceive their misconduct as possibly damaging to the (...) class='Hi'>relationship developed with the seller, they tend to refrain from unethical behaviors. CEBs and relationship quality also combine to affect unethical behaviors. Although consumers find the misconduct acceptable according to their ethical beliefs, they become less likely to conduct the behavior if they have a close relationship with the seller. The results contribute to a better understanding of the simplistic logic that connects CEBs and their unethical behaviors and shed light on how close relationships with consumers help contain CUBs. (shrink)

What the Doctor Didn’t Say, by Jerry Menikoff and Edward P. Richards, is a courageous and well-written volume that examines some of the fundamental debates pertaining to the ethics of clinical research. The volume deserves a careful reading by anyone with a potential role in clinical research: clinicians who might serve as investigators or refer patients to clinical trials; research staff; Institutional Review Board members and administrators; sponsors who design clinical trials; and the book’s intended audience, namely, potential research (...) participants and their families. A cursory reading of this volume might lead one to think that Menikoff and Richards have declared war on clinical research. They have not. Instead, they offer an in-depth study of the conduct and oversight of clinical research through the lens of law and ethics. They shed light on old issues and initiate discussion of new questions, challenging readers to think critically about the relationship between medical ethics, research ethics, the law, and the conduct of clinical research. (shrink)

BackgroundMedical aid in dying was introduced in Quebec in 2015. Quebec clinical guidelines recommend that MAiD be approached as a last resort when other care options are insufficient; however, the law sets no such requirement. To date, little is known about when and how requests for MAiD are situated in the broader context of decision-making in end-of-life care; the timing of MAiD raises potential ethical issues.MethodsA retrospective chart review of all MAiD requests between December 2015 and June 2017 at (...) two Quebec hospitals and one long-term care centre was conducted to explore the relationship between routine end-of-life care practices and the timing of MAiD requests.ResultsOf 80 patients requesting MAiD, 54% received the intervention. The median number of days between the request for MAiD and the patient’s death was 6 days. The majority of palliative care consults came less than 7 days prior to the MAiD request and in another 25% of cases occurred the day of or after MAiD was requested. 35% of patients had no level of intervention form, or it was documented as 1 or 2 at the time of the MAiD request and 19% were receiving life-prolonging interventions.InterpretationWe highlight ethical considerations relating to the timing of MAiD requests within the broader context of end-of-life care. Whether or not MAiD is conceptualised as morally distinct from other end-of-life options is likely to influence clinicians’ approach to requests for MAiD as well as the ethical importance of our findings. We suggest that in the wake of the 2015 legislation, requests for MAiD have not always appeared to come after an exploration of other options as professional practice guidelines recommend. (shrink)

We thank our commentators for their thoughtful responses to our paper1 covering among other issues the relationships of ethics law and professional codes, the tensions between ethical universalism and cultural relativism and the phenomenon of moral judgement required when ethical norms conflict, including the norms of patient care versus obligations to others both now and in the future. Although the comments deserve more extensive discussion, in what follows we respond briefly to specific aspects of each commentary and remind (...) readers that professional codes of ethics are necessarily brief and that the International Code of Medical Ethics (ICoME) explicitly refers to the World Medical Association’s (WMA) mutually concordant and far more extensive ‘body of policies’.2 Sarela raises a fundamental and, as stated in the commentary, unresolved debate: ‘should ethics shape law or is it the converse’?3 We understand the ‘global medical ethos’ represented in the WMA’s revised ICoME to be firmly embedded in the assumption that ethics should shape law and that only where laws are so shaped do people governed by them have an ethical obligation to obey them. For the medical profession, laws permitting participation in torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading practices and punishments are categorically unethical, and therefore, doctors must not facilitate or participate in them—difficult as it may be for some doctors in some regions or environments to act accordingly. Schantz and Mansoori claim that ‘if a code of ethics is an act of professional self-regulation and professional self-regulation is community-dependent, then a code of ethics cannot be …. (shrink)