In the face of environmental crises such as climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss—which all adversely impact on health—Gils-Schmidt and Salloch explore whether physicians can be justified in taking climate issues into account in clinical care.1 While their approach centres on the ‘climate-sensitive’ decisions, physicians can carry out on the micro-level of clinical decision-making, they encourage further discussions on how climate-related issues can be included across different levels of decision-making in healthcare. We propose a list of tasks and a model (...) to assist with navigating the range of factors and structural elements an environmentally sensitive ethics must address. Stephen Gardiner’s notion of a perfect moral storm is central to understanding these issues.2 Gardiner describes how a perfect moral storm occurs in the centre of three overlapping conditions for human action and policymaking in the face of climate change. This storm is driven by: (1) a lack of interest among current generations to meet global needs and accommodate the well-being of future generations, (2) a lack of ecological concerns for other parts of nature than humans and (3) weak ethical and political theories and institutions shaping policy decisions on issues with severe implications across borders and generations. Moreover, these conditions are embedded in the existing, complex world of ethically unjustified power imbalances and social injustice. The growing awareness of healthcare’s climate footprint has amplified and accelerated global, grassroots action to make healthcare more environmentally friendly. This includes incorporating environmental impacts into quality improvement methodologies, building communities of practice to explore how to make …. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 71-73.

Translational ethics (TE) has been developed into a specific approach, which revolves around the argument that strategies for bridging the theory‐practice gap in bioethics must themselves be justified on ethical terms. This version of TE incorporates normative, empirical and foundational ethics research and continues to develop through application and in the face of new ethical challenges. Here, I explore the idea that the academic field of bioethics has not yet sufficiently analysed its own philosophical foundation for how it can, and (...) should, be practically relevant; neither has it comprehensively discussed the limitations on what impacts bioethicists should pursue. As a result, there has not been adequate training on how to suitably and appropriately impact real‐world practices. Moreover, bioethical perspectives are often competing with other strong interests, for example, economic and political, which may weaken their impact on policy‐making. The TE approach I propose can not only facilitate practical impacts of academic bioethics by being better informed by real‐world ethical issues but it also supports targeted and ethical justifications of the actual impact of academic work in real‐world contexts. In this paper, I clarify the premises for this TE approach, identify further challenges and sketch out potential solutions for the implementation of this methodological framework. (shrink)

No one is excused from doing what he ought to do merely because he is unwilling to do it. But what if others are unwilling to play their necessary role in some joint venture that you all ought to undertake: might that excuse you from doing what you yourself ought to do as part of that? It would, if you were genuinely willing to play your necessary part if they were. But the unwillingness of everyone involved cannot reciprocally serve to (...) excuse one another from doing what they ought to do. (shrink)

Because corporate social responsibility (CSR) is potentially beneficial for companies, it is important to understand the factors that improve a company’s CSR practice. Scholars hypothesize that facilitating learning organization characteristics, which are divided in characteristics at the organizational and the operational level, may improve CSR implementation. These characteristics stimulate companies and their members to be critical, learn from the past, and embrace change, but there is limited empirical evidence of this approach. This study addresses this gap by surveying 280 CSR (...) professionals and performing bootstrap mediation analyses to test multiple hypotheses. Learning organization characteristics at the organizational level, play a key role in supporting CSR implementation: leadership for learning, system connection, and group learning show a direct relationship with CSR implementation. It is striking that the role of the learning organization characteristics at the operational level is only indirect; the organizational characteristics mediate their relationship with CSR implementation. (shrink)

Translational research in medicine requires researchers to identify the steps to transfer basic scientific discoveries from laboratory benches to bedside decision-making, and eventually into clinical practice. On a parallel track, philosophical work in ethics has not been obliged to identify the steps to translate theoretical conclusions into adequate practice. The medical ethicist A. Cribb suggested some years ago that it is now time to debate ‘the business of translational’ in medical ethics. Despite the very interesting and useful perspective on the (...) field of medical ethics launched by Cribb, the debate is still missing. In this paper, I take up Cribb’s invitation and discuss further analytic distinctions needed to base an ethics aiming to translate between theory and practice. (shrink)

This distinction has sometimes been read as purely epistemic, resting not on things, but on our knowledge of them: there is one world, not two, though it may be apprehended in two ways. But this view is patently at odds with the text. Knowledge and opinion are δυνάμεις, "faculties," to be distinguished and defined by their objects, no less than by the state of mind they produce, and Plato clearly states that the fallibility and unclearness of opinion is rooted in (...) the relative unreality of opinables. (shrink)

Hume's is/ought distinction has long limited the role of empirical research in ethics, saying that data about what something is cannot yield conclusions about the way things ought to be. However, interest in empirical research in ethics has been growing despite this countervailing principle. We attribute some of this increased interest to a conceptual breakdown of the is/ought distinction. MacIntyre, in reviewing the history of the is/ought distinction, argues that is and ought are not strictly separate realms but exist in (...) a close relationship that is clarified by adopting a teleological orientation. We propose that, instead of recovering a teleological orientation, society tends to generate its own goals via democratic methods like those described by Rousseau or adopt agnosticism about teleology such as described by Richard Rorty. In both latter scenarios, the distinction between is and ought is obscured, and the role for empirical research grows, but for controversial reasons. MacIntyre warns that the is/ought distinction should remain, but reminds ethicists to make careful arguments about when and why it is legitimate to move from is to ought. (shrink)

Francis Fukuyama, in his Our Posthuman Future, and Gregory Stock, in his Redesigning Humans, present competing versions of the biomedical future of human beings, and debate the merits of more or less stringent regimes of regulation for biomedical innovation. In this article, these positions are shown to depend on a shared discourse of market liberalism, which limits both the range of ends for such innovation discussed by the authors, and the scope of their policy analyses and proposals. A proper evaluation (...) of the human significance and policy imperatives for biomedical innovation needs to be both more utopian in its imagination, and more sophisticated in its political economy. In essence, the Fukuyama/Stock debate tells us more about current US political ideology than it does about the morality of human genetic and biopsychological engineering. (shrink)

R. E. Heinaman; XI*—Communion of Forms, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 83, Issue 1, 1 June 1983, Pages 175–190, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristot.

J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986) was thought by many to be a modern-day equivalent of the Buddha. In fact, he was once even considered to be the second coming of Christ. While many think it wonderful to live and work in close proximity with such a person, it's difficult to understand the depth of what this means and how challenging this might be. In Knocking at the Open Door, author R.E. Mark Lee provides an ordinary person view of what being close-up and (...) working together with such a man means, how it challenges one at every turn, and how it causes one to question ceaselessly, even more deeply than one ordinarily would. Lee offers an insightful, candid, and heartfelt narrative that reveals various unknown facets of the eminent world teacher J. Krishnamurti and highlights his distinctive vision for education worldwide. This comprehensive volume brings alive the practical and everyday interactions Lee had with Krishnamurti during a twenty-year period in India and the United Sates. Knocking at the Open Door shares a clear and honest account that demonstrates the challenges of working with Krishnamurti in running a school that is true to the teaching and yet able to function in the reality of modern parental, student, and educational establishment expectations. (shrink)

In his very interesting book The Grounds of Moral Judgement, Dr. G. R. Grice tries to reconstitute contract theory so as to give an account of morality such that moral requirements can be explained in terms of what he calls the contract ground. He wants to go on and argue from this that it is irrational to be immoral, but my concern lies immediately with the contract ground. I think that faults can be found in the setting up of the (...) contract ground, which is the core of Grice's theory. (shrink)

I am idebted to members of the Wellington Logic Seminar for useful discussions of work of which this essay forms part, in particular to M. J. Cresswell for comments in the earlier stages of the investigation and to R. I. Goldblatt who suggested the definition ofB infD supu and made numerous other suggestions.

This article examines the role of medical doctors, AI designers, and other stakeholders in making applied AI and machine learning ethically acceptable on the general premises of shared decision-making in medicine. Recent policy documents such as the EU strategy on trustworthy AI and the research literature have often suggested that AI could be made ethically acceptable by increased collaboration between developers and other stakeholders. The article articulates and examines four central alternative models of how AI can be designed and applied (...) in patient care, which we call the ordinary evidence model, the ethical design model, the collaborative model, and the public deliberation model. We argue that the collaborative model is the most promising for covering most AI technology, while the public deliberation model is called for when the technology is recognized as fundamentally transforming the conditions for ethical shared decision-making. (shrink)

Clinical ethical support services (CESS) represent a multifaceted field of aims, consultancy models, and methodologies. Nevertheless, the overall aim of CESS can be summed up as contributing to healthcare of high ethical standards by improving ethically competent decision-making in clinical healthcare. In order to support clinical care adequately, CESS must pay systematic attention to all real-life ethical issues, including those which do not fall within the ‘favourite’ ethical issues of the day. In this paper we attempt to capture a comprehensive (...) overview of categories of ethical tensions in clinical care. We present an analytical exposition of ethical structural features in judgement-based clinical care predicated on the assumption of the moral equality of human beings and the assessment of where healthcare contexts pose a challenge to achieving moral equality. The account and the emerging overview is worked out so that it can be easily contextualized with regards to national healthcare systems and specific branches of healthcare, as well as local healthcare institutions. By considering how the account and the overview can be applied to i) improve the ethical competence of healthcare personnel and consultants by broadening their sensitivity to ethical tensions, ii) identify neglected areas for ethical research, and iii) clarify the ethical responsibility of healthcare institutions' leadership, as well as specifying required institutionalized administration, we conclude that the proposed account should be considered useful for CESS. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Corporate social responsibility is a recognised and common part of business activity. Some of the regularly cited motives behind CSR are employee morale, recruitment and retention, with employees acknowledged as a key organisational stakeholder. Despite the significance of employees in relation to CSR, relatively few studies have examined their engagement with CSR and the impediments relevant to this engagement. This exploratory case study-based research addresses this paucity of attention, drawing on one to one interviews and observation in a large UK (...) energy company. A diversity of engagement was found, ranging from employees who exhibited detachment from the CSR activities within the company, to those who were fully engaged with the CSR activities, and to others who were content with their own personal, but not organisational, engagement with CSR. A number of organisational context impediments, including poor communication, a perceived weak and low visibility of CSR culture, and lack of strategic alignment of CSR to business and personal objectives, served to explain this diversity of employee engagement. Social exchange theory is applied to help explore the volition that individual employees have towards their engagement with CSR activities, and to consider the implications of an implicit social, rather than explicit economic, contract between an organisation and its employees in their engagement with CSR. (shrink)

The thesis of this article is that there has never been any ground for the controversy between the doctrine of free will and determinism, that it is based upon a misapprehension, that the two assertions are entirely consistent, that one of them strictly implies the other, that they have been opposed only because of our natural want of the analytical imagination. In so saying I do not tamper with the meaning of either phrase. That would be unpardonable. I mean free (...) will in the natural and usual sense, in the fullest, the most absolute sense in which for the purposes of the personal and moral life the term is ever employed. I mean it as implying responsibility, merit and demerit, guilt and desert. I mean it as implying, after an act has been performed, that one " could have done otherwise " than one did. I mean it as conveying these things also, not in any subtly modified sense but in exactly the sense in which we conceive them in life and in law and in ethics. These two doctrines have been opposed because we have not realised that free will can be analysed without being destroyed, and that determinism is merely a feature of the analysis of it. And if we are tempted to take refuge in the thought of an "ultimate ", an "innermost" liberty that eludes the analysis, then we have implied a deterministic basis and constitution for this liberty as well. For such a basis and constitution lie in the idea of liberty. -/- The thesis is not, like that of Green or Bradley, that the contending opinions are reconciled if we adopt a certain metaphysic of the ego, as that it is timeless, and identifies itself with a desire by a " timeless act". This is to say that the two are irreconcilable, as they are popularly supposed to be, except by a theory that delivers us from the conflict by taking us out of time. Our view on the contrary is that from the natural and temporal point of view itself there never was any need of a reconciliation but only of a comprehension of the meaning of terms. (The metaphysical nature of the self and its identity through time is a problem for all who confront memory, anticipation, etc.; it has no peculiar difficulties arising from the present problem.) -/- I am not maintaining that determinism is true; only that it is true insofar as we have free will. That we are free in willing is, broadly speaking, a fact of experience. That broad fact is more assured than any philosophical analysis. It is therefore surer than the deterministic analysis of it, entirely adequate as that in the end appears to be. But it is not here affirmed that there are no small exceptions, no slight undetermined swervings, no ingredient of absolute chance. All that is here said is that such absence of determination, if and so far as it exists, is no gain to freedom, but sheer loss of it; no advantage to the moral life, but blank subtraction from it. -- When I speak below of "the indeterminist" I mean the libertarian indeterminist, that is, him who believes in free will and holds that it involves indetermination. (shrink)