Ethical Demands Research Articles

Autonomous vehicles and moral judgments under risk

Some criticize the data-driven study of driverless car ethics for relying on deterministic crash scenarios where the focus should be on minimizing the occurrence of accidents instead. Indeed, decisions in road traffic are taken in the domain of risk. A relevant ethical question is, however, whether autonomous vehicles should actually minimize an accident’s probability or rather balance the accident’s probability and severity. While ethicists’ introspections might lead them to different conclusions, a participatory paradigm in ethics demands to include laypeople’s intuitions into the societal debate. In three online studies, we found that the mere minimization of accident probability in ethical dilemmas does not correspond to the views of our sample. Our participants favor a balanced consideration of accident probability and severity. This remains true even if the underlying dilemma is based on a more realistic scenario of allocating minor risks among road users. Our findings furthermore illustrate that trolley problems may be informative for autonomous vehicles and emphasize the importance of transparency if manufacturers and the public do not agree on guiding principles in road traffic.

Epistemología de la medición

Measuring designates the process by which a system is interacted with in order to represent some of its aspects by means of abstract terms or those that have a merely ideal character, establishing common references that allow comparison with a predetermined pattern and bounded by predetermined margins of uncertainty. Obviously, measurement is an essential component of science; one of its hallmarks, a primary source of knowledge and the essential link between theory and experimentation, allowing them to feed off each other and continuously improve. In the scientific study of any phenomenon, the intervention of the observer and the very fact of the observation disturb the phenomenon studied. For this reason, it is always necessary to take into consideration the degree of disturbance it produces, something that in clinical research can be particularly complex due to the multiplicity and variability of human manifestations. The complexity of the observed subject (human being), given his condition as a thinking, emotional, moral and social entity, multiplies the uncertainty of his responses, both individual and collective, and extreme methodological and ethical demands of the scientist; In addition, the response of each individual to a clinical intervention incorporates multiple other factors unrelated to the effects objectively attributable to the intervention, but which must be duly weighed. For all these reasons, in order to scientifically measure the effect of an intervention in a clinical trial, it is essential to previously define and justify the minimum magnitude of the change that can give rise to an effect that is clinically relevant for the patient and for the observer.

Tension Faced By Doctors Between Professional Ethics And Institutional Demands

Ethical standards are the underpinning of medical practice and practising it is considered to be devotional. 21 century marks the oppressed period for health practitioners as many of them face challenges in day-to-day practice. And as a result, these doctors are facing tension against the ill treatment towards them. These days, health practitioners face threat from many strata of individuals asking them to modify or even change certain data so as to benefit the said person. Such unethical practices have made the public lose trust in them. In order to overcome such issues, the health care professionals need to be given ample amount of rest period so as to relax their body and mind through strategic approach. Along with this, proper government rules should be passed in order to stop such deceitful practices with no loopholes available. The management of stress shall drastically decrease with the above two measure along with which good leadership skills and strategic interventions are needed for the same. The managerial tools shall be taken into consideration by various doctors and thereby channelize them into making good. This review mainly focuses on the effectiveness of measures implemented to reduce tension and how to endure it.

Medical teleconsultation. Analysis and recommendations from the ethics department of the Chilean medical association

The possibility of allowing patients access to health professionals, has been greatly facilitated by advances in technology. Indeed, nowadays it is possible not only direct contact between one health professional with another, but also the possibility of sending images and other tests to consult distant colleagues. This has undoubtedly enabled better health care for many patients. It is also possible for a patient to consult a doctor directly in a remote and synchronous way with oral and visual contact, thus establishing a new form of medical consultation. It is this last way of relationship, which has already spread as a practice in normal times, which arouses apprehensions about the ethical requirements that a consultation must meet. This work by the Ethics Department of the Chilean Medical Association seeks to reflect on the ethical demands of a medical consultation and on the shortcomings that teleconsultation has. It also aims to propose several recommendations, so that this new form of doctor-patient relationship serves as a complement to traditional care, without jeopardizing the objectives of a medical action.

Preface: Meeting the Ethical Demands of the Present

Preface: Meeting the Ethical Demands of the Present

The Ethical Demand, by K. E. LøgstrupEthical Concepts and Problems, by K. E. Løgstrup

<i>The Ethical Demand</i>, by K. E. Løgstrup<i>Ethical Concepts and Problems</i>, by K. E. Løgstrup

The Sociotechnical Ethics of Digital Health: A Critique and Extension of Approaches From Bioethics.

The widespread adoption of digital technologies raises important ethical issues in health care and public health. In our view, understanding these ethical issues demands a perspective that looks beyond the technology itself to include the sociotechnical system in which it is situated. In this sense, a sociotechnical system refers to the broader collection of material devices, interpersonal relationships, organizational policies, corporate contracts, and government regulations that shape the ways in which digital health technologies are adopted and used. Bioethical approaches to the assessment of digital health technologies are typically confined to ethical issues raised by features of the technology itself. We suggest that an ethical perspective confined to functions of the technology is insufficient to assess the broader impact of the adoption of technologies on the care environment and the broader health-related ecosystem of which it is a part. In this paper we review existing approaches to the bioethics of digital health, and draw on concepts from design ethics and science & technology studies (STS) to critique a narrow view of the bioethics of digital health. We then describe the sociotechnical system produced by digital health technologies when adopted in health care environments, and outline the various considerations that demand attention for a comprehensive ethical analysis of digital health technologies in this broad perspective. We conclude by outlining the importance of social justice for ethical analysis from a sociotechnical perspective.

Writing Self, Writing Empire: Chandar Bhan Brahman and the Cultural World of the Indo-Persian State Secretary

Writing Self, Writing Empire: Chandar Bhan Brahman and the Cultural World of the Indo-Persian State Secretary

Comment Sections and the Ethical Demands of Democracy

The decision of some online news platforms to eliminate comment sections is both understandable and frustrating. It is understandable as one does not have to read far into comment sections to see d...

Why Does the Precautionary Principle Suffice for Blood Regulation?

Traditional approaches to blood regulation emphasise the precautionary principle and pursue zero-risk for viral transmission; these traditional approaches have usually followed tragedy, such as the HIV and hepatitis C infections that followed the use of factor VIII concentrates. However, a much more haphazard haemovigilance system operates for general adverse events. Such imprecise assessment of hazards prevents sound benefit-risk assessment, and for blood products this is further confounded by the fact that their efficacy has attracted little systematic study. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has now prompted the proposal of a convalescent plasma (CP) blood product. Clearly, mere freedom from infectious agents will not suffice in assessing CP, and an objective measure of efficacy, so as to permit formal benefit-risk analysis, is essential. This is both a scientific and an ethical demand, as has been the case for other experimental COVID-19 treatments. With special reference to COVID-19 CP, the well-recognized adverse events of transfusion-associated lung injury (TRALI) and transfusion-associated circulatory overload (TACO) will be important. Furthermore, not only efficacy but also product quality attributes (e.g., antibody titre) will have to be defined. Both of these are outside the traditional regulatory philosophy for blood products and are needed to truly assess the benefit-risk of this putative therapeutic product.

Lowering the Consumption of Animal Products without Sacrificing Consumer Freedom – A Pragmatic Proposal

ABSTRACT It is well-established that policy aiming to change individual consumption patterns for environmental or other ethical reasons faces a trade-off between effectiveness and public acceptance. The more ambitious a policy intervention is, the higher the likelihood of reactionary backlash; the higher the intervention’s public acceptance, the less bite it is likely to have. This paper proposes a package of interventions aiming for a substantial reduction of animal product consumption while circumventing the diagnosed trade-off. It couples stringent industry regulation, which lowers output and raises prices, with a targeted universal income at a level which would allow typical households to maintain their animal product consumption even at the post-regulation price level. The change of opportunity costs of animal products, however, would induce a shift of consumption away from animal products while enhancing – rather than diminishing – consumer freedom and welfare. The policy package, which is further designed to cohere with traditional value orderings rather than relying exclusively on progressive concerns, is politically ambitious, but psychologically pragmatic. It constitutes an attempt to socialize the endeavor of bringing consumption patterns in line with ethical demands by empowering, rather than sanctioning, individuals, and relevant groups.

A Note on African Socialism

A Note on African Socialism

When two worlds collide: the unsettling experiences of non-Indigenous volunteers at 2017 World Indigenous Nations Games

ABSTRACT Foregrounding the ethical demands for non-Indigenous people to be relationally accountable to Indigenous Peoples in settler colonial societies as well as the potential of sport as a site for social change, this study examines the experiences of a group of non-Indigenous sport volunteers at the 2017 World Indigenous Nations Games (WIN Games), an international event hosted simultaneously with the ‘Canada 150ʹ celebration. The findings reveal four themes related to non-Indigenous volunteers’ unsettling yet meaningful experiences. This research highlights how responsible and reflexive engagement through sport, e.g., volunteering, might contain critical educational value and be mobilized as a modest way of action in unsettling settler colonialism.

“Den guddommeligt skønne natur”

Abstract: The article offers a contribution to the understanding of K.E. Løgstrup’s metaphysics focusing on his reading of Friedrich Hölderlin’s poetry and Martin Heidegger’s interpretation thereof. Heideggerian ontology plays a crucial role in Løgstrup’s theology as a philosophical explication of the pre-understanding of Christian faith. At first, existential ontology was essential in this respect, but later Løgstrup realized the necessity of broadening the view to being in general, which equals the movement towards metaphysics. In this movement, Hölderlin as interpreted by Heidegger is pivotal, an important element being the “poetic openness” Løgstrup introduces in The Ethical Demand. In unpublished manuscripts, Løgstrup claims that poetic openness in Hölderlin has an ontological and metaphysical content, and his reading thereby anticipates central themes in his later metaphysics such as omnipresence, particularity, and the history-nature relation.

Why Care? Volunteer work and the ethical demand among young Afghan-Danes

Why Care? Volunteer work and the ethical demand among young Afghan-Danes

Ethics of Being Close

This acrylic painting considers intimacy and its ethical demands during our personal and professional encounters with one another, drawing on Pablo Picasso's 1907 Head of the Medical Student.

George the Chemist

The present paper is an attempt to answer Bernard Williams' classical dilemma of George the chemist, who is asked by a senior colleague to partake in a CBW research program. Both George and the colleague oppose the research, and George is advised not to publicize his attitude for George to get the job instead of someone more eager. On the one hand, George does not want to be involved in the research, yet on the other hand, he does not want to allow it to be completed faster. The author views George's potential actions as sabotage and argues that since the existing ethical codes demand putting safety ahead of the pressures of the employers, sabotage should not be out of the question. CBW endangers entire communities, and thus secretly sabotaging its research amounts to disaster prevention and should be considered a professional duty by consequentialists and deontologists alike, even if it may involve deception and furthermore deception about deception.

Radical plurality on universal grounds

AbstractThis paper focuses on recent debates between the proponents of individualism and communitarianism. As the authors argue, the dichotomous character of these debates is inherently problematic, as no one functions just as an individual or member. Starting from the discussion around the Netflix series "Unorthodox" in the Swedish context, the authors engage with Sharon Todd's radical conception of plurality, and K.E. Løgstrup's notions of interdependence and the resulting ethical demand to show how these debates could be reframed into the constructive tension between plurality and universality.

Solicited diary methods with urban refugee women: Ethical and practical considerations

Urban refugee women are a challenging research population to contact as they typically prefer to remain discreet and anonymous in their host cities due to concerns over their status and security. Building trust and rapport can be challenging and researchers need to balance issues such as negotiating gatekeepers and time scales alongside ethical demands to do no harm and avoid extractive and exploitative research. As a result, refugee women’s individual and quotidian experiences are rarely examined and foregrounded and their emotional responses to their host cities and host communities are overlooked. In light of this, considered methods, such as solicited diaries, which allow refugees the space and time to reflect on their emotional experiences and these associations with space and place, could be beneficial. However, there has been little written on the use of this method with refugee participants in deeply marginalised circumstances. Alongside some practical and ethical considerations of using solicited diary methods with urban refugee women, this paper considers two main issues. First, the practical role that instructions play in guiding participant responses and engagement in the diary process, and second the ways in which diaries can illuminate the relationship between emotion and spatiality. Diaries were found to have much to offer in advocating refugees as knowledge holders, whereby written excerpts act as “evidence” of their experiences. Analysed alongside other qualitative methods, and if used appropriately and considerately with refugee participants, diaries have the potential to be insightful, empowering, and cathartic.

Postscript

Postscript