Ethical Flaws Research Articles

Ashwagandha under fire: A critical scientific analysis of regulatory decisions

Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera [L.] Dunal) is one of the most renowned Ayurvedic medicinal plants, extensively used in traditional Indian medicine systems such as Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, and Sowa Rigpa for millennia. Its medicinal uses of the root are documented in ancient texts such as the Charaka samhita, Sushruta samhita, and various Nighantus. Recognized globally, Ashwagandha is included in numerous pharmacopoeias, including the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India (API), British Pharmacopoeia, and United States Pharmacopoeia. Despite its extensive use and documented benefits, Ashwagandha faced scrutiny in Denmark. The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration banned Ashwagandha based on a 2020 report by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). This report has been criticized for its technical, scientific, and ethical flaws, including reliance on unverified sources and omission of significant data from authoritative compendiums such as the API. Notably, the report’s references often included studies that did not adhere to established standards for Ashwagandha extracts. Furthermore, the alleged abortifacient properties cited in the Danish report are not supported by extensive reviews of traditional texts and modern scientific literature, which indicates the safety of Ashwagandha when used appropriately. This article aims to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the Danish report, emphasizing the necessity of adhering to rigorous scientific standards and accurately representing historical and contemporary data on Ashwagandha.

In Defense of Immoralism

This paper investigates whether an ethical flaw in an artwork can be an aesthetic merit. I explore two versions of immoralism from Eaton and Kieran. I will defend the immoralist claim that artworks containing rough heroes are ethically flawed. I will then argue that an indirect connection between an ethical flaw and aesthetic merit is sufficient for immoralism, so long as it is a necessary connection. On this understanding of immoralism, I will argue that Eaton and Kieran are both successful in showing that an ethical flaw in an artwork can make it aesthetically better.

An International Assessment on Research on Neuroethics

Neuroethics is an essential partner to neuroscience. It is a guiding hand that indicates the moral and ethical flaws in neuroscience research. Currently, there is one outstanding problem that arises from the advancements in neuroscience research: the ethical aspect. There are flaws in the protection of individual rights to privacy during research projects and procedures. To combat these issues, it is imperative that there be an international framework that is developed to prevent the breach of privacy while still advancing our knowledge on this topic. After identifying what the overlapping goals are for countries on this topic, it is necessary to combine them and eventually create an international guideline. To achieve this goal, I will be collecting research papers that describe the work being done on neuroethics and how that has increased or decreased in the last five years. This data will be analyzed to identify the increase/decrease in knowledge and publications on this topic. There are many implications for any neurological implantation, and neuroethics is a path to help solve any issues that arise.

How bad can good sport be?

ABSTRACT I argue that ethical features of sport strongly interact with aesthetic features of sport, such that all pro tanto ethical merits/defects count as aesthetic merits/defects. This is a much-debated topic in the philosophy of art and aesthetics literature, in which recent critics have taken to task this interactionist take on how ethical evaluative properties interact with aesthetic ones. The critics’ main argument against this view is that far too many works of art than theorists of this strong interactionist kind care to admit either lack the evaluative ethical properties they claim for them, or their ethical properties do not appreciably affect their aesthetic properties. Sport, I argue, is a notable exception. That’s because in sport ethical flaws in athletic performances double as aesthetic flaws with very few exceptions, or so I will argue. Unlike artworks, therefore, the interactionist thesis holds mostly true across the entire athletic spectrum, which is why, in my view, it warrants far more serious attention and appreciation than it is commonly given in both the philosophy of art and aesthetics and philosophy of sport literature.

Past Is Prologue: Ethical Issues in Pediatric Psychedelics Research and Treatment.

Recent clinical trials of psychedelic drugs aim to treat a range of psychiatric conditions in adults. MDMA and psilocybin administered with psychotherapy have received FDA designation as "breakthrough therapies" for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and treatment-resistant depression (TRD) respectively. Given the potential benefit for minors burdened with many of the same disorders, calls to expand experimentation to minors are inevitable. This essay examines psychedelic research conducted on children from 1959 to 1974, highlighting methodological and ethical flaws. It provides ethics and policy recommendations for psychedelics research involving children and adolescents, including recognizing that the psychedelic experience is an ineffable one that makes informed proxy consent for parents, guardians, and others especially challenging. Psychedelic experiences are associated with novel benefits and risks, such as significant personality changes, shifts in fundamental values, and possible re-exposure to traumatic memories. These effects may alter the process of personality development in minors. Recommendations for ethically sound psychedelics research in minors include strict adherence to eligibility criteria, including a comprehensive family and individual psychiatric, substance use, and trauma history. An age-appropriate assent process that includes considerations related to the use of therapeutic touch should be developed. In addition, oversight by data safety monitoring boards and patient and family advocates, coupled with the adoption of pharmacoequity best practices, will help to ensure safety and fairness of psychedelics research in children.

Ethical Flaws in Artworks: An Argument for Contextual Conjunctivism

Abstract According to Ted Nannicelli, ethical disputes about art today often concern not the controversial attitudes expressed by the works but the ways in which they have been created, that is, as well as interpretation-oriented ethical criticism of art, we find production-oriented ethical criticism. The main question that I explore in this article is: are the interpretation- and production-oriented approaches to ethical art criticism essentially disconnected or can there be a connection between them? I argue that in the disjunctivist view, the two approaches are disconnected, for ethical flaws in the production of artworks are never conditioned by ethical flaws in the attitudes expressed by those works and vice versa. I show that disjunctivism is mistaken and defend what I call contextual conjunctivism. In this view, the two approaches can be connected since attitudinal ethical flaws in artworks can indeed cause ethical flaws in their production and vice versa depending on context. I support this view using several examples of controversies about contemporary art.

Governing the Corporation: Regulations in the Era of Scandals and Globalization

Purpose: This study evaluates the effects of the global financial crisis rooted in ethical deterioration. However, the worldwide regulatory reform agenda has largely overlooked this factor and focused on the technical needs. Also, look at the relative influence of various players within the corporate governance and regulatory equation to determine the shape that enforcement takes.
 Design/Methodology/Approach: The qualitative method is used in this study by analyzing statutes, local and international protocols, conventions, and treaties.
 Findings: In this work, the magnitude of the global financial disaster has shown how erroneous market ordering optimism. The tangible and conceptual certainty linked with finance capitalism's primacy has vanished. This has created a debate regarding the privileged and the general public. The critical question is how to respond. Rules are too readily transacted around, and principles lack the granularity to be enforceable to address ethical flaws.
 Implications/Originality/Value: We must pay considerably greater attention to the moral dimension of market activity or how people live their lives professionally. It is a chore we should avoid at all costs.

On the Promise and Limits of Prosocial Neoclassical Economic Approaches to Shareholder Primacy

Oliver Hart and Luigi Zingales (Hart 2020; Hart and Zingales 2017a,b,c; Zingales 2017, 2018a,b, 2019a,b, 2020) have proposed to amend the influential view about the nature and function of the firm typically associated with Milton Friedman (1962, 1970). The core of their proposal is that ethical and social values should be given a more central role in an account of the objective function of the firm. The caliber of the authors and the growing concern with the ethical flaws in the traditional model of shareholder primacy, helps to explain why their recent contributions have received much attention. The paper utilizes Hart and Zingales’ account to examine whether neo-classical economics can offer an account of the objective function of the firm that is ethically sound. To assess this, we formulate two set of principles. The first highlights that the investigation into the objective function of the firm is normative. It requires thinking in normative terms of both managers and shareholders. Moral norms filter the desires that managers should promote on shareholders’ behalf. The second set of principles highlights the conceptual diversity of our normative language; any appropriate account of the objective function of the firm needs to have a rich normative conceptual vocabulary to reflect such diversity. The paper shows that while neoclassical economics may often meet the first set of principles, it lacks the resources to meet the second. It also shows that any account of the nature firm that is descriptively and prescriptively adequate needs economics to work hand in hand with legal scholarship and moral philosophy.

Ethics and the marketing authorization of pharmaceuticals: what happens to ethical issues discovered post-trial and pre-marketing authorization?

BackgroundIn the EU, clinical assessors, rapporteurs and the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use are obliged to assess the ethical aspects of a clinical development program and include major ethical flaws in the marketing authorization deliberation processes. To this date, we know very little about the manner that these regulators put this obligation into action. In this paper, we intend to look into the manner and the extent that ethical issues discovered during inspection have reached the deliberation processes.MethodsTo gather data, we used the Dutch Medicines Evaluation Board database and first searched for the inspections, and their accompanying site inspection reports and integrated inspection reports, related to central marketing authorization applications (henceforth, application/s) of drugs submitted to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) from 2011 to 2015. We then extracted inspection findings that were purely of ethical nature, i.e., those that did not affect the benefit/risk balance of the study (issues related to informed consent, research ethics committees, and respect for persons). Only findings graded at least major by the inspectorate were included. Lastly, to identify how many of the ethically relevant findings (ERFs) reach the application deliberation processes, we extracted the relevant joint response assessment reports and reviewed the sections that discussed inspection findings.ResultsFrom 2011 to 2015, there were 390 processed applications, of which 65 had inspection reports and integrated inspection reports accessible via the database of the Dutch Medicines Evaluation Board. Of the 65, we found ERFs in 37 (56.9%). The majority of the ERFs were graded as major and half of the time it was informed-consent related. A third of these findings were related to research ethics committee processes and requirements. Of the 37 inspections with ERFs, 30 were endorsed in the integrated inspection reports as generally GCP compliant. Day 150 joint response assessment reports and Day 180 list of outstanding issues were reviewed for all 37 inspections, and none of the ERFs were carried over in any of the assessment reports or list of outstanding issues.ConclusionNone of the ethically relevant findings, all of which were graded as major or critical in integrated inspection reports, were explicitly carried over to the joint assessment reports. This calls for more transparency in EMA application deliberations on how ERFs are considered, if at all, in the decision-making processes.

Promoting male circumcision as HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa: An evaluation of the ethical and pragmatic considerations of adopting a demand creation approach

ABSTRACT Male circumcision for HIV prevention is being promoted in 14 sub-Saharan African countries. Campaigns take a demand creation approach, a strategy based on generating awareness of and demand for an intervention. This article analyzes campaign materials, making the case that a focus on demand per se, at the expense of quality public health information, constitutes an ethical and pragmatic campaign flaw. Clinical trials have demonstrated that circumcision can reduce transmission of HIV from women to men by 53–60%. Since circumcision does not approach 100% prevention efficacy for men and does not directly protect women, behavioural and structural interventions remain necessary, leading international health bodies to position circumcision as an add-on to behavioural interventions. However, in practice, circumcision promotion often lacks information about behavioural prevention. At times, campaigns omit any HIV prevention message. Instead, campaigns variously favour representing circumcision as a route to normative masculinity, to sexual prowess, or to good citizenship, among others. Alongside their targeted outcomes, public health campaigns also contribute to public discourses around sexuality and non-HIV aspects of health, in this case potentially leading to confusion and mistrust. The current public health promotion strategy for circumcision threatens to undermine the social processes needed to support HIV prevention.

The Diversity of Intrinsic Ethical Flaws in Fiction

The Diversity of Intrinsic Ethical Flaws in Fiction

Fatal Prescription

Abstract Ethicism is the most comprehensively defended answer to the question regarding whether ethical properties determine aesthetic properties in artworks. According to ethicism, aesthetically relevant ethical flaws in artworks count as aesthetic flaws and aesthetically relevant ethical merits count as aesthetic merits. In this paper, I argue that ethicism’s most significant argument, the Merited Response Argument (MRA) (and other moralist arguments like it) suffers from an ambiguity that makes it either unsound or uninteresting. Specifically, the notion of an artwork’s ‘prescribing’ a response, central to MRA, is ambiguous between merely attempting to elicit a response from appreciators as appropriate to a work, and endorsing a response as appropriate to relevant parts of the actual world. While the first sense of ‘prescribe’ does the aesthetic work, the second does the ethical.

Элитаристский дискурс справедливости: современные концепции и Россия

<p>В статье на примере концепций двух влиятельных авторов второй половины XX в. — социологов Майкла Янга и Дэниела Белла — анализируется идея меритократии — власти наиболее достойных, наиболее заслуженных.</p><p>Рассматриваются основные идеи знаменитой книги (антиутопии) М. Янга «Возвышение меритократии». Охарактеризованы основные этапы становления меритократического общества в антиутопии Янга. Показано, что основная проблема меритократии в изображении британского социолога — ее морально-этические изъяны, которые приводят в результате к классовому конфликту и последующему кризису и падению меритократии. С точки зрения автора статьи, более привлекательным выглядит социальный идеал, обрисованный Янгом, в рамках которого «общество талантов» понимается не как сугубо технократическое, а как подлинное общество равных возможностей.</p><p>Показано, что Д. Белл считает меритократию неотъемлемым атрибутом постиндустриального общества, однако учитывает критику этой идеи в работах М. Янга и Д. Ролза. Поэтому подлинная меритократия у Белла — это «справедливая меритократия», сочетающая равное уважение всех с отличием некоторых (наиболее достойных).</p><p>Изучены взгляды на проблему меритократии в современной России. Автор опирается главным образом на анализ российской ситуации у отечественного элитолога Г. К. Ашина. Он показывает, что элитные трансформации в постсоветской России, значительно изменив некоторые важные характеристики элиты, не изменили главного — ее морального облика.</p><p>В заключение автор указывает, что меритократия обязательно должна сочетаться с развитыми демократическими механизмами, для того чтобы избежать отчуждения народа от власти.</p>

The Interaction of Ethics and Aesthetics in Environmental Art

This article advances and defends three claims: (1) that the proper ethical criticism of environmental art requires a production-oriented approach-an approach that appraises the ethical merits or flaws of the work in terms of how the artwork is created as well as the consequences of its creation; (2) that, depending on contextual factors, ethical flaws in environmental artworks may, but do not necessarily, constitute aesthetic flaws in those works; (3) that, because environmental artworks appropriate part of the environment as an aspect of their identity, an aesthetic flaw in an environmental artwork necessarily also creates aesthetic disvalue in the environment-disvalue that exists in virtue of the creation of the artwork. I conclude with one further, more speculative claim, which deserves further investigation: the aesthetic flaws of an environmental artwork, which result in aesthetic flaws in the natural environment itself, are always ethical flaws of the artwork. This seems to make environmental art distinctive; in the case of non-environmental art, aesthetic flaws do not necessarily (if ever) constitute ethical flaws.

WADA and imperialism? A philosophical look into anti-doping and athletes as coloniser and colonised

ABSTRACTPost-colonial philosophical scholarship in the late 20th century advanced notions of exploitation and domination of the periphery post imperialistic control. Works by authors Peter Ekeh and Edward Said describe the institutional behaviour and ideology of a modern imperialist system. Additionally, Michel Foucault’s analysis of power helps explain how imperialist systems deploy what Foucault called juridical power for the domination of subjects. Drawing from these authors helps expose the practical and ethical complications of an imperialist model. This paper uses these insights to show that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) provides an analogous case of an imperialist system and how the practical and ethical flaws of mirroring this system serve as an ineffective and unethical model for anti-doping. Among the many issues related to mirroring an imperialist system, the majority of problems stem from the divide that emerges between anti-doping enforcers and athletes. Ultimately the paper offers a potential solution to the problems, concluding with Maria Lugones’ idea of playful world travelling as an imperative first step and shift in ideology towards restructuring the anti-doping movement. Lugones’ idea of playful world travelling promotes the immersion of people. This immersion can close the divide between anti-doping enforcers and athletes.

Perspective: Scientific and ethical concerns pertaining to animal models of autoimmune/autoinflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA).

The autoimmune/autoinflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA) was first described in 2011. The aluminium containing adjuvants of vaccines were stated to be one of the main causes of the condition. Other disorders associated with ASIA include siliconosis, Gulf war syndrome, sick building syndrome and the macrophagic myositis syndrome. We have recently reviewed ASIA as defined by its authors. We have shown that the definition of ASIA is imprecise and includes all patients with an autoimmune disorder as well as potentially the entire population. Application of the Bradford Hill criteria for causality does not support ASIA as an outcome of exposure to aluminium containing adjuvants in vaccines. The advocates of ASIA highlight animal models as evidence for the existence of the disorder. However, as this review will demonstrate, animal models purporting to support the existence of ASIA have methodological, analytical and ethical flaws which, in our view, refute the existence of the condition. Three publications by the advocates of ASIA were recently retracted from peer-reviewed journals. We call for an immediate moratorium on animal experiments of ASIA until an independent inquiry has been conducted to determine the existence of a clinically relevant syndrome, identifiable as ASIA in humans.

Vandals or Visionaries? The Ethical Criticism of Street Art

To the person unfamiliar with the wide variety of street art, the term “street artist” conjures a young man furtively sneaking around a decaying city block at night, spray paint in hand, defacing concrete structures, ears pricked for police sirens. The possibility of the ethical criticism of street art on such a conception seems hardly worth the time. This has to be an easy question. Street art is vandalism; vandalism is causing the intentional damage or destruction of someone else’s property; causing destruction or damage is wrong. The only remaining question is which of two coarse-grained models of ethical criticism we choose. The ethicist model holds that a work of art that exhibits ethically bad properties is a work that is thereby aesthetically flawed. That is, the work is flawed as a work of art just because of its ethical flaws. Bad ethics make art worse than it otherwise would have been, although it may be aesthetically successful otherwise. The autonomist model, by contrast, holds that the ethical properties of a work of art have no bearing at all on its aesthetic success. One might suppose, therefore, that on either model, a criticism of street art would be relatively easy to undertake. In defacing public property, some street art exhibits and endorses ethically bad attitudes. On the ethicist model, such a work is thereby pro tanto aesthetically flawed because in the process of creating such works, they violate ethical norms concerning the use of public spaces; on the autonomous model, any ethical criticism of the aesthetics of street art would need to be set aside entirely in favor of criticism that focused purely on the aesthetic properties of street art. I will argue in this paper that neither the ethicist nor the autonomist model adequately Vandals or Visionaries? | Willard 96 captures the moral landscape of street art. Street art may indeed be criticized productively on aesthetic grounds for the destruction it does to public spaces, but the existing models of ethical criticism overlook the complex ethical landscape of street art that results from its use of public spaces. In the interplay of various forms of street art we can see the emergence of an ethical criticism of art that is accomplished by the material properties of related artwork, and consists in the creation of a dialogue over the proper use of contested public spaces. Essays Philos (2016)17:95-124 | DOI: 10.7710/1526-0569.1545 Published online: 12 February 2016. © Mary Beth Willard 2016 Contact author: marybethwillard@weber.edu Essays in Philosophy 17(1)

Facebook’s flawed emotion experiment: Antisocial research on social network users

In June 2014, a paper reporting the results of a study into ‘emotional contagion’ on Facebook was published. This research has already attracted a great deal of criticism for problems surrounding informed consent. While most of this criticism is justified, other relevant consent issues have gone unremarked, and the study has several other ethical flaws which collectively indicate the need for better regulation of health and mood research using social networks.

The Ethics of Two-Way Symmetry and the Dilemmas of Dialogic Kantianism

J. E. Grunig's (1992a) seminal work on excellence theory and subsequent works by other scholars advance the two-way symmetrical model as a best-practice approach to public relations (PR). In part, two-way symmetry is preferred because of an assertion that it is the most ethical form of practice. However, only within a means-based deontological framework do two-way symmetry and the principle of dialogue emerge as universally ethical. Taking an ends-based utilitarian standpoint makes the potential ethical flaws of two-way symmetry apparent. Issues of moral luck, hegemony, and the limitations of dialogue also pose problems for the moral primacy claims surrounding two-way symmetry. The analysis that follows points toward a need for a more relative and contingent approach to PR ethics, and by extension to PR practice itself.

Teaching ‘Business Ethics' as a Sequitur

The goal of this review is to survey and assess the utility of recent ethical research, offer a model for analysis, and using the pertinent study findings recommend potentially fresh approaches to increase the likelihood that we will favorably modify our own behaviors and, consequently, ethical behaviors in the workplace. I first review the breadth of ethical lapses, attendant consequences, skepticism that surrounds training for ethical conduct, relative import of ethical behavior, and need for a change in approach through an examination of several notable ethical debacles. I examine research that identifies methods we use to paint ourselves as moral champions, despite facts to the contrary; potent conscious and subconscious processes contribute to our ability to delude others and ourselves. Using a graphic designed to simplify how we analyze methods through which we justify our ethical flaws, and by way of an examination of a personal anecdote and recent ethical blunders that have come to light, the thesis propounded is that we can ameliorate current standards of principled conduct using a comprehensive approach that takes into account the extensive research on our imperfect ethical proclivities and any counter-balancing science that offers psychological, organizational, and sociological techniques to offset our natural, or acquired, predispositions. Opportunities for further research are set forth.