In this age of information technology, it is morally imperative that equal access to information via computer systems be afforded to people with disabilities. This paper addresses the problems that computer technology poses for students with disabilities and discusses what is needed to ensure equity of access. particularly in a university environment.

The role of ethics in technology development has been often questioned, especially in the early days of societal reflection of technology. However, the situation has changed dramatically. Ethical consideration now is generally declared to be indispensable in shaping technology in a socially acceptable and sustainable way. The expectations of ethics are large; often even a kind of “New Ethics” is postulated. In the present paper an over-estimation of the role of ethics for technology development is rejected. It is argued that (...) ethical reflection is, indeed, indispensable in certain problem areas and situation types; but there is, on the other hand, space for technology development free from the requirement for ethical reflection. The absence of a requirement for ethical reflection, however, always has to be considered relative to some “morale provisoire” (provisional morality) as an accepted normative framework within which technology development may occur without explicit ethical reflection. If this framework, however, is doubted or is shown to be insufficient the situation changes completely. Ethical reflection in this case becomes necessary, to consider this normative framework in order to offer modifications or supplements. (shrink)

The health care system in Poland is undergoing major change and it is possible that these changes could affect clinical research. Therefore, the situation of funding of health care is important for the future of medical research in this country. Some questions relevant in this field will be addressed. Since funds for health care and scientific research remain inadequate, their allocation raises moral, economic, legal and organisational dilemmas. The clinical aspects of resource allocation also include physicians’ responsibilities towards their patients. (...) Scientific research, clinical medicine, and clinical research have a common denominator: they rely on trust. The physician should be a fiduciary of the patient as well as being a researcher for the benefit of the patient and for society. Some physicians and researchers, despite unethical conduct, escape disclosure and punishment, but decision-makers who wrongly allocate funds for health care and research are never held accountable for their actions. (shrink)

In this essay, we demonstrate that the field of computer ethics shares many core similarities with two other areas of applied ethics, Academicians writing and teaching in the area of computer ethics, along with practitioners, must address ethical issues that are qualitatively similar in nature to those raised in medicine and business. In addition, as academic disciplines, these three fields also share some similar concerns. For example, all face the difficult challenge of maintaining a credible dialogue with diverse constituents such (...) as academicians of various disciplines, professionals, policymakers, and the general public, Given these similarities, the fields of bioethics and business ethics can serve as useful models for the development of computer ethics. (shrink)

It is not contoversial to state that acts of fraud do not belong in the academic world. What is debated is the best way to minimise the risk of fraudulent behaviour. Broadly speaking there are two different approaches to this problem. They differ with regard to whether the main focus is on internal or external control. In this article I argue that the main emphasis should be on internal structures in order to achieve the desired end. Only when the internal (...) structures are in place is it meaningful to adopt external, supportive means to the same end. Invitation to the academic project as such, education and training in research ethics and good research practice, the implementation of good documentation procedures and the implementation of a procedure for investigation of suspicions of fraud which is characterised by efficiency, impartiality and competence are the four primary ingredients in the cure. The first three are suggested to build up the necessary foundation before a structure of investigation procedures are established. (shrink)

To determine whether ethical issues concerned with field research are addressed in the peer-review process, instructions to authors and reviewers of 141 (mainly natural science) journals were examined to ascertain how often ethical issues were mentioned. Only one-third (n=41) of responding journals addressed ethical issues in their instructions to authors or reviewers. When ethical issues were considered, most of the journals limited their concerns to ethical issues associated with animal and general human experimentation. No journal mentioned ethical practices in working (...) with indigenous peoples or on traditional lands. Only two journals addressed the ethics of research in sensitive areas in their instructions to authors, only one in its instructions to reviewers. We suggest that peer-reviewed journals respond to an emerging issue in ecological research by formally incorporating research ethics into their instructions to authors and reviewers. Furthermore, these instructions should address the ethical issues associated with field research and in working with indigenous peoples and on traditional lands. (shrink)

Human dignity is a stubborn concept, at least for jurists and philosophers. After World War II it found its way immediately into the opening articles of the UN Charta, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the German Grundgesetz, apparently out of the blue, i. e. almost without any precedent in earlier juridical docu- ments. Consequently, scholars of law still have difficulties to formulate an adequate understanding of human dignity. And although the concept has a certain tradition in philosophy, if (...) we search for an independent ethi- cally attractive understanding of human dignity, it turns out that going back to Cicero, Kant or the Christian heritage is of little help, too. Much more promising, though, is a look at the long-standing usage of the expression ‘human dignity’ and its German counterpart Würde des Menschen where something like a universal right not to be humiliated is expressed. Given this understanding, we can read the commandment to respect human dignity as the basic obligation to treat other people in a way that allows them to keep their personal, individual dignities—or at least minimally decent ones. To be sure, this formulation is just a very first, tentative step on the way to a philosophically satisfying conception of human dignity, but in the author’s opinion it is definitely a promising start for a research group. (shrink)

Broadening access to both computational and educational resources is crit- ical to diffusing machine learning (ML) innovation. However, today, most ML resources and experts are siloed in a few countries and organizations. In this article, we describe our pedagogical approach to increasing access to applied ML through a massive open online course (MOOC) on Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML). We suggest that TinyML, applied ML on resource-constrained embedded devices, is an attractive means to widen access because TinyML leverages low-cost and globally (...) accessible hardware and encourages the development of complete, self-contained applications, from data collection to deployment. To this end, a collaboration between academia and industry produced a four part MOOC that provides application-oriented instruction on how to develop solutions using TinyML. The series is openly available on the edX MOOC platform, has no prerequisites beyond basic programming, and is designed for global learners from a variety of backgrounds. It introduces real-world applications, ML algorithms, data-set engineering, and the ethi- cal considerations of these technologies through hands-on programming and deployment of TinyML applications in both the cloud and on their own microcontrollers. To facili- tate continued learning, community building, and collaboration beyond the courses, we launched a standalone website, a forum, a chat, and an optional course-project com- petition. We also open-sourced the course materials, hoping they will inspire the next generation of ML practitioners and educators and further broaden access to cutting-edge ML technologies. (shrink)

It is commonly known that ancient schools of ethics were revived during the Renaissance: The texts pertaining to Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic and Epicurean ethics were edited, translated and discussed in this period. It is less known that the Renaissance also witnessed a revival of Plotinian ethics, by then perceived as a legitimate form of Platonic ethics. Plotinus' ethics had been transmitted through the Middle Ages through Macrobius' Latin treatise In somnium Scipionis I.8, which relied heavily on Plotinus' student, Porphyry, and (...) his report of Plotinus' ethics. In this article it is argued that the Florentine humanist and philosopher Marsilio Ficino carried on this tradition of Platonic, or rather Plotinian, ethics. He was familiar with Plotinus' Enneads, since he had had access to it through Greek manuscripts from around 1462; his Latin translation of the Enneads was published in 1492. The article argues that in his commentary on Plato's Symposium, completed in 1469, Ficino made use of Plotinian ethi.. (shrink)

The increasing incidence of ethical dilemmas in long-term care settings, in concert with recommendations from the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, has prompted long-term care institutions to develop mechanisms to address these concerns. Some facilities have chosen to set up an ethics committee, although estimates obtained in the past few years indicate that only between 2 and 27% of institutional long-term care settings have such committees. Ethics committees are responsible for (...) assisting staff, residents, and families with the resolution of ethi- cal concerns, and typically engage in policy review and development, case review, and education. Such committees usually count among their membership representatives from a variety of disciplines, with family members, patients, and representatives from patient advocacy groups supplementing the professional component of the committee. (shrink)

This paper considers a recent claim that Confucianism and feminism are compatible since both are care ethics. I examine some aspects of contemporary care ethics and compare them with Confucian ethi...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Some Suggestions about the Moral Philosophy of George Berkeley* PAUL J. OLSCAMP WHILE TRAVELLINGIN ITALYin 1716, Berkeley lost the second part of his Principles of Human Knowledge. Much later he wrote to Dr. Johnson in America, saying that he did not have the energy to do something so disagreeable as writing the same thing twice? This manuscript contained Berkeley's ethics and metaphysics, but in spite of its loss, there (...) is much to be learned about Berkeley's moral philosophy from his extant writings. Surprisingly, very little has been written about Berkeley's ethics, and what has been written usually concentrates on Passive Obedience and virtually ignores the rest of his worksY Most of the terminology now used to classify and criticize ethical theories was, of course, unknown to Berkeley. In spite of this, much of what he says may be fruitfully compared with some of the claims of modern ethicists. I shall try to show that many of his claims might have been strikingly modern, a In this paper however, I can only deal with what would now be called the normative part of Berkeley's theory, so, perhaps, it would be of some use to give a general *All references to Berkeley's writings are to the Jessop and Luee edition, The Works o] George Berkeley, Bishop o] Cloyne (9 vols.; London: Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1948). I shall abbreviate the titles of the works in this collection as follows: A/c. for A/~phron, or the Minute Ptdlosopher; DraJt for The First Dra]~ o] the Introduction to the Priuciple8 o] Human Knowledge; Principles for The Principles o] Human Knowledge; P.O. for Passive Obedience; Disc. for A Discourse to the Macistrates; T.V. for An Essay Towards a New Theory o] Vision; T.V~E. for The Theory o] Vision Vindicated and Explained; P.C. for philosophical Commentaries; Corr ]or Philosophical Correspondence; DHP for Three Dialooucs Between Hylas and Philonous. I am deeply indebted to Professor Richard T. Garner for his help in the preparation of thispaper. 1Corr., II, 282. 'The other references are: C. D. Broad, "Berkeley's Theory of Morals," Revue Internationale de Philosophie (1953); Graham P. Conroy, "Berkeley on Moral Demonstration, Journal o] the HisLory o] Ideas, XXII (1961), and Conroy's doctoral dissertation, Language and Morals in Berkeley's Philosophy (Berkeley, 1957); H. D. Aiken, "The Fate of Philosophy in the Twentieth Century," The Kenyon Review (Spring, 1962); kvrum Stroll, The Emotive Theory o] Ethics (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1954); Ernest Albee, A History o] English Utilitarianism (London: Alien & Unwin, 1901), chap. xv; I. A. Richards and C. K. Ogden, The Meaning o] Meaning (New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1923), p. 42; P. J. Olscamp, A Berlceleyan Analysis o] the Uses o] Language in Ethics, (doctoral dissertation, University of Rochester, 1962); W. V. Denard, "Berkeley's Theological Utilitarianism," Acres de XI" eongr~s internationale de philosophic, XIII (1953), 87-93; G. A. Johnston, "The Development of Berkeley's Ethical Theory," Philosophical Review, XXIV, 419-430; H. W. Orange, "Berkeley as a Moral Philosopher," Mind, XV (old series), 514-523. =The definitions of any technical terms I may use will be found in William K. Frankena, Ethies, (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Foundations of Philosophy Series, 1963). [147] 148 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY outline of the main features of what I think his entire system would have been, before examining part of it in more detail. Berkeley was first and last a Christian clergyman, and he therefore believed in the existence of a personal, wise, and benevolent God whose being was relevant to our daily lives. He was convinced that the natural world provides evidence for this belief, evidence as sound as that which we have for the existence of other minds. Given that the esse of objects consists in their being perceived, that only minds are active, and that no human perceiver perceives all things at all times, it follows that a cosmic mind maintains the universe it created. Moreover, the system of nature is not random, but regular; it is, in fact, a divine language in which God makes his intentions known to us, and demonstrates his wisdom... (shrink)

Cécile Fabre's Spying Through a Glass Darkly is a valuable philosophical contribution to a little-studied subject: the ethics of espionage. Compared to the ethi.

Since physicians began to formally professionalize in the 19th century, we have sought to set ourselves apart from other occupations through the adoption (and variable enforcement) of codes of ethi...

Antimicrobial resistance is a growing public health concern and is associated with the over- or inappropriate use of antimicrobials in both humans and agriculture. While there has been reco- gnition of this problem on the part of agricultural and public health authorities, there has none- theless been significant difficulty in translating policy recommendations into practical guidelines. In this paper, we examine the process of public health policy development in Quebec agriculture, with a focus on the case of pork production and (...) the role of food animal veterinarians in policy making. We argue that a tendency to employ strictly techno-scientific risk analyses of antimicro- bial use ignores the fundamental social, economic and political realities of key stakeholders and so limits the applicability of policy recommendations developed by government advisory groups. In particular, we suggest that veterinarians’ personal and professional interests, and their ethi- cal norms of practice, are key factors to both the problem of and the solution to the current over-reliance on antimicrobials in food production. (shrink)

Auf Einladung der Rheinisch-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften habe ich in ihrer]ahresversammlung am 15. Mai 1985 über das Thema "Kann die moderne Gesellschaft sich auf ökologische Gefährdungen einstel 1 len?" referiert. Die knappe Vortragszeit ließ es jedoch nicht zu, den Gedankengang in der Differenziertheit aus zuführen, die erforderlich gewesen wäre. Vor allem war es nicht möglich, die bei aller Unterschiedlichkeit sehr ähnliche Reaktionsweise vieler einzelner Funktionssy steme zu behandeln. Die Hauptthese des Vortrags, daß die moderne Gesellschaft infolge ihrer strukturellen Differenzierung in (...) unterschiedliche Funktionssysteme sowohl zu wenig als auch zu viel Resonanz erzeuge, konnte nur pauschal vorgestellt werden. Erst aus der Ein sicht in diesen Sachverhalt folgt jedoch, daß die Lösung des Problems nicht in neuen Wertvorstellungen, nicht in einer neuen Moral oder in der akademischen Ausar beitung einer Umweltethik liegen kann. Die hier vorgelegte Schrift ergänzt die Argumenta tion des Vortrags und führt sie, wenngleich nur in sehr groben Skizzen, für die wichtigsten Funktionssysteme Der Vortragstext ist in der Schriftenreihe der Akademie unter dem angegebenen Titel publiziert (RWAkW G278, Opladen 1985). 7 der modernen Gesellschaft durch. Bei sehr verschiede nen Funktionen, binären Codes und Programmen für "richtiges" Erleben und Handeln ergibt sich ein in den Grundstrukturen sehr ähnliches Bild. Das berechtigt es, die ökologischen Probleme auf das Gesellschaftssystem zu beziehen und nicht nur auf politisches oder ökono misches Fehlverhalten oder auf unzureichendes ethi sches Verantwortungsgefühl. (shrink)

Vesilind, P.A. There Is No Such Thing As Environmental Ethies,Science and Engineering Ethics 2:pp. 307–318.Susan Murcott is an environmental engineer working on innovative and low-cost water and wastewater treatment technologies and also is a Buddhist scholar and author, who trained in Zen Buddhistkoan study from 1976–1982.

Building on influential work in virtue ethics, this collection of essays examines the categories of self, person, and anthropology as foci for comparative analysis. The papers unite reflections on theory and method with descriptive work that addresses thinkers from the modern West, Christian and Jewish Late Antiquity, early China, and other settings. The introduction sets out central methodological issues that are subsequently taken up in each essay, including the origin of the categories through which comparison proceeds, the status of these (...) categories in the process of comparison, and the goals of comparison. In considering the question of goals, the introduction draws connections between comparative study and historical study within one tradition. Both types of analysis can bridge the gap between historical and normative work by attending to the ways in which the questions a scholar asks - not just the answers found - vary from one context to another. (shrink)

Vesilind, P.A. There Is No Such Thing As Environmental Ethics,Science and Engineering Ethics 2:307–318.Dr. Gruen is Co-editor ofReflecting on Nature: Readings in Environmental Philosophy and has published on the topics of animals, ethies, and the environment.

Happy cow messages are instances of commercial speech by the animal industry which, by action or by omission, mislead consumers about the harmful effects that the industry has for nonhuman animals, the environment, or human health. Despite their ubiquity, happy cow messages have received little philosophical scrutiny. This paper aims to call attention to this form of speech, and to make the case for its restriction. To do so we first conceptualize happy cow messages. Second, we argue that they encroach (...) upon individual autonomy in two particularly objectionable ways: by impairing our ability to behave according to our moral convictions, and by thwarting our capacity to identify and reason about our moral duties. This, we hold, grounds a pro tanto case for stricter and more comprehensive regulations of commercial speech by the animal industry. Third, and against the objection that restricting happy cow messages would violate freedom of speech, we contend that none of the most influential arguments for free speech grants them protection. Indeed, we suggest, those rationales seem to call for their restriction. Fourth, and finally, we review some possible ways to defuse the misleading potential of happy cow messages through commercial speech regulations. (shrink)

This paper deals with an approach to the integration of science (with technology and economics), ethics (with religion and mysticism), the arts (aesthetics) and Nature, in order to establish a world-view based on holistic, evolutionary ethics that could help with problem solving. The author suggests that this integration is possible with the aid of “Nature’s wisdom” which is mirrored in the macroscopic pattern of the ecosphere. The corresponding eco-principles represent the basis for unifying soft and hard sciences resulting in “deep (...) sciences”. Deduction and induction will remain the methodology for deep sciences and will include conventional experiments and aesthetic and sentient experiences. Perception becomes the decisive factor with the senses as operators for the building of consciousness through the subconscious. In this paper, an attempt at integrating the concepts of the “true”, the “right” and the “beautiful” with the aid of Nature’s wisdom is explained in more detail along with consequences. (shrink)

Good Clinical Practice is an international quality standard for conducting trials that involve participation of human subjects. Currently, the most widely accepted international document forming the base for GCP is the ICH Harmonised Tripartite Guideline for GCP, which defines in detail the responsibilities and obligations of parties engaged in clinical research. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how compliance with GCP provides protection of the trial subjects and assures quality and credibility of the data obtained.

Beyond the Fields is not the usual kind of book reviewed in JPS. Randolph Feezell is a highly regarded scholar in the philosophy of sport, having written significant books like Sport, Play and Ethi...