Moral Dilemmas Research Articles

Political ideology and moral dilemmas in public good provision

Individuals often face dilemmas in which non-cooperation serves their self-interest and cooperation favors society at large. Cooperation is often considered the moral choice because it creates equality and fairness among citizens. Accordingly, individuals whose political ideology attaches greater value to equality than to agency and self-reliance should not only cooperate on more rather than less efficient public goods, but also more on public goods from which individuals benefit equally rather than unequally. We examine this possibility by comparing ideologically left-leaning and right-leaning individuals’ cooperation on multiple public goods that varied in efficiency and (in)equality in returns. We find that left-leaning individuals cooperate more than right-leaning ones, but only on public goods that benefit everyone equally, and not more on public goods that generate inequalities. Left-leaning individuals also trust and expect others to cooperate more on equal- versus unequal-returns public goods, while self-identified right-leaning individuals do not differentiate between these. Interestingly, ideology does not predict which public good is deemed more morally appropriate to cooperate on. Results combined specify when and why self-identified leftists can(not) be expected to cooperate more than rightists and reveal how moral decision-making depends on structural elements of the public good provision problems that citizens face.

A Critique of Principlism

A Critique of Principlism

Justice, trust, and moral judgements when personnel selection is supported by algorithms

ABSTRACT Although algorithm-based systems are increasingly used as a decision-support for managers, there is still a lack of research on the effects of algorithm use and more specifically on potential algorithmic bias on decision-makers. To investigate how potential social bias in a recommendation outcome influences trust, fairness perceptions, and moral judgement, we used a moral dilemma scenario. Participants (N = 215) imagined being human resource managers responsible for personnel selection and receiving decision-support from either human colleagues or an algorithm-based system. They received an applicant preselection that was either gender-balanced or predominantly male. Although participants perceived algorithm-based support as less biased, they also perceived it as generally less fair and had less trust in it. This could be related to the finding that participants perceived algorithm-based systems as more consistent but also as less likely to uphold moral standards. Moreover, participants tended to reject algorithm-based preselection more often than human-based and were more likely to use utilitarian judgements when accepting it, which may indicate different underlying moral judgement processes.

Ethical tensions in mathematics teachers’ instructional decisions

This study aims to investigate ethical tensions involved in mathematics teachers’ instructional decisions. The research was designed as a multiple case study and three mathematics teachers were chosen as cases with criterion sampling strategy. Data were collected through a series of in-depth interviews via semi-structured questions and scenarios. Moral distress framework, first proposed in nursing research, was employed to analyse the data. Our analysis suggested that teacher decisions were shaped on the basis of scientific/technical as well as ethical considerations. Findings pointed to the operation of three different types of ethical tensions in the production of mathematics teachers’ particular instructional decisions: moral distress, moral dilemma and moral uncertainty. We proposed that ability to perform desired actions and to provide rationalizations are among the key discriminants for different forms of tensions. We discussed the features of different types of ethical tensions and shared the implications about the development of moral agency as well as the consideration of ethics in mathematics teacher education.

Moral dilemmas raised by social media and how can they be improved

With the continuous acceptance and use of social media, some moral dilemmas caused by social media have followed. The sense of powerlessness brought by moral dilemmas is long-lasting and has a great impact on people’s physical and mental health. The researches now are also gradually pay attention to the moral dilemma caused by social media, but still not enough. Therefore, this study mainly aims to use the method of case analysis to investigate three major moral dilemmas raised by social media, including the conflict between the social media and real-life collectivity and media ethical anomie. For the conflictions to the real life, enhancing the sense of collective atmosphere or running a public website within the community could be effective; for the problems raised by media ethical anomie, the intervention by the government is a significant part, as well as the improvement of public awareness.

Resolving content moderation dilemmas between free speech and harmful misinformation

In online content moderation, two key values may come into conflict: protecting freedom of expression and preventing harm. Robust rules based in part on how citizens think about these moral dilemmas are necessary to deal with this conflict in a principled way, yet little is known about people's judgments and preferences around content moderation. We examined such moral dilemmas in a conjoint survey experiment where US respondents (N = 2, 564) indicated whether they would remove problematic social media posts on election denial, antivaccination, Holocaust denial, and climate change denial and whether they would take punitive action against the accounts. Respondents were shown key information about the user and their post as well as the consequences of the misinformation. The majority preferred quashing harmful misinformation over protecting free speech. Respondents were more reluctant to suspend accounts than to remove posts and more likely to do either if the harmful consequences of the misinformation were severe or if sharing it was a repeated offense. Features related to the account itself (the person behind the account, their partisanship, and number of followers) had little to no effect on respondents' decisions. Content moderation of harmful misinformation was a partisan issue: Across all four scenarios, Republicans were consistently less willing than Democrats or independents to remove posts or penalize the accounts that posted them. Our results can inform the design of transparent rules for content moderation of harmful misinformation.

The Positive and Negative Effects of Chinese Filial Piety

After thousands of years of development, filial piety has become a representative of China and has had a profound impact on the Chinese people. People find that with the development of thought, the old concept of filial piety has been unable to adapt to modern society. Therefore, this paper introduces the characteristics of filial piety and explores the influence of filial piety, which affects the self, family, and marital relationship. The focus of this paper is on the social phenomenon caused by the old filial piety and its negative impact on people’s lives. It includes blind obedience to parents, the moral dilemma caused by family, and making people pay most of attention to the original family while ignoring the core family. In addiation, not only the negative effect, the benefit of filial piety in the family and individual aspact also include in the paper.

Analyzing the Significance of Philosophy of Logic in the Epidemic Era Through Ethical Dilemmas

Covid-19 which started in 2019 rapidly expanded geographically worldwide and it still affects people’s lives severely these days. This in turn raised numerous ethical concerns about freedom, property rights, and allocation of scarce resources. Logic can provide a rational and critical approach to ethics to help people understand the nature of moral dilemmas. This paper covers the fields of logic and ethics and discussed the nature of moral dilemmas. Additionally, a literature review and logical analysis are used in this paper. The nature of moral dilemmas is the inconsistency of moral codes. This article also introduces that the nature of ethical dilemmas during the pandemic is the conflict between utilitarianism and anti-utilitarianism ethical principles. Lastly, this paper argues that one side of the moral dilemma is invalid and untenable, and some initiatives during the epidemic are inappropriate.

Analyze the Dilemma of Distributing Scarce Medical Resources During the COVID-19 Pandemic Based on Different Ethical Theories

The COVID-19 pandemic poses enormous challenges for the healthcare system of the entire world. In many places, the existing medical resources cannot meet the needs of all patients, and clinicians must choose between different patients, resulting in the moral dilemmas of fair distribution. This paper focuses on the various ethical principles used to guide the allocation of scarce resources in the past and discusses how these principles can be applied during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as treating all people equally, first consider the worse-off group, maximizing the total benefits, and reward the group making the largest contribution. Generally, no single ethical principle is sufficient to cover all moral considerations, and the distribution policies during the pandemic must balance different principles, such as egalitarianism and utilitarianism. Current ethical guidance on the triage decision is not perfect, and further improvement is needed. There are few studies specifically explored how policies balanced ethical rules in different ways resulting in differences in society. Future research in this field should work to deal with these limitations.

Neonatal Brain Death and Current Controversies: An Illustrative Case

Brain death is a difficult determination, often involving legal, ethical, and moral dilemmas for care teams and families. Determination of brain death in the neonate is particularly difficult due to ambiguous and inconsistent guidelines, which have generated controversies and debates regarding several components of the brain death examination in neonates. The treatment team of a term neonate who suffered a severe hypoxic-ischemic brain injury during birth encountered numerous uncertainties as they navigated the brain death determination guidelines. This was the first time a neonatal brain death determination was performed at this 52-bed level III neonatal intensive care unit.

COVID-19 pandemic experiences, ethical conflict and decision-making process in critical care professionals (Quali-Ethics-COVID-19 research part 1): An international qualitative study.

The aim of this study was to explore the sources of ethical conflict and the decision-making processes of ICU nurses and physicians during the first and subsequent waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. Depside several studies exploring ethical conflicts during COVID-19 pandemic, few studies have explored in depth the perceptions and experiences of critical care professionals regarding these conflicts, the decision-making process or which have analysed the complexity of actually implementing the recommendations of scientific societies and professional/healthcare institutions in interdisciplinary samples. A descriptive phenomenological study. Thirty-eight in-depth interviews were conducted with critical care nurses and physicians from five hospitals in Spain and Italy between December 2020 and May 2021. A thematic content analysis of the interview transcripts was conducted by two researchers. Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) were employed to ensure the quality and transparency of this study. Two main themes emerged as sources of ethical conflict: the approach to end of life in exceptional circumstances and the lack of humanisation and care resources. The former comprised two subthemes: end-of-life care and withholding and withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment; the latter comprised three subthemes: the impossibility of guaranteeing the same opportunities to all, fear of contagion as a barrier to taking decisions and the need to humanise care. Professionals sought to take their decisions in line with professional ethics and bioethical principles, but, nevertheless, they experienced moral dilemmas and moral distress when not being able to care for, or to treat, their patients as they believed fit. Further education and training are recommended on the provision of end-of-life and post-mortem care, effective communication techniques via video calls, disclosure of bad news and bioethical models for decision-making in highly demanding situations of uncertainty, such as those experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fetal anomaly diagnosis and termination of pregnancy.

The aim of this review was to discuss bioethics in prenatal diagnosis and health care after recent legislative and judicial changes affecting reproductive rights, such as the repeal of 'Roe v. Wade' in the United States. We recognize that abortion involves particular moralities that are not universal or shared by all cultures, groups, and individuals. We reviewed the historical aspects of embryology and personhood, fetal morbidity and mortality, and parental options for prenatal diagnostic testing. We examined relevant ethical issues including informed consent, the emergence of fetal pain, reproductive autonomy, the fiduciary responsibilities of pregnant mothers, and the obligations of physicians caring for the maternal-fetal dyad. The code of medical ethics includes respect for decisional privacy and the protection of information shared in confidence. When a fetal anomaly is diagnosed, pregnant mothers must be informed about the risks, burdens, and alternatives in either continuing or terminating the pregnancy. Parental choice should include the right to refuse testing, the informed choice not to know about certain genetic test results, and the right to make informed decisions about the best interests of the future child. In the diagnosis and care of fetal anomalies, moral dilemmas arise. Before fetal viability, the mother's autonomy, sense of beneficence, and personal values should be trusted and respected. Perinatal palliative care should be available to pregnant mothers whose anomalous fetus is carried to birth.

An integrative review on physical restraint in adult critical care unit

Background: Physical restraints (PRs) are frequently used in adult critical care units to protect staff and prevent self-harm, despite the fact that they represent significant safety risks. Restraint complications may have an impact on the patient's long- and short-term outcomes. This study aims to examine the recent evidence on the use of PR in adult critical care. Method: This integrative review included the studies published between January 2009 and December 2019 and the literature search was conducted in July 2020. The databases searched included EBSCOhost, Ovid, ProQuest, PubMed, Wiley Online Library, SCOPUS, and ScienceDirect. The keywords included in the search were restraint, critical care, intensive care, ICU, mechanical ventilation, intubation, nursing, and experience. A checklist based on the CASP checklist and the JBI Critical Appraisal Tool was used to assess the methodological quality. Results: The findings were evaluated and summarized into seven key topics after twenty-one publications were found to be evaluated. i) High prevalence of PR application in adult critical care unit; ii) determinants of PR applications; iii) types of PR in adult critical care units; iv) decision maker of PR; v) moral and ethical dilemma in PR application; vi) awareness and guidelines for PR applications; vii) common complications and use of sedation, analgesics, antipsychotic drugs in PR application. Conclusion: The number of days PR is used is related to the risk of an adverse event. In order to standardize nursing practice, ICU nurses require greater training on the ideas of PR use. Evidence-based recommendations will assist critical care nurses in making the best judgments possible concerning the use of PR.

초등학교 6학년 도덕 역량 중심 자율형 통합 심화 단원 2에 대한 이해와 실제 적용 방안 제안 및 해설

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to understand the elementary school moral subject competency-centered autonomous integrated deepening unit and the 6th grade 2nd unit applied in the textbook,propose practical application plans, and provide commentary on the proposal.
 Methods: To this end, the meaning of a competency-centered autonomous integrated deepening unitthat emerged in the process of applying the 2015 moral curriculum to the school field was explored. A competency-centered autonomous integrated deepening 2nd unit in the 6th grade of elementary schoolwas also examined as a representative example of a competency-centered autonomous integrated deepeningunit. Through this, a new plan that can actually be applied and a commentary on it were proposed.
 Results: It was necessary to provide an example of a competency-centered autonomous integrateddeepening unit, that was unlike the direction approached in the existing textbook. It was judged tobe appropriate to focus on justice as a core value and moral thinking ability, which is central tocompetency. In order to organize the example into the goals, contents, and methods of the unit, it wasconsidered appropriate to apply the content and development process of Sandel's justice theory, andKohlberg's moral discussion class model and dilemma. In addition, the additional moral subject educationexplanation of the proposal is expected to be used as a meaningful reference in the morals class.
 Conclusion: The example of a competency-centered autonomous integrated deepening 2nd unit resultingfrom this series of processes is expected to provide new meaning for perspective, both autonomouslyand creatively, in moral subject education in elementary schools.

Individual attitudes towards moral costs and benefits drive responses to moral dilemmas

AbstractWe review some processing assumptions that underlie the currently used measures of moral judgement with moral dilemmas, contrasting them with the overlooked possibility that the primary mechanism consists in assessing a net balance of the costs versus benefits of the sacrificial action. Different dilemmas scenarios present different net balances of cost versus benefits, and participants usually change between them from disapproval to approval motivated by what appears to be a larger positive balance of moral benefits. The thresholds for such change are personal and vary. For the instrument to reliably estimate the individual differences in approval thresholds, there can be no disagreement on the facts affecting the balances and the ranking order of the items. We designed an instrument targeting three different balances with five indicators each and ran an exploratory factor analysis to prove that the different balances operate cleanly as separate factors. The expected three‐factor solution and a stable ranking of the balance points were obtained across three samples from three different continents in three languages, suggesting the activation of cross‐culturally stable cognitive processes. The strength ratio of utilitarian (U) to deontological (D) sensitivity was calculated for each participant and corrected using the scores of a balance‐point with no net benefits. This instrument overcomes validation difficulties burdening the existing measures and offers good prospects for further development.

Changing dynamics of caregiving: a meta-ethnography study of informal caregivers’ experiences with older immigrant family members in Europe

BackgroundThe population of Europe is ageing and becoming more ethnically diverse due to migration. Finding suitable long-term caring arrangements for older immigrants in Europe has been one of healthcare policymakers’ concerns in the last decade. However, relatively few older people with an immigrant background live in long-term care facilities, and many prefer to be cared for by their family members. Little is known about immigrant family caregivers’ experiences of caring for older family members and the support they need while providing care. This study aims to synthesize the qualitative literature exploring the experiences of individuals caring for older family members with immigrant backgrounds from Africa, Asia and South America living in Europe.MethodsWe searched the electronic databases Medline Ovid, Embase Ovid, PsycInfo Ovid, SocIndex EBSCOhost, CINAHL EBSCOhost, Scopus, Social Care Online, ASSIA ProQuest, and Google Scholar for original, peer reviewed research articles, published in English from 2011 to 2022. The seven-step interpretive methodology in meta-ethnography developed by Noblit and Hare (1988) was followed for qualitative synthesis.ResultsAfter assessing 4155 studies for eligibility criteria, 11 peer-reviewed articles were included in this review. The qualitative synthesis of these included articles resulted in four main themes: strong care norms for parents, the moral dilemma of continuing care, uneven care sharing, and the use of formal care services.ConclusionsCaregiving dynamics are changing, both in terms of motivations and approaches to caregiving. Furthermore, there are gender disparities in the distribution of caregiving duties, particularly with women carrying the more significant burden of care. The care burden is further exacerbated by the lack of culturally sensitive formal services complementing the care needs of the ageing immigrants and their family caregivers. Therefore, those searching for alternatives to informal care should be met with appropriate health and care services in terms of language, culture, religion, and lifestyle, delivered in a non-judgmental way.

PROBLEM FIELD OF ETHICS OF EDUCATION

The article considers the ethics of education as a relatively new type of applied ethics. It is focused on identifying specific contradictory situations that arise in the educational process, analyzing and considering them as dilemmas of moral choice. It is shown that, like any applied ethics, the ethics of education is relevant because it is a product of ambiguity and novelty from the point of view of the morality of its modern problems. The author analyzes the institute of education, institutional practice, reveals special problems of the phenomenon of education in the modern socio-cultural space. The specific dilemmas generated by the conflict of values, which require appropriate methods of moral regulation, are named. It is substantiated that ethical analysis not only reveals the moral dilemmas of the educational process, but even builds an algorithm for getting out of these difficult situations. The moral aspect of the value paradigm of educational activity, which is being formed today, the level of value orientation of the educational process is highlighted and analyzed. It is noted that the problems of implementing the modern paradigm of education in Ukraine, in addition to civilizational factors, are determined by the national features of reforming the educational system in the context of the immaturity of democracy and the market economy. In conclusion, it is emphasized the need to develop applied ethics of education in our country as a system of theoretical research and practical procedures for determining clear value bases for the formation of a new educational paradigm adequate to modern moral challenges. It is emphasized that specialists with ethical training should work in the field of education ethics.

The link between self-uncertainty and conspicuous consumption: Tolerance of uncertainty as a moderator.

This study, based on self-affirmation theory, aims to investigate the impact of self-uncertainty on individual consumption behavior. Self-uncertainty was categorized into moral, cognitive, and interpersonal self-uncertainty, and different types of self-uncertainty were manipulated through four experiments, including a moral dilemma, a recall paradigm, and a picture quiz task written by E-Prime software to examine the effects of different types of self-uncertainty on conspicuous consumption and their possible boundary conditions. Our results show that moral, cognitive, and interpersonal self-uncertainty contribute to a stronger tendency to engage in conspicuous consumption. Our results also suggest that tolerance of uncertainty moderates the effect of self-uncertainty on conspicuous consumption, meaning that subjects with a high tolerance of uncertainty are less inclined to engage in conspicuous consumption than those with a low tolerance of uncertainty, even if they have high self-uncertainty. This study may provide an explanation for conspicuous consumption behavior, further validating the theory of compensatory consumption. Additionally, the results from this study also provide a reference for understanding people's decision-making behavior in an uncertain social context and can provide new guidance to control irrational consumption behavior.

“You just earned 10 points!”: Gaming and grinding in academia

This short paper explores the gamification of an online academic conference. At the conference, digital gamification was meant to stimulate increased levels of participation among attendees. Instead, it resulted in a series of unintended consequences. Precisely because it was all too easy to score points and ascend the virtual leaderboard by means of machine-like grinding, the “Conference Challenge” posed a moral dilemma for its players: each participant had to determine for themselves where the border lay between playing the game and gaming the system. We use this case to raise questions about the ethics of game-playing in an academic context. In particular, we suggest that the Conference Challenge is a distorted reflection of what’s already happening in the broader “publication game” in the university.

Predictors of Moral Injury in Secure Mental Healthcare Workers: Examining a Role for Violence and Restrictive Practices Through an Intersectional Lens

ABSTRACT Secure mental healthcare staff provide care in the context of exposure to violence and restrictive practices. Yet, despite recognition of the moral dilemmas afforded by these events, they are yet to be explored within a moral injury framework. The current study sought to explore the potentially morally injurious effects of violence and restrictive practices through an intersectional lens. A cross-sectional survey was completed by 222 secure mental healthcare professionals. Associations between exposure to violence, restrictive practices and moral injury were significant in white female participants only. When entered into a hierarchical regression, exposure to violence significantly predicted moral injury score for this group, and nullified the effects of restrictive practices. The findings position restrictive practices and exposure to violence as potential sources of moral injury for white female healthcare professionals. The implementation of strategies to reduce exposure to such events and their impacts in this occupational group are important priorities.