Ethics codes of a number of scientific societies across different disciplines promulgate ethical standards for responsible conduct in research and other professional activities. The content of these codes of ethics are compared on key dimensions of research, service or practice, and teaching in terms of the range and specificity of the activities these codes cover, and in the degree to which they are educational, aspirational or regulatory in purpose. The role of professional associations in educating, regulating, monitoring, and sanctioning their (...) membership is also discussed. (shrink)

A thoughtful addition to the growing debate over public and private morality. Looks at lying and deception in law, family, medicine, government.

: Phenomena of moral conflict and disagreement have led writers in ethics to two antithetical conclusions: Either valid moral distinctions hold universally or they hold relative to a particular and contingent moral framework, and so cannot be applied with universal validly. Responding to three articles in this issue of the Journal that criticize his previously published views on the common morality, the author maintains that one can consistently deny universality to some justified moral norms and claim universality for others. Universality (...) is located in the common morality and nonuniversality in other parts of the moral life, called "particular moralities." The existence of universal moral standards is defended in terms of: (1) a theory of the objectives of morality, (2) an account of the norms that achieve those objectives, and (3) an account of normative justification (both pragmatic and coherentist). (shrink)