Background Planning for the next pandemic influenza outbreak is underway in hospitals across the world. The global SARS experience has taught us that ethical frameworks to guide decision-making may help to reduce collateral damage and increase trust and solidarity within and between health care organisations. Good pandemic planning requires reflection on values because science alone cannot tell us how to prepare for a public health crisis. Discussion In this paper, we present an ethical framework for pandemic influenza planning. The ethical (...) framework was developed with expertise from clinical, organisational and public health ethics and validated through a stakeholder engagement process. The ethical framework includes both substantive and procedural elements for ethical pandemic influenza planning. The incorporation of ethics into pandemic planning can be helped by senior hospital administrators sponsoring its use, by having stakeholders vet the framework, and by designing or identifying decision review processes. We discuss the merits and limits of an applied ethical framework for hospital decision-making, as well as the robustness of the framework. Summary The need for reflection on the ethical issues raised by the spectre of a pandemic influenza outbreak is great. Our efforts to address the normative aspects of pandemic planning in hospitals have generated interest from other hospitals and from the governmental sector. The framework will require re-evaluation and refinement and we hope that this paper will generate feedback on how to make it even more robust. (shrink)

Background In April 2019, our hospital transitioned to an electronic patient record system and patient portal. MyGOSH enables young people aged 12 years or older and their parents to access results, documentation, appointments, and to communicate with their care team. Aims A focus group was conducted to explore the ethical and legal considerations of young people and their parents using a patient portal from the perspective of hospital Ethics Committee members. Participants and research context Members of the hospital Paediatric Bioethics (...) Centre were recruited. Written informed consent was provided by all participants. Research design The focus group discussion was recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. Ethical considerations Health Research Authority Research Ethics Committee Approval was granted by London Southeast REC. Results Four themes, and sub-themes, were identified: granting access – complexities of assessing competence/capacity, exclusion from MyGOSH due to non-disclosure of diagnosis, and truth-telling; inequalities resulting in inequities – complexities of inequity in access; responding to change – providing support and managing expectations; engagement, empowerment and understanding – data safety, empowering young people to take ownership of their health data, a one-size fits all system may not meet the needs of all families, and early engagement with young people/parents. Discussion Giving families portal access can increase engagement, empowering them to be more involved in care, yet poses challenges for all. Complexities exist in the assessment for portal access, and supporting and managing user expectations whilst providing an equitable service. Conclusions Ongoing support is required for all stakeholders following patient portal implementation to navigate the ethical and legal complexities, and to promote equity and portal utility for patient benefit. (shrink)

The three books before us are consolingly conservative. They observe the pieties; they display an unusually acute sense of history; they try to find out what Plato said instead of being angry with him for neglecting to read J. S. Mill and Wittgenstein; and they say faithfully and sympathetically what can be said for him even when he tries them hard. This is true criticism: and it stands out sharply against the spleen of the "detractors," as Professor Levinson has happily (...) called them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Business for the Common Good: A Christian Vision for the Marketplace by Kenman L. Wong and Scott B. Rae, and: Market Complicity and Christian Ethics by Albino BarreraAnn GibsonBusiness for the Common Good: A Christian Vision for the Marketplace Kenman L. Wong and Scott B. Rae Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2011. 285 pp. $24.00Market Complicity and Christian Ethics Albino Barrera New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 312 (...) pp. $91.00At first glance, Business for the Common Good and Market Complicity and Christian Ethics appear to be similar. Their respective authors seek to address the relationship of business and ethics—two words many readers have a difficult time putting into the same sentence, let alone into the same philosophical discussion. Both books are part of a publisher’s series: the first is part of InterVarsity’s Christian Worldview Integration series and the second is part of Cambridge University Press’s New Studies in Christian Ethics series. Nonetheless, their purposes and approaches to the subject of business ethics are quite different. Kenman Wong and Scott Rae address whether it is possible for a person to be in business for any purpose other than earning profits (28); Albino Barrera addresses whether we are morally responsible for the unintended consequences of our market transactions and, if so, to what extent would or could this be true (3).Wong and Rae lay the foundation for their argument that working in business is a calling and service to God by discussing the role of work in God’s original plan for humankind. They then contend that the biblically inspired qualities [End Page 208] of service, trust, and perseverance can be developed and nurtured in one’s business practices (114). Recognizing that business also reflects the consequences of sin—with its focus on wealth, success, and ambition (115)—they recommend that business persons cultivate spiritual disciplines such as remembering the Sabbath, considering the use of time from God’s perspective, and learning to see one’s work as a gift from God rather than as wearisome toil. They remind the reader of the following: God is the ultimate owner of all our material possessions (123); we are wise when we hold our wealth and possessions loosely (124); and the Bible measures success by the excellence with which we work (as a human reflection of God’s excellence) and by our faithfulness in pursuing this goal of excellence (133, 134).Although Wong and Rae sought to write a philosophy or theology of business (37), the book they wrote is practical; it does not have much theory and its theological assumptions are not fully explicated. Rather, it provides helpful suggestions for addressing problematic tensions in business—such as management and power, marketing and manipulation, and globalization and economic inequity. The authors remind the reader that God calls for justice and commands us to love our neighbor. In this light, they call business persons to reen-vision their work as an opportunity for serving God and neighbor. In their discussion of ethics in business they unequivocally state that “God requires integrity in the workplace not because it’s profitable but because it’s right and honors him” (188). Although they use footnotes, Wong and Rae write in a conversational style and sometimes use personal examples and stories to illustrate their points. The book contains only a scripture index, and it does not include a bibliography.In contrast, Barrera writes in a tight, logical, highly readable style; he uses extensive footnotes and provides an excellent bibliography. Drawing on concepts from tort law, economics, social philosophy, and theology, he argues for the necessity of considering the unintended consequences of our market activities. Such consideration is required because “we are the generation that ushered in the post-industrial era” with its economic reality of globalization, which both “creates new and more demanding economic obligations even as it greatly expands the occasion for our complicity in or indifference to one another’s economic misconduct” (3).Barrera’s study opens with a theory section that discusses problems in business ethics—accumulative harms, overdetermination, and interdependence—even as it seeks to answer three questions: who is complicit, why... (shrink)

BackgroundThe amount of research utilizing health information has increased dramatically over the last ten years. Many institutions have extensive biobank holdings collected over a number of years for clinical and teaching purposes, but are uncertain as to the proper circumstances in which to permit research uses of these samples. Research Ethics Boards (REBs) in Canada and elsewhere in the world are grappling with these issues, but lack clear guidance regarding their role in the creation of and access to registries and (...) biobanks.MethodsChairs of 34 REBS and/or REB Administrators affiliated with Faculties of Medicine in Canadian universities were interviewed. Interviews consisted of structured questions dealing with diabetes-related scenarios, with open-ended responses and probing for rationales. The two scenarios involved the development of a diabetes registry using clinical encounter data across several physicians' practices, and the addition of biological samples to the registry to create a biobank.ResultsThere was a wide range of responses given for the questions raised in the scenarios, indicating a lack of clarity about the role of REBs in registries and biobanks. With respect to the creation of a registry, a minority of sites felt that consent was not required for the information to be entered into the registry. Whether patient consent was required for information to be entered into the registry and the duration for which the consent would be operative differed across sites. With respect to the creation of a biobank linked to the registry, a majority of sites viewed biobank information as qualitatively different from other types of personal health information. All respondents agreed that patient consent was needed for blood samples to be placed in the biobank but the duration of consent again varied.ConclusionParticipants were more attuned to issues surrounding biobanks as compared to registries and demonstrated a higher level of concern regarding biobanks. As registries and biobanks expand, there is a need for critical analysis of suitable roles for REBs and subsequent guidance on these topics. The authors conclude by recommending REB participation in the creation of registries and biobanks and the eventual drafting of comprehensive legislation. (shrink)

Perspectives on Quine, now available in paperback, is a collection of twenty-one new essays dealing with the thought of America's most distinguished living philosopher, Willard Van Orman Quine. After the editors' brief introduction to Quine's thought, the volume opens with an important new essay by Quine entitled Three Indeterminacies. The essays that follow, written by leading philosophers, are rich with insights into a wide variety of Quine's concerns ranging from logic and set theory to natural language, truth, evidence, natural kinds, (...) naturalized epistemology, and much more. Each essay concludes with a summary and response from Quine himself. (shrink)

W. V. Quine was quite simply the most distinguished analytic philosopher of the later half of the twentieth century. His celebrated attack on the analytic/synthetic tradition heralded a major shift away from the views of language descended from logical positivism. His most important book, Word and Object, introduced the concept of indeterminacy of radical translation, a bleak view of the nature of the language with which we ascribe thoughts and beliefs to ourselves and others. Quine is also famous for the (...) view that epistemology should be naturalized, that is conducted in a scientific spirit with the object of investigating the relationship between the inputs of experience and the outputs of belief. The eleven essays in this volume cover all the central topics of Quine's philosophy: the underdetermination of physical theory, analycity, naturalism, propositional attitudes, behaviorism, reference and ontology, positivism, holism and logic. (shrink)

There are many ways of enhancing human performance. For military aviation in general, and for spaceflight in particular, the most important tools are selection, training, equipment, pharmacology, and surgery. In the future, genetic manipulation may be feasible. For each of these tools, the specific modalities available range from the ethically acceptable to the ethically unacceptable. Even when someone consents to a particular procedure to enhance performance, the action may be ethically unacceptable to society as a whole and the burden of (...) risk for the individual may be too great. In addition, there are several characteristics that define the quality and the acceptability of the consent. Each method of enhancing performance will be examined in the context of the principles of medical ethics in a western society: autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. The aim is to draw the attention of aeromedical practitioners to the complexities of ethical dilemmas such as this particular one in order to help them to develop a morally justifiable code of practice that balances society’s needs against individual ambitions and corporate goals. (shrink)

To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors in chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialogue around the theme The Ethics and Politics of Academic Knowledge Production. Questions of who produces knowledge about what, and how that knowledge is produced, are inherent to editing and publishing academic journals. At the Journal of Business (...) Ethics, we understand the ethical responsibility of academic knowledge production as going far beyond conventions around the integrity of the research content and research processes. We are deeply aware that access to resources, knowledge of the rules of the game, and being able to set those rules, are systematically and unequally distributed. One could ask the question “for whom is knowledge now ethical’”? (See the Burrell commentary.) We have a responsibility to address these inequalities and open up our journal to lesser heard voices, ideas, and ways of being. Our six commentators pursue this through various aspects of the ethics and politics of academic knowledge production. Working with MacIntyre’s scheme of practices and institutions, Andrew West provides commentary on the internal good of business ethics learning and education. Inviting us to step out of the cave, Christopher Michaelson urges a clear-eyed, unblinking focus on the purposes and audiences of business ethics scholarship. As developmental editor, Scott Taylor uncovers some of the politics of peer review with the aim of nurturing of unconventional research. Mike Hyman presents his idiosyncratic view of marketing ethics. In the penultimate commentary, Julie Nelson attributes difficulties in the academic positioning of the Business Ethics field to the hegemony of a masculine-centric model of the firm. And finally, Gibson Burrell provides a powerful provocation to go undercover as researcher-investigators in a parallel ethics of the research process. (shrink)

Political realists claim that international relations are in a state of anarchy, and therefore every state is allowed to disregard its moral duties towards other states and their inhabitants. Realists argue that complying with moral duties is simply too risky for a state’s national security. Political moralists convincingly show that realists exaggerate both the extent of international anarchy and the risks it poses to states who act morally. Yet moralists do not go far enough, since they do not question realism’s (...) normative core: the claim that when national security is really at risk, states are allowed to disregard their moral duties. I contend that there is at least one moral duty that states should not disregard even if their inhabitants are at risk of death by military aggression: the duty to reduce extreme global poverty. The reason is that even granting that national security is about securing individuals’ right to life, global poverty relief is about that as well. (shrink)

Political realists claim that international relations are in a state of anarchy, and therefore every state is allowed to disregard its moral duties towards other states and their inhabitants. Realists argue that complying with moral duties is simply too risky for a state’s national security. Political moralists convincingly show that realists exaggerate both the extent of international anarchy and the risks it poses to states who act morally. Yet moralists do not go far enough, since they do not question realism’s (...) normative core: the claim that when national security is really at risk, states are allowed to disregard their moral duties. I contend that there is at least one moral duty that states should not disregard even if their inhabitants are at risk of death by military aggression: the duty to reduce extreme global poverty. The reason is that even granting that national security is about securing individuals’ right to life, global poverty relief is about that as well. (shrink)

There is a belief among the aborigines of Central Australia that the attributes of the divine ancestor are parcelled out among the component members of the tribe: and there are long periods in the history of ideas in which “divine philosophy” is similarly dismembered. The reason is that all great philosophical systems rest on a balanced tension of contemporary cultural elements, and as these change, and especially if they change rapidly or decisively, the unity of thought under which they have (...) been gathered begins to disintegrate. There follows a period of piecemeal experiment, in which the material of philosophy is too rich and too disorganized to be appropriated in a single conspectus: a period in which there will be no great philosophers, and perhaps little conscious philosophizing, not because philosophic genius is lacking, but because there is no scope for it till the various special tendencies of the age have achieved a certain internal development and a definite sense of direction. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article is a response to Nani Ranken's paper ‘Morality in business: disharmony and its consequences’ . There she attacked the analogy sometimes made between businesses and persons, and concluded that businesses cannot be regarded as moral agents. Her thesis relies centrally on a very strict notion of a person's ‘true good’. By exploring and expanding the concepts of ‘true good’ and ‘moral agency’ we are able to recover a sense in which businesses are indeed members of the moral (...) community. Moreover, admitting businesses to the moral community also provides a working framework to examine the claim that what is good for business is in harmony with the dictates of morality. (shrink)

Nearly forty years after his death, social philosopher Frantz Fanon remains a towering intellectual figure. Born in Guadeloupe and trained as a psychologist in France, Fanon rejected his French citizenship to join the Algerian liberation movement in the 1950s. A brilliant scholar who developed the theory that some neuroses are socially generated, Fanon's revolutionary works—The Wretched of the Earth, Toward the African Revolution, and Black Skin, White Masks—spurred an African intellectual awakening. The rebirth of Fanonism today in universities and the (...) English-speaking world is a testament to his relevance. Edited by distinguished African-studies professor Nigel C. Gibson, Rethinking Fanon opens with an authoritative biography which corrects fallacious assertions about Fanon's life, situating him in Marxism, Negritude, Pan-Africanism, and the historical context of postwar decolonization, specifically the Algerian revolution. Section one is highlighted by extended discussions of Marx, Fanon's theories on sophisticated forms of cultural racism, and "true liberation." The next section examines Fanon's humanist philosophy, his philosophical and geographical journeys, and his attitude toward the necessity of revolution. Also included is Homi Bhabha's well-known essay "Remembering Fanon," which contemplates the seeming rejection of Fanon in Britain in the 1970s, in contrast to his major following in America and the influence of Fanon on South African writer Steven Biko. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Edward Said discuss the importance of the 1980s' and 1990s' cultural and literary debates on Fanon. Gates notes that Fanon has been reinstated -not as a global theorist of "third world" revolution, but instead as a critic of English writers and British romanticists. Benita Parry reexamines African nationalism and liberation, and sheds new light on Fanon's questions of identity and agency. This excellent collection reflects the continuing impact of Fanon's thought on African-American and African studies, feminism, postcolonialism, and cultural studies. (shrink)

En el presente artículo me ocupo de la discusión acerca de cuán exigentes son nuestras obligaciones de contribuir con dinero y tiempo a las agencias humanitarias que asisten a personas en situación de pobreza extrema en el mundo. Defiendo una posición intermedia, moderada, frente a la posición extrema formulada por Peter Singer y frente a la posición según la cual nuestras obligaciones son mínimas. La objeción principal contra esas dos posiciones es que, cuando analizan la situación en que los potenciales (...) donantes se encuentran frente a las personas en situación de pobreza extrema, omiten el carácter iterativo que es propio de esa situación. La posición moderada, en cambio, tiene en cuenta ese carácter, gracias a que entiende a nuestras obligaciones hacia los pobres globales como obligaciones imperfectas. In this article I engage in the debate about the demandingness of our duties to contribute with money and time to humanitarian agencies that assist people who live in extreme poverty around the world. I defend an intermediate, moderate, view against Peter Singer's extreme view, and also against the view according to which our duties are minimal. The main objection regarding those two views is that, when they analyze the situation in which potential donors are vis-à-vis people who live in extreme poverty, they miss its distinctive iterative character. The moderate view, on the contrary, pays heed to that character, thanks to its account of our duties towards the global poor as imperfect duties. (shrink)

This essay suggests some links between concern about the decline of ‘the family’, or of ‘family values’, the use of reproductive technology, and the claim that some people have children for the ‘wrong reasons’. It is argued that where conceiving and bringing a child to term is a matter of choice, a person must have a reason or reasons for doing so and further, that those reasons are of moral significance. By appealing to Kant's Categorical Imperative: ‘Act in such a (...) way that you always treat humanity … never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end’, a distinction is made between morally desirable and morally undesirable reasons, on the grounds of the extent to which the parent or parents will be able or likely to treat the child as an end in herself. In conclusion it is argued that whilst ‘the family’is vital to the health of children, and to the health of society, it is not so much the form that the family takes that is significant, but the extent to which it allows for the development and maintainance of a certain sort of relationship. (shrink)

This virtual special issue of the Journal of Business Ethics is dedicated to the role that social theory and sociological research can play in understanding business ethics in the contemporary world. Articles have been selected for this virtual issue that highlight the insights provided by the long tradition of sociological theorising, that focus upon enduring social problems and which deal with particularly twenty-first century issues.

En este trabajo me propongo desarrollar un estudio crítico de la concepción mecanicista de la explicación científica. En primer lugar, argumento que la caracterización mecanicista de los modelos fenoménicos (no explicativos) es inadecuada, pues no ofrece un análisis aceptable de los conceptos de modelo científico y similitud, que son fundamentales para la propuesta. En segundo lugar, sostengo que la caracterización de los modelos mecanicistas (explicativos) es igualmente inadecuada, pues los análisis disponibles de la relación explicativa de relevancia constitutiva implican una (...) tesis metafísica que es rechazada por los mismos mecanicistas. Concluyo que el mecanicismo no ofrece todavía una elucidación aceptable de la explicación científica. -/- In this paper, I offer a critical assessment of the mechanicist approach to scientific explanation. Firstly, I argue that the mechanicist characterization of (non explanatory) phenomenological models is inadequate, since it does not develop an explication of the concepts of scientific model and similarity, which are indispensable to the approach. Secondly, I claim that the mechanicist conception of (explanatory) mechanicist models is inadequate as well, since all the available analices of the explanatory relation of constitutive relevance imply a metaphysical thesis that is rejected by the mechanicists themselves. I conclude that mechanicism needs to be emended if it aims to be considered as a genuinely illuminating approach to scientific explanation. (shrink)

In this article we identify three previously unnoticed problems with flexible moral theories, i.e., theories according to which different moral rules apply when there is full compliance and when there is partial compliance. The first problem is that flexible theories are necessarily very complex, which undermines their ability to motivate and guide action. The second problem is that flexible theories allow for a troubling kind of (moral) domination: the duties an agent has depend on other agents' willingness to comply. Finally, (...) flexible theories introduce indeterminacy: it is sometimes impossible to determine which moral rules apply. When agents stand at the threshold—i.e., when a different rule would apply if a single additional act of noncompliance took place—it is impossible to determine which rule should apply. (shrink)

En este trabajo cuestiono las razones que ofrecen David Miller y Laura Valentini para afirmar que el deber de reducir la desigualdad dentro del propio Estado tiene prioridad sobre el deber de reducir la pobreza extrema global. Según Miller, los deberes globales, a diferencia de los domésticos, no pueden legítimamente hacerse cumplir mediante la fuerza, y por esa razón son meros deberes humanitarios que tienen menor peso que los deberes domésticos, que son deberes de justicia. Según Valentini, el deber de (...) reducir la desigualdad doméstica tiene prioridad sobre los deberes humanitarios globales porque el primero es un deber de no dañar, mientras que los segundos son meros deberes de ayudar. El problema principal de ambas propuestas consiste en que fallan en su intento de mostrar que los deberes de reducir la pobreza extrema global no son también deberes de justicia. In this article I question David Miller and Laura Valentini's reasons to claim that duties to reduce inequalities inside the State should be prioritized over duties to reduce extreme global poverty. According to Miller, global duties, unlike domestic ones, cannot be legitimately enforced, and they are therefore mere humanitarian duties that weigh less than domestic duties, which are duties of justice. According to Valentini, domestic duties should be prioritized over global humanitarian duties because the former are duties not to harm, while the latter are mere duties to help. I argue that both views fail in their attempt to show that duties to reduce extreme global poverty are not duties ofjustice too. (shrink)

Counsellors, like other members of the caring professions, are required to practise within an ethical framework, at least in so far as they seek professional accreditation. As such, the counsellor is called upon to exercise her moral agency. In most professional contexts this requirement is, in itself, unproblematic. It has been suggested, however, that counselling practice does present a problem in this respect, in so far as the counsellor is expected to take a non-judgemental stance and an attitude of “unconditional (...) positive regard” toward the client. If, as might appear to be the case, this stance and attitude are at odds with the making of moral judgments, the possibility of an adequate ethics of counselling is called into question. This paper explores the nature and extent of the problem suggesting that, understood in a Kantian context, non-judgmentalism can be seen to be at odds with neither the moral agency of the counsellor nor that of the client. Instead, it is argued, the relationship between the non-judgmental counsellor and her client is a fundamentally moral relationship, based on respect for the client’s unconditional worth as a moral agent. (shrink)