The integration of nanotechnology’s ‘social and ethical issues’ (SEI) at the research and development stage is one of the defining features of nanotechnology governance in the United States. Mandated by law, integration extends the field of nanotechnology to include a role for the “social”, the “public” and the social sciences and humanities in research and development (R&D) practices and agendas. Drawing from interviews with scientists, engineers and policymakers who took part in an oral history of the “Future of Nanotechnology” symposium (...) at the Cornell NanoScale Facility, this article examines how nanotechnology’s ‘social and ethical issues’ are brought to life by these practitioners. From our analysis, three modes of enactment emerge: enacting SEI as obligations and problems-to-be-solved, enacting SEI by ‘not doing it’ in the laboratory, and enacting SEI as part of scientific practice. Together they paint a complex picture where SEI are variously defined, made visible or invisible, included and excluded, with participants showing their skill at both boundary-work (Gieryn Am Sociol Rev 48:781–795, 1983, 1999) and at integration. We conclude by reflecting on what this may mean for the design and implementation of SEI integration policies, suggesting that we need to transform SEI from obligations into ‘matters of care’ (Puig de la Bellacasa Soc Stud Sci 41(1):85–106, 2011) that tend to existing relationalities between science and society and implicate practitioners themselves. (shrink)

Industry groups engage in venue shifting when they seek to overturn or alter restrictive regulations imposed by one political venue through another. A critical step in this process is resolving uncertainties surrounding the preference of the targeted venue and the nature of the relevant policy proposal. While existing studies emphasize a long-term trial-and-error process of policy learning, we focus on nascent industries and argue that ventures seek other information sources to resolve these uncertainties quickly. In particular, nascent industry (...) groups are likely to perceive that the targeted venue will support their policy proposal if the targeted venue is ideologically distant from the venue that has enacted the restrictive regulations, if the targeted venue has recently supported other nascent industry groups’ similar policy proposals, or if the industry groups themselves are more exposed to industry peers’ success in promoting the same policy proposal in other jurisdictions. Under these conditions, the industry groups invest more to influence the targeted venue in response to restrictive regulations enacted by other venues. We find support for our theory by examining how from 2013 to 2019 the small unmanned aircraft systems industry trade associations in the United States lobbied state governments to nullify local regulations. (shrink)

Every healthcare organisation enacts a multitude of policies, but there has been no discussion as to what procedural and substantive requirements a policy writing process should meet in order to achieve good outcomes and to possess sufficient authority for those who are asked to follow it.Using, as an example, the controversy about patient’s refusal of blood transfusions, I argue that a hospital wide policy is preferable to individual decision making, because it ensures autonomy, quality, fairness, and efficiency.Policy (...) writing for morally controversial medical practices needs additional justification compared to policies on standard medical practices and secures legitimate authority for HCO members by meeting five requirements: all parties directed by the policy are represented; the deliberative process encompasses all of the HCO’s obligations; the rationales for the policy are made available; there is a mechanism for criticising, and for evaluating the policy. (shrink)

Global capitalism is a transnational “operational space” which is produced by the practices of states, policy- and issue-specific government networks, and private organizations such as transnational corporations, global law firms, and standard-setting agencies. This “operational space,” which I call the transnational constellation, works through and beyond distinct spatial settings, endowing them with a global financial capitalistic logic and limiting the scope of democratic self-determination. In the second section, I analyze political protest against this transnational constellation in terms of democratic (...) theory. I argue that transnational protest and activism have to be appreciated for their reshaping of spaces of the political, for developing and delivering a genuinely global perspective on political problems, and for their politicization of the transnational constellation by revealing and contesting structures and strategies of domination. However,... (shrink)

This article considers how the figure of the ``user'' is deployed to imagine the assembling of location-based mobile phone technologies in the context of UK policy. Drawing on the sociology of expectations, we address the performativity of the ``user'' in the think tank Demos' publication Mobilisation. In the process, we analyze how discourses about users enact particular futures that feature arrangements of, for example, persons, mobile phone technologies, and political institutions. We present two narrative strategies operating in Mobilisation: first, (...) the purification of the social and technological in the portrayal of futures and their impediments; second, how existing, emergent, and future users serve as ``narrative joints'', reconnecting the social and technological in the enactment of preferred policy trajectories. In conclusion, we explore Mobilisation as a `catalogue of expectations' in which the representation of a multiplicity of users is itself performative, enacting a particular future policy terrain while bracketing off others. (shrink)

Since its enactment, the Affordable Care Act has faced numerous legal challenges. Many of these lawsuits have focused on implementation of the law and the limits of executive power. Opponents challenged the ACA under the Obama Administration while supporters have turned to the courts to prevent the Trump Administration from undermining the law. In the meantime, Congress remains gridlocked over the ACA and many other critical health policy issues, leaving the executive branch to adopt its preferred policy (...) approach and ultimately leading to lawsuits. This article briefly discusses the history of litigation over the ACA and some reasons why this litigation has been so enduring. The article then identifies other areas of health policy that are or could be future targets for litigation. Finally, the article comments on the potential impact of the courts on future health reform efforts. (shrink)

CareVisions (2022–2026) is an interdisciplinary researcj project reflecting on care experiences during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic to re-imagine care relations, practices and policies in Irela...

In moral case deliberation (MCD), healthcare professionals meet to reflect upon their moral questions supported by a structured conversation method and non-directive conversation facilitator. An increasing number of Dutch healthcare institutions work with MCD to (1) deal with moral questions, (2) improve reflection skills, interdisciplinary cooperation and decision-making, and (3) develop policy. Despite positive evaluations of MCD, organization and implementation of MCD appears difficult, depending on individuals or external experts. Studies on MCD implementation processes have not yet been published. (...) The aim of this study is to describe MCD implementation processes from the perspective of nurses who co-organize MCD meetings, so called ‘ local coordinators ’. Various qualitative methods were used within the framework of a responsive evaluation research design. The results demonstrate that local coordinators work hard on the pragmatic implementation of MCD. They do not emphasize the ethical and normative underpinnings of MCD, but create organizational conditions to foster a learning process, engagement and continuity. Local coordinators indicate MCD needs firm back-up from management regulations. These pragmatic action-oriented implementation strategies are as important as ideological reasons for MCD implementation. Advocates of clinical ethics support should pro-actively facilitate these strategies for both practical and ethical reasons. (shrink)

Rahat Naqvi and Hans Smits' edited collection, "Thinking about and Enacting Curriculum in 'Frames of War'" is centered on the theme of how the current global order creates precarious conditions for human life. The contributors respond to the challenges Judith Butler posed about the fragility of life and questions about how we apprehend, and take up ethically, our responsibilities for those who are considered "Other." The overarching objective of the book is the meaning of a call to ethics, and how (...) discussion of framing and frames is a provocation to think about our responsibilities as curriculum scholars and practitioners"-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Rahat Naqvi and Hans Smits' edited collection, "Thinking about and Enacting Curriculum in 'Frames of War'" is centered on the theme of how the current global order creates precarious conditions for human life. The contributors respond to the challenges Judith Butler posed about the fragility of life and questions about how we apprehend, and take up ethically, our responsibilities for those who are considered "Other." The overarching objective of the book is the meaning of a call to ethics, and how (...) discussion of framing and frames is a provocation to think about our responsibilities as curriculum scholars and practitioners"-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

IntroductionAcademic integrity policy that is inaccessible, ambiguous or confusing is likely to result in inconsistent policy enactment. Additionally, policy analysis and development are often undertaken as top down processes requiring passive acceptance by users of policy that has been developed outside the context in which it is enacted. Both these factors can result in poor policy uptake, particularly where policy users are overworked, intellectually critical and capable, not prone to passive acceptance and hold (...) valuable grass roots intelligence about policy enactment.Case descriptionThe case study presented in this paper describes the actions of a community of practice at a regional Australian university to deconstruct and translate ambiguous academic integrity policy into a suite of accessible academic integrity resources that were intelligible to staff and students, and which assisted academic staff to consistently enact policy. The paper narrates the formation of the CoP, the tangible and intangible value it created, the social learning practices enacted by its members, its grassroots policy work and the material resources produced from that work.Discussion and evaluationAn evaluation of the CoP was conducted using a value creation framework to explore its immediate value, potential value, applied value, realised value, and reframing value. These values were considered at each stages of the CoP’s lifespan. The evaluation was a useful process that demonstrated the wide-ranging value created by the CoP. Six insights were drawn from the evaluation which promote understanding of the value created for a university by a CoP, particularly in contributing to academic integrity culture over a sustained period of time.ConclusionsThis paper contributes to a research gap on specific examples of discretion within rule-based systems. It illustrates how academics and members of the CoP used their discretion to interpret and enact academic integrity policy within a higher education setting. Drawing from the evaluation of the CoP we argue for greater understanding of the grass-roots contribution of academic and professional staff to academic integrity policy translation and enactment. (shrink)

It seemed like only minutes after a team of Scottish scientists announced, in late February 1997, that they had successfully cloned a sheep, that governmental officials and private citizens throughout the world called for a ban on cloning human beings. The rush to legislate or issue executive orders was so swift, it is reasonable to wonder why the news that a mammal had been cloned ignited such a stampede to prohibit, even criminalize, attempts to clone humans. These events raise a (...) series of separate, yet related questions. Why does the prospect of cloning human beings incite such strong reactions? What reasons have been proposed for enacting national laws or international conventions to prohibit cloning? Can these prohibitions be justified by sound ethical arguments? Before attempting to answer these questions, let us look first at the responses that called for public policy measures to ban human cloning. (shrink)

Argument is a critical component in policy deliberations. In this study, negotiation is viewed as a type of policy deliberation, one characterized by attack and defense of proposals, interdependence between disputants, and mixed motives of cooperation and competition. Argument in negotiation, then, functions as a reason-giving activity to enact policy. Employing a category system based on rhetorical stasis, the researchers examine whether bargainers specialize in their use of argument types and whether this specialization remains consistent throughout a (...) teacher-school board negotiation and whether it differs for the type of settlement of agenda items. Results of the study suggest that bargainers specialize in argument types at different times during the bargaining. In the early stages of negotiation, teachers center on harm and workability arguments to prepare their case and justify the merits of their proposals, but in the latter phases of bargaining they switch to arguments on implementation to reaffirm their demands and to prioritize issues. Board members, in the early stages, rely on disadvantage, workability, and implementation arguments to establish resistance points and to refute appeals for change, but in the latter stages of negotiation they employ harm-inherency and disadvantage arguments to weigh the costs of concessions and to rationalize the settlement. This study, then, supports the existence of phase variation in bargaining and argues for a developmental approach in deciphering how negotiators who hold antithetical positions reach mutually satisfactory settlements. (shrink)

In recent years, cross-national collaboration in medical research has gained increased policy attention. Policies are developed to enhance data sharing, ensure open-access, and harmonize international standards and ethics rules in order to promote access to existing resources and increase scientific output. In tandem with this promotion of data sharing, numerous ethics policies are developed to control data flows and protect privacy and confidentiality. Both sets of policy making, however, pay limited attention to the moral decisions and social ties (...) enacted in the everyday routines of scientific work. This paper takes its point of departure in the practices of a Danish laboratory with great experience in international collaboration regarding genetic research. We focus on a simple query, what makes genetic material and health data flow, and which hopes and concerns travel along with them? We explore what we call the flows, the nonflows, and the overflows of material and information, and we document the work producing the flows of health data and biomaterial. We call this work “ethics work” and argue that it is crucial for data sharing though it is rarely articulated in ethics policies, remains inadequately funded, and lacks acknowledgment in policies promoting international data sharing. (shrink)

This paper aims to show the historical contingency of policy entrepreneurship in science by analyzing the case of brain research in South Korea during the last decade of the 20th century. This decade saw an increasing emphasis placed upon the development of information technology and its use for societal changes. The rise of the “Information Society” in Korea was an important context for shaping the field of brain research as an amalgam of multiple disciplines which led to the passage (...) of the Brain Research Promotion Act; the first law in the world enacted to promote brain research. This paper, through focusing on in what context someone takes up an entrepreneurial role, shows how the concept of interdisciplinarity has been shaped by, and how it has influenced the development of brain research and its related policy measures in Korea. It ultimately reveals the contingent and transient aspect of a policy entrepreneur and his effect on building a new field. (shrink)

In this essay, P. Taylor Webb and Kalervo N. Gulson argue that educational policy is a spatial process and that implementation processes in particular produce crucial emergent geographies for policy research. Webb and Gulson describe how emergent geographies are produced when policy folds actors through senses and enactments of policy. The idea that policy is sensed and enacted is developed into the concept of a policy intension that extends approaches to spatial and, in particular, (...) micropolitical analyses in policy research. Webb and Gulson conclude by discussing cartographical methods that better map the geographies of subjectivity produced through policy intensions. (shrink)

In 2015 the UK became the first country in the world to legalise mitochondrial donation, a controversial germ line reproductive technology to prevent the transmission of mitochondrial disease. Dimond and Stephens track the intense period of scientific and ethical review, public consultation and parliamentary debates preceeding the decision. They draw on stakeholder accounts and public documents to explore how patients, professionals, institutions and publics mobilised within ‘for’ and ‘against’ clusters, engaging in extensive promissory, emotional, bureaucratic, ethical, embodied and clinical labour (...) to justify competing visions of an ethical future. They describe how this decision is the latest iteration of a UK sociotechnical imaginary in which the further liberalization of human embryo research and use is rendered legitimate and ethical through modes of consultation and permissive but strictly regulated licensing. Overall, this book presents a timely, multi-dimensional, and sociological account of a globally significant landmark in the history of human genetics, and will be relevant to those with an interest in genetics, Science, Technology and Society, the sociology of medicine, reproductive technology, and public policy debate. (shrink)

It was a happy surprise when, overcoming partisan divisions and interest‐group lobbying, Congress enacted the No Surprises Act, which bans unfair out‐of‐network “balance billing.” Although this is only a modest legislative victory, key efforts by the health policy community made a real difference in a time of legislative gridlock.

The desire to guide research and innovation in more ‘responsible’ directions is increasingly emphasised in national and international policies, the funding of inter- and trans-disciplinary collaborations and academic scholarship on science policy and technology governance. Much of this growth has occurred simultaneously with the development of nanoscale sciences and technologies, where emphasis on the need for responsible research and innovation has been particularly widespread. This paper describes an empirical study exploring the potential for RRI within nanosafety research in Norway (...) and Denmark. It identifies three different ways nanosafety scientists relate to core RRI criteria, demonstrating areas of both convergence and divergence between their views and those of academics and policymakers currently defining and working to promote RRI. The paper identifies a range of practical barriers and cultural differences that are creating such divergences and inhibiting the enactment of RRI within the particular site of research laboratories. It concludes that the identified differences and challenges demand critical reflection on both the appropriateness and applicability of RRI characteristics for enactment at the level of individual research scientists. Significant changes are therefore advocated as required if RRI, as currently imagined and promoted, is to become an integral mode of scientific culture. (shrink)

Over the past decade, the increased involvement of local police in facilitating the deportation of undocumented migrants has played a central role in creating a record-breaking volume of deportations from the United States. In response to this so-called deportation crisis, nearly 600 localities have enacted sanctuary policies that limit their cooperation with federal authorities on immigration matters. This paper explores three moral justifications for sanctuary policies: the public safety, civil disobedience, and collective resistance arguments. Specifically, it addresses two questions: Which (...) justifications are available for which types of sanctuary policies? What must these justifications accomplish in order to be successful? I argue that although common public safety considerations can justify some sanctuary policies, others are best understood as a form of legitimate collective resistance. (shrink)

This study investigates the social–psychological mechanisms leading individuals in organizations to engage in environmental citizenship behaviors, which entail keeping abreast of, and participating in, the environmental affairs of a company. Informed by the corporate greening and organizational behavior literature, we suggested that an employee’s level of involvement in the management of a company’s environmental impact was the overt manifestation of his or her discretionary sense of commitment to environmental concerns in the work context, and that such commitment developed through the (...) interplay of individual, organizational, and supervisory factors. Our general findings support the idea that when environmental protection is valued and encouraged by the company and line managers, organization members are more likely to experience a volitional sense of attachment and responsibility to corporate environmental goals and values, which is enacted through citizenship behaviors. We also expected that individual ecological beliefs would strengthen the environmental commitment of employees via identification with, and adherence to, the socially responsible cause embodied by the organization and its managerial staff. But it did not. On the contrary, the data indicated that corporate environmental policy is more likely to influence an employee’s level of environmental commitment when he or she holds weak versus strong personal ecological beliefs. Theoretical and managerial implications of our findings are discussed. (shrink)

Three global developments situate the context of this investigation: the increasing use of social media by organizations and their employees, the burgeoning presence of social media policies, and the heightened focus on corporate social responsibility. In this study the intersection of these trends is examined through a content analysis of 112 publicly available social media policies from the largest corporations in the world. The extent to which social media policies facilitate and/or constrain the communicative sensibilities and values associated with contemporary (...) notions of CSR is considered. Overall, findings indicate that a large majority of policies, regardless of sector or national headquarters, increasingly inhibit communicative tenets of contemporary CSR and thereby diminish employee negotiation and participation in the social responsibilities of corporations. Moreover, policies generally enact organizational communication practices that are contrary to international CSR guidelines. Findings suggest that social media policies represent a relatively unrecognized development in the institutionalization of CSR communicative norms and practices that call into question the promising affordances of social media for the inclusion of various voices in the public negotiation of what constitutes corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

To practise ‘fairly and justly’ a clinician must balance the needs of both the many and the few: the individual patient in front of them, and the many unseen patients in the waiting room, and in the county. They must consider the immediate clinical needs of those in the present, and how their actions will impact on future patients. The good medical practice guidance ‘Make the care of your patient your first concern’ provides no guidance on how doctors should act (...) when they care for multiple patients with conflicting needs. Moreover, conflicting needs extend far past simply those between different patients. At an organisational level, financial obligations must be balanced with clinical ones; the system must support those who work within it in a variety of roles; and, finally, in order for a healthcare service to be sustainable, the demands of current and future generations must be balanced.The central problem, we propose, is that there is no shared philosophical framework on which the provision of care or the development of health policy is based, nor is there a practical, fair and transparent process to ensure that the service is equipped to deal justly with new challenges as they emerge. Many philosophers have grappled with constructing a set of principles which would lead to a ‘good’ society which is just to different users; prominent among them is Rawls.Four important principles can be derived using a Rawlsian approach: equity of access, distributive justice, sustainability and openness. However, Rawls’ approach is sometimes considered too abstract to be applied readily to policymaking; it does not provide clear guidance for how individuals working within existing institutions can enact the principles of justice. We therefore combine the principles derived from Rawls with Scanlonian contractualism: by demanding that decisions are made in a way which cannot be ‘reasonably rejected’ by different stakeholders, we ensure that conflicting needs are considered robustly.We demonstrate how embedding this framework would ensure just policies and fair practice. We illustrate this by using examples of how it would help prevent injustice among different socioeconomic groups, prevent intergenerational injustice and prevent injustice in a crisis, for example, as we respond to new challenges such as COVID-19.Attempts to help individual doctors practise fairly and justly throughout their professional lives are best focused at an institutional or systemic level. We propose a practical framework: combining Scanlonian contractualism with a Rawlsian approach. Adopting this framework would equip the workforce and population to contribute to fair policymaking, and would ultimately result in a healthcare system whose practice and policies—at their core—were just. (shrink)

From the point of view of a theorist in ethics, the interest in public policy usually centres on the policy outcomes. But this point of view does not take much account of the roles and practices through which public policies are enacted. What additional ethical focuses for the policy agent might these entail? I outline four features of policy making, centred on the agent's performance of their role in the process, that raise ethical issues. These features (...) are: the nature of the policy process; the definition of the public; the treatment of policy agents; and accounting for public policy decisions. Brief examples are used to illustrate the nature of the issues and support the conclusion that these present additional ethical focuses for agents in public policy roles. (shrink)

As has been the case in Europe, increasing consumer demand for higher welfare products has resulted in improved conditions for farm animals raised for slaughter in the USA and Australia. Consumer awareness has been significantly aided by investigations of farm and slaughterhouse conditions by animal welfare organizations, often working undercover. These gains are now under very serious threat. In eleven states in the USA, and three in Australia, new legislation, coined “Ag-gag” law, has been enacted prohibiting public dissemination of material (...) depicting on farm animal use. In both countries, media corporations and private citizens are liable to up to three years’ imprisonment for publishing photographs or recordings depicting the conditions of animals on farms or at slaughter. Controls on the publication of information documenting animal use compromises transparency in the food chain, erodes the accountability of those involved in the management of animals and undermines the case for enhanced legislation and policy reform. This paper describes recent legal challenges in the USA to the constitutionality of “Ag-gag” laws and evaluates “Ag-gag” laws’ impact on animal welfare in agricultural facilities in the USA and Australia. (shrink)

In 2002 the Netherlands and Belgium both adopted a law on euthanasia. In the Netherlands the law was a codification of a longstanding practice of condoning euthanasia. In Belgium it was a political novelty, without extended prior legal or medical discussion. The developments in the Netherlands and in Belgium will certainly give rise to debates in other countries. The Dutch example has already elicited international discussion. The Belgian policy is interesting because it shows that legalisation of euthanasia can be (...) enacted quite quickly in a country that has no longstanding tradition in this area. John Keown’s book is therefore timely. He has taken part in the debate on euthanasia for a decade and combines an analytic style with a thorough knowledge of the literature on euthanasia. Moreover, he takes a firm stand in the debate. The subtitle of the current book clearly shows Keown’s position. As a critique of legislation of euthanasia, his book is a challenge to the developments in the Netherlands and Belgium.In the first part of the book, Keown tries to clear away common confusions and misunderstandings in the debate by developing clear definitions. Euthanasia is defined as an intentional termination of life. Keown distinguishes between active euthanasia and termination of treatment with the intention to terminate life, or passive euthanasia . Euthanasia is either at the patient’s request, that is voluntary euthanasia , or without the patient’s request, that is non-voluntary euthanasia . Keown distinguishes between euthanasia and medical interventions that foresee the shortening of the patient’s life, but do not primarily aim to bring this about, with reference to the intention of the physician. According to Keown, intentions and foresights are different states of mind, which are morally distinct. …. (shrink)

The urgent need to address climate change poses a range of complex moral and practical concerns, not least because rising to the challenge will require cooperation among countries that differ greatly in their wealth, the extent of their contributions to the problem, and their vulnerability to environmental and economic shocks. This thesis by publication in the field of climate ethics aims to characterise a range of national responsibilities associated with acting on climate change (Part I), and to identify proposals for (...) fulfilling those responsibilities through fair and feasible institutional arrangements (Part II). I aim not only to address substantive gaps in scholarly understanding of those responsibilities, but also to strengthen the ability of climate ethics to engage meaningfully with climate policy. Chapter 2 addresses the question of whether wealthy countries owe a “climate debt” to poor countries. It finds that even if climate debt (suitably interpreted) may provide a coherent and morally plausible concept, its political value as a discursive frame that can provide a basis for cooperation is limited. Chapter 3 investigates the role that equity may play in negotiations on a long-term climate change agreement. It argues that developed and developing countries may reach a “principled bargain” if both converge on a way of differentiating their responsibilities that places less emphasis on a rigid dichotomy between the two groups and more emphasis on objective criteria relating to their contribution to the problem and capacity to address it. Chapter 4 explores a question largely overlooked in climate ethics, namely whether wealthy countries owe compensation to those who are adversely affected by the climate policies which they enact. I find that enacting countries have responsibilities to compensate both domestic and foreign citizens who would suffer disproportionate losses from the effects of policies. Chapter 5 assesses whether wealthy countries may legitimately adopt unilateral (or “fragmented”) rather than multilaterally coordinated approaches to raising climate finance for developing countries. It finds that coordinated target-setting, effort sharing and oversight arrangements are essential, but that a mix of unilateral and coordinated approaches to raising funds will be necessary for securing legitimacy. In Chapter 6, through addressing the broader question of what should count as official aid, I consider whether wealthy countries may draw on aid budgets to support developing countries’ efforts to address climate change. I find that the current definition of official aid should be retained but supplemented by specified exclusions from eligibility in order to preserve the aid regime’s integrity. Nevertheless, some climate finance may justifiably be counted as aid provided that concerns relating to the diversion of aid funding are addressed. In addressing these research questions, the thesis seeks not only to make original theoretical contributions to climate ethics but also to strengthen broader scholarly understanding of the ways in which ethics and international public policy may inform one another, particularly by highlighting the role of framing considerations (Chapter 2), feasibility considerations (Chapter 3), and the ways in which principles of fairness and legitimacy map onto institutional functions (Chapters 4, 5 and 6). (shrink)

Deciding which climate policies to enact, and where and when to enact them, requires weighing their costs against the expected benefits. A key challenge in climate policy is how to value health impacts, which are likely to be large and varied, considering that they will accrue over long time horizons (centuries), will occur throughout the world, and will be distributed unevenly within countries depending in part on socioeconomic status. These features raise a number of important economic and ethical issues (...) including how to value human life in different countries at different levels of development, how to value future people, and how much priority to give the poor and disadvantaged. In this article we review each of these issues, describe different approaches for addressing them in quantitative climate policy analysis, and show how their treatment can dramatically change what should be done about climate change. Finally, we use the social cost of carbon, which reflects the cost of adding carbon emissions to the atmosphere, as an example of how analysis of climate impacts is sensitive to ethical assumptions. We consider $20 a reasonable lower bound for the social cost of carbon, but we show that a much higher value is warranted given a strong concern for equity within and across generations. (shrink)

Counterfactual thinking is presumed to play a preparatory function in promoting people’s behavioural intentions. This study specifically addresses the impacts of COVID-19 severity, tourists’ counterfactual thinking about the pandemic, and tourists’ perceived duty-free consumption value on the effect of a duty-free policy on travel intentions. Four hundred and ten participants took part in this study, which involved a 2 × 2 design. Results reveal the following patterns: compared to the absence of a duty-free policy in tourist destinations, (...) class='Hi'>enactment of a duty-free policy leads to stronger visit intentions through greater perceived value and the effect of a duty-free policy on travel intention is moderated by tourists’ counterfactual thinking and COVID-19 severity. (shrink)

This article explores how citizen participation was methodologically devised and materially articulated in the postdisaster reconstruction of Constitución, one of the most affected cities after the earthquake and tsunami that battered south central Chile in 2010. I argue that the techniques deployed to engineer the participation were arranged as a policy experiment where a particular type of public was provoked—one characterized by its emotional detachment, political engagement, and social tolerance. The case of Constitución, however, also shows that this public (...) ran parallel to other forms of being a public not aligned with the experiment’s assumptions. More broadly, the article argues that while disaster studies need to acknowledge the generative capacities of public participation, science and technology studies should include disasters as a particular setting for participatory experiments. (shrink)

Compensation for research related injuries is a subject that is increasingly gaining traction in developing countries which are burgeoning destinations of multi center research. However, the existence of disparate compensation rules violates the ethical principle of fairness. The current paper presents a comparison of the policies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. A systematic search of good clinical practice guidelines was conducted employing search strategies modeled in line with the recommendations of ADPTE Collaboration. The search focused on three (...) main areas namely bibliographic data bases, clinical practice guidelines data bases and a restricted internet search. A manual search of references cited in relevant guideline documents was also conducted. The search terms, Medical Subject Headings and key words were developed for a PubMed platform and then adapted for all other data bases. The search terms were kept constant for each country with the only difference being the country name. The documents so obtained were subjected to systematic content analysis. The study revealed that there is vast panoply of regulations which exist on a continuum. On one extreme is India with comprehensive regulations that are codified into law, and on the other end there is China which does not have specific laws regulating research related injuries. There are a number of differences and similarities such as mandatory insurance requirements, existence of no fault compensation, compensable injuries and the role of research ethics committees. It is imperative to enact legislations that protect participants without stifling the research enterprise. There is need for consistency and ideally harmonization of such regulations at a global level. A model policy on compensation for research related injuries should borrow from the best aspects of the different country policies and should be informed by the cardinal ethics principles of autonomy, justice and beneficence. (shrink)

Recently there have been pleas for STS to make a difference in how science policies are constructed and enacted. Much less remarked upon is the possibility that there may be troubling alignments between science studies and research policies in the form of shared conceptual, epistemological and methodological assumptions. Both have come to emphasise material outputs and visible activity, obscuring other processes, relationships and orderings involved in science work. This collection of papers focuses on these connections between STS and contemporary research (...) policies. They explore empirical material from ‘other epistemic places' to foreground and critique what is privileged and rewarded by science policies. But they also seek to make a theoretical contribution to STS itself, showing how its early focus on the hard centres of global technoscience have been constitutive of its characteristic concerns, epistemologies -and blind spots. As science studies moves out of the lab andbeyond the heartlands of the political West and global North, we argue that acknowledging some problematic affinities between science studies and science policy is both a critical necessity and an opportunity for new insights. (shrink)

We address how the leaders of a Catholic business school can articulate and assess how well their schools implement the following six principles drawn from Catholic social teaching : produce goods and services that are authentically good; foster solidarity with the poor by serving deprived and marginalized populations; advance the dignity of human work as a calling; exercise subsidiarity; promote responsible stewardship over resources; and acquire and allocate resources justly. We first discuss how the CST principles give substantive content and (...) meaning to the Good Goods, Good Work, and Good Wealth framework in The Vocation of the Business Leader and then discuss their congruencies and tensions with the UNGC and UNPRME principles. Next, we describe the Catholic Identity Matrix, an assessment tool that provides a quantitative and qualitative portrait of how well a Catholic business school integrates, within the scope of its mission and capacities, the three goods and related CST principles in its strategies, policies, activities, and processes. The concluding section discusses implications for ongoing UNGC and UNPRME assessment, reporting, and development efforts, and addresses the generalizability of our approach to business schools who draw their inspiration and moral principles from other faith-based or secular traditions. (shrink)

Educational analysts need new ways to engage with policy processes in a networked world of complex transnational connections. In this discussion, Tara Fenwick and Richard Edwards argue for a greater focus on materiality in educational policy as a way to trace the heterogeneous interactions and precarious linkages that enact policy as complex manifestations. In particular, Fenwick and Edwards point to the methodologies of actor-network theory (ANT), at least in its most recent permutations, as a useful approach to (...) materiality in policy analysis. Published examples of educational policy studies drawing from these methodologies are beginning to appear. In reviewing these, we argue that ANT sensibilities help to make visible the sociomaterial assemblages—the “messy objects”—that enact policy, the micro-negotiations that mobilize and stabilize (and destabilize) these assemblages, and the multiple ontologies that often coexist in policy environments. Fenwick and Edwards conclude with a discussion of methodological issues for working with concepts of ontological variance and messy objects in educational policy. (shrink)

Despite existing federal and state law and regulation, new human subjects research scandals involving “vulnerable” populations continue to surface. Although existing oversight mechanisms were enacted to ensure voluntary informed consent for participants and institutional review board oversight of HSR, these laws and regulations do not provide any special oversight mechanisms or protections to ensure the ethical and safe inclusion of cognitively impaired adults. The absence of rules to ensure consistently ethical conduct of research involving adults who lack consent capacity may (...) either lead to exploitation of this vulnerable population or the dearth of important research into the broad range of diseases that impair cognition. In other words, while some institutions and investigators are conducting research with this group without guidance, others are taking an extremely conservative approach and are excluding these individuals from research. Without safeguards that are adequate and robust but not overly burdensome, conducting research involving this population is ethically and legally challenging. (shrink)

Adding instructional time and holding teachers accountable for teaching social studies are touted as practical, logical steps toward reforming the age-old tradition of marginalization. This qualitative case study of an urban elementary school, examines how nine teachers and one administrator enacted district reforms that added 45 min to the instructional day and implemented a series of formative and summative assessments. Through classroom observations, interviews, time journals, and official school documents, this article describes underlying perceptions and priorities that were barriers to (...) any positive impact time or testing might have afforded social studies. Two recommendations emerge from results: 1) time structures need to provide space for the teaching of and planning for social studies; and 2) testing can have positive outcomes, but these are limited when assessments structures are hierarchical, misaligned, and poorly communicated. (shrink)

Background:Several studies have investigated the experiences of first-generation immigrant nurses in new workplaces. Yet, little is known about how native nurses and newcomers collaborate in their care for aging residents in European nursing homes.Objective:To gain a deeper understanding of interactions between first-generation immigrant nurses and native nurses in their care for aging residents in a Dutch nursing home.Methods:Ethnography, including 105 h of shadowing immigrant and native nurses, 8 semi-structured interviews with 4 immigrant and 4 established nurses, and 2 focus group (...) discussions with 8 immigrant and 6 established nurses in a Dutch nursing home. Data were analyzed by a post-positivist grounded theory coding approach.Ethical consideration:The Medical Ethical Review Committee of the Leiden University Medical Center approved this study.Results:The interactions between established staff and newcomers were influenced by norms, rules and regulations, policies and protocols. In daily practice and institutional structure, we observed both opportunities and challenges. The strict time schedules and the requisite standards of care were opportunities related to nurses’ expectations. Residents’ needs were sometimes challenging and inhibited newcomers’ active participation. However, sometimes new practices were developed where nurses created common ground, tinkered, and formed an inclusive playing field to enact good care.Conclusion/ discussion:This study shows that despite obstacles, there was room to make small changes in the rules of the game of nursing. These moments of tinkering may be sufficient to establish a stable, inclusive workforce for first-generation immigrants and give room to the evolvement of hybrid professional identities.Implications:The findings of this Dutch study are relevant for nursing ethics related to “good care” and nurses in other cultural contexts on how the integration of immigrant nurses in European countries in general could be facilitated. (shrink)

The 2019–2020 to 2020–2021 influenza seasons in the USA saw a dramatic 99.5% decrease in paediatric mortality, with only one influenza death recorded during the latter season. This decrease has been attributed to a substantial reduction in transmission, resulting from the various restrictive measures enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic, onset March 2020. The relative disappearance of influenza raises specific policy questions, such as whether these measures should be kept in place after COVID-19 transmission reaches acceptable levels or herd immunity (...) is achieved. Given the nature of these measures as liberty restricting, it is worth discussing their intended outcome and what values they promote. Do these measures in fact promote health, or simply give the comfort of safety while undermining long-term health and individual liberties? I argue that the year-long endurance of the pandemic well into 2021 may have flattened our value landscape into one where health reigns supreme. Discussions are underway regarding whether we should modify previously accepted health risks, such as the risk of contracting influenza. In this paper, I attempt to clarify the values that motivate our policies and discuss how our present historical context has appreciated the value of health. I also provide an analysis of various pandemic policies and their relation to influenza paediatric deaths. Ultimately, the cost of certain measures on values such as education, socialisation and liberty, among others, is too high to justify their use beyond regulating the spread of COVID-19. (shrink)

Place-based policies tackle grand socio-economic challenges through differentiated, context-sensitive interventions. However, they often run the risk of under- or mis-performing. This work studies how grand challenges translate from policy to cross-sector partnerships through place. By focusing on the place-based policy of regional smart specialization (RIS3), I investigate how the setup of science and technology parks mediates the practices of the actors in the translation chain: a transnational policymaker (macro), a regional broker (meso), and a local partnership which served (...) as prototype for the regional policy (micro level). I document two types of practices—emplacement and space configuration—enacted at each level, and show how their interplay transformed the grand challenge from a cautious ideal at the macro level which balances risk and responsibility, to an optimistic and risk-prone approach at the partnership level. The study contributes to the policy and cross-sector partnerships literatures by documenting a two-sided effect of place-based policy and a consequent risk of ethical reversal, from an early attractor bringing partners together to a later accomplice keeping the partners together despite evident signs of failure. By adopting a strong multimodal approach, I also distinguish four types of multimodal outcomes—ideal type, prototype, virtual model, and lived artifact—which perform the two-sided effect and bring about the risk of reversal. Practical implications include a redistribution of the burden of failure from the CSPs implementing the grand challenges to the institutional fields in which these are bred. (shrink)

This article puts the spotlight on the world’s largest artificial reproduction technology (ART) industry—that of Japan, seeking to explain the exceptional tardiness of the government there to install a comprehensive legal framework that regulates these practices. By relying on minutes from a conversation with an influential parliamentarian active in this area, as well as official documents, media reports, and an interview conducted with key physicians, the article reconstructs the historical trajectory leading to the enactment in December 2020 of the (...) Assisted Reproduction Technology Act. The author contends that it is only on the background of an overview of what happened in the two decades preceding the promulgation of this Act that a sense can be made of why the latter came to be as scant and evasive as it is in terms of provisions, de facto leaving unaltered the socially and ethically undesirable situation of self-regulation in ART application by the Japanese doctors. This article adds credence to the hypothesis with regard to the issue of regulatory governance of emerging technologies more broadly that the direction of travel is toward soft, as opposed to hard, law. (shrink)

The government of Ontario has adopted wind energy development as an alternative energy source. It enacted the Green Energy and Economy Act, May 2009, with the intention to fast track the approval process regarding industrial wind turbines. The Act legislated a centralized decision making process while removing local jurisdictional authority. Throughout this process, the government reassured the public of inexpensive and reliable electricity. This article explores the costs and benefits related to the renewable energy policy established in Ontario, Canada.

abstract Normative argument is supposed to guide ways in which we might change the world, rather than to fit the world as it is. This poses certain difficulties for the notion of applied ethics. Taken literally the phrase ‘applied ethics’ suggests that principles or standards with substantial philosophical justification, in particular ethical and political principles with such justification, are applied to particular cases and guide action. However, the ‘cases’ which applied ethics discusses are themselves indeterminate, and the relation of principles (...) to these ‘cases’ differs from the relation of principles to cases in naturalistic, truth‐oriented inquiry. Writing in ‘applied ethics’, I shall argue, does not need elaborate case histories or scenarios, since the testing points for normative principles are other normative principles rather than particular cases. Normative principles and contexts to which they are applicable are indeed needed for any reasoning that is practical, but they are not sufficient. Practical ethics needs principles that can not merely be applied in certain cases or situations, but also enacted in certain ways, and requires an account of practical judgement and of the public policies that support that judgement. (shrink)

I begin by contending that an absolute prohibition to avoid resorting to shoot-to-kill, under any circumstances, does not adequately address the considerable negative consequences that could follow. In opening up the question for debate, I seek to alert us to the risks of moral corruption in both thought and practice, but I do not take these to be unassailable. Next, I pose a set of questions in order to interrogate unsafe assumptions and to disambiguate critical language in the shoot-to-kill scenario. (...) (1) How might shoot-to-kill be analogous to self-defence? (2) Should we not distinguish between reasons which could explain from those which do not justify why a suicide bomber acted as they did? (3) Must we avoid entertaining any charges of complicity on the suicide bombers’ behalf? (4) How, if at all, does racial profiling adulterate the grounds for police suspicion? (5) Does “reasonability” differ from “absolute necessity” as a precondition for enacting shoot-to-kill? And, (6), prompted by the injustice of the Jean Charles de Menezes case, can we assess the moral consequences of relocating the moment of decision from the firearms officer to their operational commander? After taking stock of the results of these enquiries, I conclude that resort to 'Kratos' rules of engagement unjustifiably raises the risk of shooting dead an innocent person, compared to the risk from harm that the general population may be reasonably expected to shoulder. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been declared one of the top ten global public health threats facing humanity. To address AMR, coercive antimicrobial stewardship policies are being enacted in some settings. These policies, like all in public health, require ethical justification. Here, I introduce a framework for ethically evaluating coercive antimicrobial stewardship policies on the basis of ethical justifications (and their limitations). I consider arguments from effectiveness; duty of easy rescue; tragedy of the commons; responsibility-tracking; the harm principle; paternalism; justice and (...) development; a precautionary approach; and professional duties. I consider how these justifications might form the basis for developing a comprehensive ethical framework, and the need for this to be context-specific and aligned with the priorities, evidence and needs of the particular jurisdictions in which a policy is to be enacted. I demonstrate how the ethical justifications might be used by reference to an example policy of the EU ban on the use of certain human-critical antibiotics for livestock, before concluding with challenges for further development of the framework. (shrink)

Economics, as the volume editors Ivan Boldyrev and Ekaterina Svetlova submit, does not merely describe or explain, but also actively shapes—“performs”—the economy. This is how we may understand the performativity-of-economics thesis: Economists shape markets either directly, through the design of theories and policies based on them; or indirectly, through shaping cognitive infrastructures that economic agents use to make economic calculations, buy, and sell.

This article documents how biomedical researchers in the United Kingdom understand and enact the idea of “openness.” This is of particular interest to researchers and science policy worldwide in view of the recent adoption of pioneering policies on Open Science and Open Access by the U.K. government—policies whose impact on and implications for research practice are in need of urgent evaluation, so as to decide on their eventual implementation elsewhere. This study is based on 22 in-depth interviews with U.K. (...) researchers in systems biology, synthetic biology, and bioinformatics, which were conducted between September 2013 and February 2014. Through an analysis of the interview transcripts, we identify seven core themes that characterize researchers’ understanding of openness in science and nine factors that shape the practice of openness in research. Our findings highlight the implications that Open Science policies can have for research processes and outcomes and provide recommendations for enhancing their content, effectiveness, and implementation. (shrink)

Minnesota's recently enacted HealthRight legislation places the state at the forefront of American health reform. How did the state manage to overcome the policy gridlock in evidence in other states and at the national level? And how well does the legislation fare under close ethical scrutiny? Among the most important factors that permitted Minnesota to enact reforms were the explicit linkage in the legislative debate of the goal of cost containment to the desire to expand access, the public perception (...) that HealthRight is incremental and consistent with earlier reform efforts in Minnesota, and the lengthy public debate that preceded the enactment of HealthRight. Although it endeavors to create a fair and efficient health care system, it is not at all certain that HealthRight, in its present form, will achieve these normative goals. (shrink)