Ethical Situations Research Articles

Perceptions of robotics emulation of human ethics in educational settings: a content analysis

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how robotics program developers perceived the role of emulation of human ethics when programming robots for use in educational settings. A purposive sampling of online robotics program developer professional sites which focused on the role of emulation of human ethics used when programming robots for use in educational settings was included in the study. Content related to robotics program developers’ perceptions on educational uses of robots and ethics were analyzed. Design/methodology/approach The design for this study was a qualitative summative content analysis. The researchers analyzed keywords related to a phenomenon. The phenomenon was the emulation of human ethics programmed in robots. Articles selected to be analyzed in this study were published by robotics program developers who focused on robots and ethics in the education. All articles analyzed in this study were posted online, and the public has complete access to the studies. Findings Robotics program developers viewed the importance of situational human ethics interpretations and implementations. To facilitate flexibility, robotics program developers programmed robots to search computer-based ethics related research, frameworks and case studies. Robotics program developers acknowledged the importance of human ethics, but they felt more flexibility was needed in the role of how classroom human ethical models were created, developed and used. Some robotic program developers expressed questions and concerns about the implementations of flexible robot ethical accountability levels and behaviors in the educational setting. Robotics program developers argued that educational robots were not designed or programmed to emulate human ethics. Research limitations/implications One limitation of the study was 32 online, public articles written by robotics program designers analyzed through qualitative content analysis to find themes and patterns. In qualitative content analysis studies, findings may not be as generalizable as in quantitative studies. Another limitation was only a limited number of articles written by robotics programs existed which addressed robotics and emulation of human ethics in the educational setting. Practical implications The significance of this study is the need for a renewed global initiative in education to promote debates, research and on-going collaboration with scientific leaders on ethics and programming robots. The implication for education leaders is to provide ongoing professional development on the role of ethics in education and to create best practices for using robots in education to promote increased student learning and enhance the teaching process. Social implications The implications of this study are global. All cultures will be affected by the robotics’ shift in how students are taught ethical decision making in the educational setting. Robotics program developers will create computational educational moral models which will replace archetypal educational ethics frameworks. Because robotics program developers do not classify robots as human, educators, parents and communities will continue to question the use of robots in educational settings, and they will challenge robotics ethical dilemmas, moral standards and computational findings. The examination of robotics program developers’ perspectives through different lens may help close the gap and establish a new understanding among all stakeholders. Originality/value Four university doctoral faculty members conducted this content analysis study. After discussions on robotics and educational ethics, the researchers discovered a gap in the literature on the use of robots in the educational setting and the emulation of human ethics in robots. Therefore, to explore the implications for educators, the researchers formed a group to research the topic to learn more about the topic. No personal gains resulted from the study. All research was original. All cultures will be affected by the robotics’ shift in how students are taught ethical decision making in the educational setting. Robotics program developers will create computational educational moral models which will replace archetypal educational ethics frameworks. Because robotics program developers do not classify robots as human, educators, parents and communities will continue to question the use of robots in educational settings, and they will challenge robotics ethical dilemmas, moral standards, and computational findings. The examination of robotics program developers’ perspectives through different lens may help close the gap and establish a new understanding among all stakeholders.

An ethical conundrum: the estimation of event attendance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine issues of ethical corporate social responsibility related to the estimation of event attendance, scrutinize the philosophy of situational ethics as justification for reporting inflated figures and present a potential solution to the dilemma.Design/methodology/approachA conceptual approach is applied. First, the importance of attendance as a primary evaluation variable for economic, social and environmental impact studies, as well as for event stakeholder return on investment in general, is clarified. A brief review follows on the subject of event attendance estimation as reported in both popular and academic literature, before moving into a content analysis of this literature to investigate if there are existing concerns of ethical corporate social responsibility.FindingsAttendance at events as reported by popular media remains controversial. Methods for arriving at accurate figures have been investigated and reported upon in academic literature, but there remains no consensus on how to best estimate event crowd size. Inflated attendance numbers reported are too often justified by situational ethics, a non-logical philosophy that has been previously debunked. A content analysis of popular media and academic literature revealed a lack of concern for ethical corporate social responsibility when it comes to the accurate estimation of event attendance.Practical implicationsThe failure to accept ethical corporate social responsibility when estimating attendance harms event stakeholders and leads to misleading and unreliable impact data.Originality/valueThis subject has not been previously addressed and is important to advancing the professionalism of event management.

Physicians and caregivers do differ in ethical attitudes to daily clinical practice

It is commonly assumed that there are differences in physicians’ and caregivers’ ethical attitudes towards clinical situations. The assumption is that the difference is driven by different values, views and judgements in specific situations. At Aalborg University Hospital, Denmark, we aimed to investigate these assumptions by conducting a large quantitative study. The study design, based on the Factorial Survey Method, was a carefully constructed survey with 50 questions designed to test which factors influenced the respondents’ ethical reasoning. The factors were clustered into three categories of ethical reasoning and values. The categories were formulated in terms of easily recognizable ethical positions: consequential ethics, deontological ethics and relational ethics. Based on 2129 respondents, we found significant support for the assumption of differences between physicians and caregivers. The group of caregivers favoured the relational ethics view in clinical ethical situations, and the group of physicians favoured the position of deontological ethics.

Towards a situated ethics of care: some moral dilemmas around aspects of care in an unequal society

This article analyses moral dilemmas around aspects of care from gender and class perspectives. Based on quantitative data and qualitative research for the surrounding area of Buenos Aires, we probe how contemporary women and men in Argentina organise, experience and perceive the relationship between working life and their responsibilities for caring for family members. A situated ethics of care, as explored in the article, reinforces the notion that care is always contextual – it can only be understood within a social and political milieu – and presents distinctions among subjects that hold unequal positions in class and gender hierarchies.

ПСИХОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ УСЛОВИЯ И ИНДИКАТОРЫ ПЕРЕХОДА ЮНОШЕСТВА ОТ ДИФФУЗНОЙ НРАВСТВЕННО-ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКОЙ ИДЕНТИФИКАЦИИ К ОСОЗНАННОМУ САМООПРЕДЕЛЕНИЮ В ПРОБЛЕМНО-КОНФЛИКТНЫХ СИТУАЦИЯХ

ПСИХОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ УСЛОВИЯ И ИНДИКАТОРЫ ПЕРЕХОДА ЮНОШЕСТВА ОТ ДИФФУЗНОЙ НРАВСТВЕННО-ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКОЙ ИДЕНТИФИКАЦИИ К ОСОЗНАННОМУ САМООПРЕДЕЛЕНИЮ В ПРОБЛЕМНО-КОНФЛИКТНЫХ СИТУАЦИЯХ

The ethical implications of culture: challenges in the care of female sex workers in India

Cultural considerations call into question the frameworks of traditional ethical judgments. In India, cultural female sex worker communities depend on women for economic gain, but also justify their practices as tradition. The care of these patients is complex, particularly because of limited interactions with the healthcare system, and poor negotiation power for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections. In this commentary, I confront a woman from the Perna community, a sex worker tribe in Northern India where wives are pimped by their husbands and mothers-in-law. As a physician treating Salma, you diagnose her as HIV-positive, but disclosure of her status will likely result in her death from her family. However, as a female sex worker, she is at high risk of transmitting HIV to other members of the local public, a number of whom are also your patients. How do we as clinicians navigate a challenging ethical situation as it pertains to the safety of an individual patient, the threat to public health of a community, and the need to understand the cultural challenges of unique but oppressive systems that are in place in countries around the world?

An abstract and nameless, but powerful, bystander – ‘unaccompanied children’ talking about their social workers in Sweden

This article investigates how ‘unaccompanied children’ in Sweden experience one part of the reception system – the social workers – in the context of their everyday life. The aim is to describe and analyse how these young people view and experience social workers and their relation to them, as well as their perceptions regarding the social worker’s nature. The article is drawn from a research project where 20 ‘unaccompanied children’ participated for over two years. During this period, the researchers have met with the young people continuously doing interviews, observations and informal conversations once a month. The results indicate that the social worker tends to become something of a bystander, a representative of the authorities who has played no active role in the young people’s everyday life, except for when they ‘pop up’ to make a decision affecting their everyday life. The social worker becomes a bystander with power. This is discussed in relation to situational ethics and the importance of building relationships and trust to service users in general and to ‘unaccompanied children’ in particular.

La renovación de la teología moral en la perspectiva de la «Aeterni Patris». A propósito de la «Moral Fundamental» de F. Böckle

The author present his work as a reflection on the approaches to moral theology by the light of the encyclical Aeterni Patris. Making a compact synthesis of the development of moral theology, Williams puts forth the Secunda Pars of the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas as the climax of this development, and, at the same time, as the most original and representative work of the universal Doctor. However, according to the author, the Secunda Pars has been the most ignored part of Saint Thomas repertoire, and many modern theologians have not yet discovered the penetrating attention that St. Thomas has dedicated to the most existential and practical aspects of morality, including in his writings principles which are very fruitful towards solving the same problems which the so-called "situation ethics" tries to solve, although in a way completely incompatible with the Church's doctrine. The radical transformation in moral theology began in the 16 century with the school of writers dealing with "de legibus" -Vázquez, Suárez, Molina, Sánchez, Lugo, etc.-, giving origin to the birth of casuistry as an independent moral science, not based upon metaphysics and dogma, but rather on jurisprudence, and which could rightly be called post-Tridintine moral theology. This discipline, which lacks the true outlook and basic principles of St. Thomas despite its habit of labelling its manuals "ad mentem Sancti Thomae", continues being the context and underlying source of some recent moral treatises, specilically of Fundamentalmoral by F. Böckle (Munich, 1977), of which the author dedicates a detailed analysis and critical evaluation in the second part of the present work. According to the author, Prof. Böckle is actually one of the most eminent representatives of the current generation of post-Tridintine moral theology, whose strange reappearance should be above all considered with respect to the attitudes adopted by some moralists to the encyclical Humanae Vitae, rather than to a deepening in the doctrina of the II Vatican Council. To Böckle, explains Williams, it makes little sense to ask oneself for what is true in the field of practical christian life; the only adequate question has to look toward the liberty and autonomy of the human subject. The task of fundamental moral theology, therefore, consists in establishing the conditions and norms for a human, autonomous activity. One is dealing, according to Williams, with what might be called "moral teleologic theology", because it takes its moral criteria exclusively from the appropiateness of one's acts to the end which he has chosen; nowhere does Böckle clearly state which and what kind of end this should be. lt would not be an absolute autonomy, says Böckle, but rather a teonomic autonomy. This strange terminology, which seems to include a contradictio in adiecto, stems from, as Williams informs us, a work of Paul Tillich, even though Böckle never refers to it as a source. The deism of Tillich, the author concludes, is without doubt behind this radical moral subjectivization. The article ends by saying how the case of Böckle shows how these times, a hundred years after this great encyclical, urge once again a rediscovery of the vigorous anthropological and theological principles of St. Thomas Aquinas, to be able to leave the impasse.

La renovación de la teología moral en la perspectiva de la «Aeterni Patris». A propósito de la «Moral Fundamental» de F. Böckle

The author present his work as a reflection on the approaches to theology by the light of the encyclical Aeterni Patris. Making a compact synthesis of the development of Williams puts forth the Secunda Pars of the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas as the climax of this development, and, at the same time, as the most original and representative work of the universal Doctor. However, according to the author, the Secunda Pars has been the most ignored part of Saint Thomas repertoire, and many modern theologians have not yet discovered the penetrating attention that St. Thomas has dedicated to the most existential and practical aspects of morality, including in his writings principles which are very fruitful towards solving the same problems which the so-called situation ethics tries to solve, although in a way completely incompatible with the Church's doctrine. The radical transformation in theology began in the 16 century with the school of writers dealing with de legibus -Vazquez, Suarez, Molina, Sanchez, Lugo, etc.-, giving origin to the birth of casuistry as an independent science, not based upon metaphysics and dogma, but rather on jurisprudence, and which could rightly be called post-Tridintine theology. This discipline, which lacks the true outlook and basic principles of St. Thomas despite its habit of labelling its manuals ad mentem Sancti Thomae, continues being the context and underlying source of some recent treatises, specilically of Fundamentalmoral by F. Bockle (Munich, 1977), of which the author dedicates a detailed analysis and critical evaluation in the second part of the present work. According to the author, Prof. Bockle is actually one of the most eminent representatives of the current generation of post-Tridintine whose strange reappearance should be above all considered with respect to the attitudes adopted by some moralists to the encyclical Humanae Vitae, rather than to a deepening in the doctrina of the II Vatican Council. To Bockle, explains Williams, it makes little sense to ask oneself for what is true in the field of practical christian life; the only adequate question has to look toward the liberty and autonomy of the human subject. The task of fundamental therefore, consists in establishing the conditions and norms for a human, autonomous activity. One is dealing, according to Williams, with what might be called moral teleologic theology, because it takes its criteria exclusively from the appropiateness of one's acts to the end which he has chosen; nowhere does Bockle clearly state which and what kind of end this should be. lt would not be an absolute autonomy, says Bockle, but rather a teonomic autonomy. This strange terminology, which seems to include a contradictio in adiecto, stems from, as Williams informs us, a work of Paul Tillich, even though Bockle never refers to it as a source. The deism of Tillich, the author concludes, is without doubt behind this radical subjectivization. The article ends by saying how the case of Bockle shows how these times, a hundred years after this great encyclical, urge once again a rediscovery of the vigorous anthropological and theological principles of St. Thomas Aquinas, to be able to leave the impasse.

MEDICAL SIMULATION: MORAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES

Medical simulation is now widespread as an integral part of medical education. Simulation begins with an important moral claim: we must do the best we can to keep patients safe while training the next generation of clinicians and retraining current clinicians so that they are kept up-to-date. As a powerful teaching tool, simulation allows practicing communication, decision-making, practical skills and leadership as well as evaluation which can be standardized and poses no risk to patients associated with experiential learning conducted in the actual clinical setting. It is also the fact that simulation raises ethical questions of its own. That training is not simply technical. It is also a way to learn and practice dealing with the emotional challenges of real-life ethical situations. Simulation also provides a safe zone for students to make practical skills and communication mistakes and to develop moral imagination. Despite the growing acceptance of clinical simulation to enhance quality and safety in medical education, the question of whether students actually acquire and transfer the ethical principles that takes place in a simulation setting is unknown.

Ethical dilemmas and reflexivity in qualitative research.

ContextFor medical education researchers, a key concern may be the practicalities of gaining ethical approval where this is a national or local requirement. However, in qualitative studies, where the dynamics of human interaction pervade, ethical considerations are an ongoing process which continues long after approval has been granted. Responding to ethical dilemmas arising ‘in the moment’ requires a reflexive approach whereby the researcher questions his/her own motivations, assumptions and interests. Drawing on empirical studies and their experiences in academic and clinical research practice, the authors share their reflections on adhering to ethical principles throughout the research process to illustrate the complexities and nuances involved.Objectives and findingsThese reflections offer critical insights into dilemmas arising in view of the ethical principles driving good conduct, and through domains which distinguish between procedural ethics, situational ethics, ethical relationships and ethical issues in exiting the study. The accounts consider integrity and altruism in research, gatekeeping and negotiating access, consent and confidentiality, power dynamics and role conflict, and challenges in dissemination of findings. The experiences are based on a range of examples of research in a UK context from managing difficult conversations in the classroom to video-ethnography in the operating theatre.Discussion and conclusionsThese critical reflections make visible the challenges encountered and decisions that must be taken in the moment and on reflection after the event. Through sharing our experiences and debating the decisions we made, we offer insights into reflexivity in qualitative research which will be of value to others.

Bioética y situación narrativa de las personas con trastorno del desarrollo sexual (TDS)

This paper will deal with the existential condition of people diagnosed in an intersexual state based on the anatomical and gonadal sexual ambiguity described as hermaphroditism. The refl ection and analysis of the LGBTTTI group’s orientation and/or sexual preference processes is not the main objective of the study, but rather the refl exive considerations that provoke bioethical dilemmas in the choice of sex-generic identity that is assigned by third parties to a person at the time of birth according to a clear and objective genitality that reveals anatomical ambiguity, causing the people responsible and/or close to it –whether parents, guardians, or doctors– to make hasty and/or arbitrary decisions regarding the designation of the sex with which the newborn will be registered –for legal purposes–. This gives rise to a consent (perhaps hasty and even arbitrary) with respect to the surgical treatment indicated to assign sexual identity from the genitality or depending only on the gonadal situation, which subsequently implies dilemmatic ethical situations concerning the existential condition of the sexual identity assigned arbitrarily and under implicit legal, social and cultural pressure.

Building a practical curriculum in clinical ethics and responsible research for undergraduate medical students in Guatemala

Abstract Background Despite growing concerns over unprofessional conduct by physicians and medical trainees in the Guatemalan health system, little has been done to develop a practical curriculum in clinical ethics and responsible research for undergraduate medical students in Guatemala. As part of a training programme in ethics education supported by the US National Institutes of Health's Fogarty International Center, faculty at Universidad Francisco Marroquin (UFM) in Guatemala City aimed to incorporate active-learning ethics short-courses into an existing system of credit-bearing electives offered to students as part of their 6-year undergraduate medical education. Methods Two preliminary workshops led by Guatemalan faculty trainees with the assistance of US mentors from Rutgers University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Pennsylvania, were used to stimulate student interest in future ethics courses, illustrate the level of student demand, and provide an evidence base to guide the development of a formal curriculum. Findings The resulting ethics course includes six 2-h modules, each of which is a stand-alone unit with learning goals and objectives, assigned readings, a discussion case, and assessment. These structured case-based activities allow for flexibility in design and scheduling, do not compete with core requirements of the existing curriculum, and enable students to develop critical reasoning approaches to ethical situations they will encounter in medical practice. The courses enhance rather than challenge existing bioethics content that historically emphasised moral and religious doctrine but did little to develop practical skills. The course, which targets second and third year medical students, has thus far been offered twice, and two additional sessions are scheduled during the current academic year. To date, more than 80 students have participated in the workshops and courses. Evaluations are being used to refine pedagogical approaches and drive course content. Interpretation The UFM ethics elective courses offer a model for transforming medical ethics education in undergraduate medical programmes throughout Guatemala and the region. Funding None.

Need for ethics support in clinical practice and suggestion for an Ethics Consultation Service: views of Nurses and Physicians working in Italian Healthcare Institutions.

Ethics Consultation Services (ECS) and Ethical Committees manage several aspects of clinical ethical issues. In Italy there are only Ethical Committees, and, although they should also perform ethical consultations, their activity is limited to approving clinical trial protocols. To analyse the opinions of a sample of Nurses and Physicians about their motivations to ask for an ethical consultation. A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of Italian Nurses and Physicians. Respondents would request ethical consultations mainly for end-of-life issues and, secondarily, for conflicts with patients' families. Respondents identified the provision of suggestions for hospital policy, the development of ethical guidelines, and the counselling for individual cases requested by clinicians, patients or families as the most important functions of ECS. ECS activities should focus on counselling and support to decisions in complex ethical situations according to institutional policies and guidelines self-developed.

The Promise of Accountable Care Organizations: "The Code," Reimbursement, and an Ethical No-Win Situation for Behavior Analysts.

Clinical ethics, with its emphasis on the actions of clinicians, risks overlooking the ways in which broader health-care structures influence the behavior of health-care providers. Analysis of a factual case study demonstrates that status quo reimbursement practices may place behavior analysts in a position where, no matter how they act, they risk acting unethically. By contrast, the reimbursement model set by accountable care organizations (ACOs), part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), may offer a solution. However, making good on the promise of ACOs will require more resources than any individual behavior analyst possesses. In order to encourage institutional structures that facilitate ethical practice, behavior analysts' professional organizations should engage in contemporary political discussions about the state of American health care.

The Factors Affecting the Turnover Intention of Nurses at a Hospital

The ethical issues nurses forming ≥40% of the entire manpower at healthcare institutions experience and their emotional recognition can cause their burnout, which can lead to turnover. This study aimed to determine the associations of turnover intention, develop turnover intervention programs for hospital nurses, and provide basic data necessary to manage human resources efficiently. Data were collected from 154 nurses working at a single university hospital with the approval of the institutional review board over a month of May 2015. The data were collected by using tools to measure ethical situation, emotional recognition, and turnover intention and such data were analyzed through the SPSS 23.0 Window program. The nurses were at severe or higher levels of an ethical situation, emotional recognition, and turnover intention. Their turnover intention was positively correlated with negative therapeutic behavior, irrational organizational administration, and negative nursing behavior, lack of respect for patients’ autonomy, excessive financial burden, or emotional recognition. The factor most significantly affecting turnover intention was emotional recognition. As nurses play more roles in healthcare practice, they experience an emotional state in which they have their decision-making emotionally controlled by emergency, ethical situations, and institutional pressure, which render them unable to control negative and distressful feelings. This situation places them at higher risk of turnover. It is therefore necessary to provide good manpower management, with the objective of preventing quantitative workload on nurses, and to develop intervention programs in pursuit of turnover prevention.

An examination of ethical situations and nursing ethics education of clinical nurses from the perspective of hospital size

An examination of ethical situations and nursing ethics education of clinical nurses from the perspective of hospital size

Is Artificial Impregnation Opposed to the Unity of Marriage?: A New Look at the Question of Embryo Adoption

Is Artificial Impregnation Opposed to the Unity of Marriage?:A New Look at the Question of Embryo Adoption Irene Alexander The question of embryo adoption is one of the most difficult and most nuanced questions in all of bioethics. The difficulty of the question lies not only in the grave reality that the lives of more than 400,000 cryopreserved embryos are at stake but also in the fact that the technological procedures used by the in vitro fertilization (IVF) industry have created an ethical situation that has never before existed in the history of the human race. No Father or Doctor of the Church in centuries prior could have anticipated the kind of medical technology available today and, thus, commented on such a unique moral situation. Both the weight of the question for these tiny orphaned persons and the novelty and absurdity of their current state make the evaluation of embryo adoption extraordinarily difficult. Even the 2008 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) document Dignitatis Personae, which treats the issue explicitly, does not give a definitive solution to the moral issue. Dignitatis Personae states that there are "problems" with embryo adoption similar to those with IVF, surrogacy, and the transfer of embryos for infertile couples as a "treatment for infertility," all of which the CDF condemns as "not ethically acceptable" because they are opposed to the unity of marriage.1 Nevertheless embryo adoption [End Page 47] itself is not formally condemned as illicit. The judgment in Dignitatis Personae leans in a negative direction but does not make a definitive pronouncement either way. While much of Donum Vitae and Dignitatis Personae is aimed at addressing the immorality of artificial fertilization, the main issue surrounding embryo adoption is whether or not artificial impregnation is morally licit. Moral theologians themselves are currently divided on the issue. Those in favor of embryo adoption do not find artificial impregnation—that is, heterologous embryo transfer (HET)—to be morally problematic but may have concern with the proximity of the couple's cooperation with the IVF industry.2 These proponents of embryo adoption do not see any moral difficulty in what is considered a clinical act of transferring of an embryo into the womb of a married woman to impregnate her if it is the couple's intention to adopt the [End Page 48] child into their family. They consider it a life-saving act, one that perhaps even restores the order of nature by placing the child where he or she ought to be—gestating in the womb of a loving mother married to a man who also adopts the child as his own. On the surface this argument seems very fitting and reasonable. Most opponents of embryo adoption, however, argue that, while the intention is profoundly noble and praiseworthy, there is a fundamental moral problem in the very act of embryo transfer, since the woman becomes pregnant by a person who is not her husband and this action violates the unity of marriage, which Donum Vitae states involves "the right to become a mother and father only through each other."3 To complicate the matters even further, proponents of embryo adoption absolutely agree with the text of Donum Vitae II.A.1, but they do not see why its logic applies to embryo adoption, since that section of Donum Vitae deals with the dignity of procreation—namely, how procreation ought to happen in the first place. Yet, since conception has already occurred and the injustice already taken place to the embryo, proponents of embryo adoption generally do not find these passages to be essentially related to the issue.4 Nor do they [End Page 49] understand why opponents of embryo adoption continue to focus on this one aspect of the biological process required to make embryo adoption occur when there does not seem to be another morally licit solution. How exactly does artificial impregnation violate the unity of marriage, as opponents so often argue? Why do opponents make such a big deal over moving an embryo imprisoned in a freezer to the womb of a woman who will gestate and nurture the child through birth and raise the child together with...

중용(中庸)의 생명의식과 상황윤리(狀況倫理)에 대한 연구 - 『중용(中庸)』과 『맹자(孟子)』를 중심으로 -

본고는 일상에서 마주치는 狀況倫理와 "中庸"의 생명의식을 『中庸』과 『孟子』를 통하여 구명하는 것을 연구목적으로 한다. 유가의 狀況倫理라고 할 수 있는 조화롭고 적합한 時中과 權道의 윤리적 판단은 무엇과도 바꿀 수 없는 생명의 귀중하고 존엄함을 깊게 인식하고, 도덕과 윤리 그리고 규범원리에 대한 올바른 이해에서 비롯된다고 생각한다. 이러한 올바른 인식의 과정에서 "中庸의 생명의식"에 대한 개념의 이해도 자연스럽게 도출될 수 있을 것이다. 이 연구는 中庸의 도덕원칙을 기반으로 하는 상황윤리로서의 時中과 權道의 현시적 재해석을 통하여 신속하고 윤리적인 상황판단이 숨 가쁘게 변화하는 고 위험 사회에서 서로가 조화롭고 안전한 사회를 만드는데 합당한 사회윤리로서 기여할 수 있다는 학문적 성과를 연구의 목표로 한다. The purpose of this paper is to identify life consciousness of ‘middle way’ and situation ethics that we encounter in daily life through 『Chung Yong』 and 『Mencius』. The ethical judgment of harmonious and suitable expediency and mean that can be said to be the situation ethics of Confucianism is thought to derive from a deep awareness of preciousness and dignity of life that can not be changed with anything and a proper understanding of morality, ethics, and normative principles. In the process of this right awareness, an understanding of the concept of ‘life consciousness of middle way’ can be derived naturally. This study aims at academic achievement that rapid and ethical circumstantial judgement can contribute to making a harmonious and safe society in a high-risk society that changes breathtakingly as appropriate social ethics through the explicit reinterpretation of expediency and mean as situation ethics based on moral principles of ChungYong.

In support of situated ethics: ways of building trust with stigmatised ‘waste pickers’ in Cape Town

To a large extent, conformity to rigid principles continues to constrain a more situated approach to research ethics. Although this means deception is seen as something that should be avoided at all costs, I found that covert aspects of my ethnographic study enabled me to minimise the inequality between researcher and research participants. This article explores my use of situated ethics in interactions with street ‘waste pickers’ during fieldwork in Cape Town using participant observation. I opted to wear a hidden recorder and obtain selective consent, which I argue was more appropriate than relying solely on a fieldnote journal or obtaining signatures on a written consent form. These methods enabled me to communicate respect and build trust. The implication is that a contextualised approach to ethical procedures can be better suited to sensitive research topics, with marginalised social groups, where there is extreme inequality between researchers and their research participants.