We propose a new approach for tracing value change. Value change may lead to a mismatch between current value priorities in society and the values for which technologies were designed in the past, such as energy technologies based on fossil fuels, which were developed when sustainability was not considered a very important value. Better anticipating value change is essential to avoid a lack of social acceptance and moral acceptability of technologies. While value change can be studied historically and qualitatively, we (...) propose a more quantitative approach that uses large text corpora. It uses probabilistic topic models, which allow us to trace values that are latent. We demonstrate the approach for five types of value change in technology. Our approach is useful for testing hypotheses about value change, such as verifying whether value change has occurred and identifying patterns of value change. The approach can be used to trace value change for various technologies and text corpora, including scientific articles, newspaper articles, and policy documents. (shrink)

The 2013 Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, as of writing, is declining in reported human cases and mortalities. The resulting devastation caused highlights how health systems, in particular in West Africa, and in terms of global pandemic planning, are ill prepared to react to zoonotic pathogens. In this paper we propose One Health as a strategy to prevent zoonotic outbreaks as a shared goal: that human and Great Ape vaccine trials could benefit both species. Only recently have two phase (...) 2/3 Ebola human vaccine trials been started in West Africa. This paper argues for a conceptual change in pandemic preparedness. We first discuss the ethics of One Health. Next, we focus on the current Ebola outbreak and defines its victims. Third, we present the notion of a ‘shared benefit’ approach, grounded in One Health, and argue for the vaccination of wild apes in order to protect both apes and humans. We believe that a creation of such inter-species immunity is an exemplar of One Health, and that it is worth pursuing as a coextensive public health approach. (shrink)

The presented paper focuses on the analysis of strategic documents at the level of the European Union concerning the regulation of artificial intelligence as one of the so-called disruptive technologies. In the first part of the article, we outline the basic terminology. Subsequently, we focus on the summarizing and systemizing of the key documents adopted at the EU level in terms of artificial intelligence regulation. The focus of the paper is devoted to issues of personal data protection and cyber security (...) included in these strategic documents. The final part contains recommendations for future research and evaluation of its key features. (shrink)

The emergence of the “4th Industrial Revolution,” i.e. the convergence of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, advanced materials, and bioengineering technologies, could accelerate socioeconomic insecurities and anxieties or provide beneficial alternatives to the status quo. In the post-Covid-19 era, the entities that are best positioned to capitalize on these innovations are large firms, which use digital platforms and big data to orchestrate vast ecosystems of users and extract market share across industry sectors. Nonetheless, these technologies also have the potential (...) to democratize ownership, broaden political-economic participation, and reduce environmental harms. We articulate the potential sociotechnical pathways in this high-stakes crossroads by analyzing cellular agriculture, an exemplary 4th Industrial Revolution technology that synergizes computer science, biopharma, tissue engineering, and food science to grow cultured meat, dairy, and egg products from cultured cells and/or genetically modified yeast. Our exploration of this space involved multi-sited ethnographic research in both the cellular agriculture community and alternative economic organizations devoted to open source licensing, member-owned cooperatives, social financing, and platform business models. Upon discussing how these latter approaches could potentially facilitate alternative sociotechnical pathways in cellular agriculture, we reflect upon the broader implications of this work with respect to the 4th Industrial Revolution and the enduring need for public policy reform. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In this article we set the context for this special issue focusing on individual and organizational reintegration in the aftermath of transgressions that violate ethical and legal boundaries. Following a brief introduction to the topic we provide an overview of each of the four articles selected for this special issue. We then present a number of potentially fruitful empirical, theoretical, and normative directions management and ethics scholars might pursue in order to further advance this evolving literature.

In this article, Charlotte Blease argues that patient access to online shared clinical notes (also called ‘open notes’) may cause or exacerbate nocebo effects in two ways. 1 First, open notes may enhance patient understanding about the adverse effects of medications and treatments. However, reading information about adverse effects may lead patients to form negative expectations that, in turn, may cause or worsen symptoms via nocebo mechanisms. Second, open notes may paradoxically lower the quality of the therapeutic relationship by allowing (...) patients to detect signs of discrimination and stigma in clinical notes. By accessing their shared notes, patients may identify (or think that they are identifying) signs of stigmatisation and discrimination in clinicians’ words. This may diminish their trust while increasing their anxieties and fears, all factors that have been associated with enhanced nocebo effects. The article then suggests different strategies to mitigate nocebo effects while using open... (shrink)

As part of the regulatory review process, both the Food and Drug Administration and Office for Human Research Protections (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS]...

This article will discuss the concepts of Cradle to Cradle and Circular Economy in relation to sustainable production involving philosophical debates on economic growth, and the risk of subversion of managerial practice to business as usual. The case study is based on the assignments submitted by Masters students as part of a course related to sustainable production and consumption at Leiden University in The Netherlands. Some of the supposedly best practice cases placed on the website of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (...) or those awarded Cradle to Cradle certificate were evaluated by students as green-washing. Larger implications of circular production for business and ecological management are discussed. (shrink)

Ensuring the trustworthiness of autonomous systems and artificial intelligence is an important interdisciplinary endeavour. In this position paper, we argue that this endeavour will benefit from technical advancements in capturing various forms of responsibility, and we present a comprehensive research agenda to achieve this. In particular, we argue that ensuring the reliability of autonomous system can take advantage of technical approaches for quantifying degrees of responsibility and for coordinating tasks based on that. Moreover, we deem that, in certifying the legality (...) of an AI system, formal and computationally implementable notions of _responsibility_, _blame_, _accountability_, and _liability_ are applicable for addressing potential responsibility gaps (i.e. situations in which a group is responsible, but individuals’ responsibility may be unclear). This is a call to enable AI systems themselves, as well as those involved in the design, monitoring, and governance of AI systems, to represent and reason about who can be seen as responsible in prospect (e.g. for completing a task in future) and who can be seen as responsible retrospectively (e.g. for a failure that has already occurred). To that end, in this work, we show that across all stages of the design, development, and deployment of trustworthy autonomous systems (TAS), responsibility reasoning should play a key role. This position paper is the first step towards establishing a road map and research agenda on how the notion of responsibility can provide novel solution concepts for ensuring the _reliability_ and _legality_ of TAS and, as a result, enables an effective embedding of AI technologies into society. (shrink)

Colonialism’s legacy in South Africa includes persistent economic inequality which, since the country’s universities charge fees, bars many from higher education, perpetuating the marginalisation of those previously disadvantaged by the apartheid regime. In 2015-6, country-wide unrest raged across university campuses, as students protested the yearly cycle of tuition increases under the slogan #FeesMustFall, demanding “free, decolonised education”. Protests ended in December 2017 when the government announced a sliding-scale payment policy alleviating the economic burden for poorer students. This paper sets the (...) #FMF movement and its twin demands within the context of decoloniality, and argues that while free education has been achieved, imagining and implementing decolonised education for South Africa in an increasingly globalised world is a more challenging, elusive goal. (shrink)

Since 1990, the multinational public accounting firms have all adopted flexible work arrangement policies. In part, the firms are doing this to fulfill an ethical obligation in creating an appropriate professional environment for their employees. This study examines the effect of participation in a flexible work arrangement program on an individual''s professional success and anticipated turnover as perceived by the participant''s peers and superiors. Subjects from one Big Five accounting firm read a description of a manager and answered a series (...) of questions about the likelihood of the manager''s promotion to partner, voluntary and involuntary turnover, and desirability on a job. Gender and participation in a flexible work arrangement were manipulated in a 2×2 design. The results indicate that participation in a flexible work arrangement evoked significantly more pessimistic predictions on all of the dimensions. Gender did not have an effect on the likelihood ratings. Follow-up questions about the factors that enhance and hinder individuals career success in each work scenario indicated that the perceived ability to "juggle" and the ability to "pull one''s weight" potentially affects evaluations of what it takes to be a successful professional in the financial services environment. Implications for professional and ethics practice and research are also presented. (shrink)

Business and Society Review, Volume 127, Issue S1, Page 223-251, Spring 2022.

The coupled growth of population aging and international migration warrants attention on the methods and solutions available to adult children living overseas to provide distance caregiving for their aging parents. Despite living apart from their parents, the transnational informal care literature has indicated that first-generation immigrants remain committed to carry out their filial caregiving obligations in extensive and creative ways. With functions to remotely access health information enabled by emergency, wearable, motion, and video sensors, remote monitoring technologies (RMTs) may thus (...) also allow these international migrants to be alerted in sudden changes and remain informed of their parent’s state of health. As technological solutions for caregiving, RMTs could allow independent living for older persons while any unusual deviations from normal health patterns are detected and appropriately supported. With a vignette of a distance care arrangement, we engage with concepts such as filial piety, in-absentia caregiving distress, and the social exchange theory, as well as the upholding of shifting cultural ideals to illustrate the complex dynamic of the satisfaction and quality of the informal caregiving relationship. This paper extends the traditional ethical issues in technology-aided caregiving, such as autonomy, privacy, and justice, to be considered within the context of distance care. We also posit newer ethical considerations such as consent in power imbalances, harm to caregivers, and stigma. These known and new ethical issues aim to encourage further ethically conscious design and use of RMTs to support distance care for older persons. (shrink)

Appreciation and gratitude get good press: They are central virtues in many religious and secular ethical frameworks, core in positive psychology research, and they come highly recommended by the self‐improvement set. Generally, appreciation and gratitude feature as good things, in popular consciousness. Of course, on an Aristotelian model, the belief that these are virtues implies they are something people can get right or wrong. This paper examines bad appreciation and bad gratitude, characterizing forms of appreciation and gratitude at the center (...) of some major social norms and practices, and demonstrating that they mask familiar oppressive expectations and power relations. (shrink)

The ongoing Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is disrupting most specialized healthcare services worldwide, including those for high-risk newborns and their families. Due to the risk of contagion, critically ill infants, relatives and professionals attending neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are undergoing a profound remodeling of the organization and quality of care. In particular, mitigation strategies adopted to combat the COVID-19 pandemic may hinder the implementation of family-centered care within the NICU. This may put newborns at risk for several adverse (...) effects, e.g., less weight gain, more nosocomial infections, increased length of NICU stay as well as long-term worse cognitive, emotional, and social development. This article aims to contribute to deepening the knowledge on the psychological impact of COVID-19 on parents and NICU staff members based on empirical data from the literature. We also provided evidence-based indications on how to safely empower families and support NICU staff facing such a threatening emergency, while preserving the crucial role of family-centered developmental care practices. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used in disaster risk management applications to predict the effect of upcoming disasters, plan for mitigation strategies, and determine who needs how much aid after a disaster strikes. The media is filled with unintended ethical concerns of AI algorithms, such as image recognition algorithms not recognizing persons of color or racist algorithmic predictions of whether offenders will recidivate. We know such unintended ethical consequences must play a role in DRM as well, yet there is (...) surprisingly little research on exactly what the unintended consequences are and what we can do to mitigate them. The aim of this perspective is to call researchers working on fairness, accountability, and transparency to work with DRM and local experts—so we can ensure that disaster mitigation and relief is accountable, considers local values, and is not unintentionally biased. (shrink)

This article details the personal involvement of the author in the early stages of the infamous Pinto fire case. The paper first presents an insider account of the context and decision environment within which he failed to initiate an early recall of defective vehicles. A cognitive script analysis of the personal experience is then offered as an explanation of factors that led to a decision that now is commonly seen as a definitive study in unethical corporate behavior. The main analytical (...) thesis is that script schemas that were guiding cognition and action at the time precluded consideration of issues in ethical terms because the scripts did not include ethical dimensions. (shrink)

The study of teachers' readiness to work with adolescents with disabilities in terms of their professional self-determination was carried out on the basis of the study of works containing scientific ideas about the essence of professional self-determination, conceptual provisions on the essence of the phenomenon of "readiness", analysis of the characteristics of persons with psychophysical disorders. Studying the readiness of teachers to work with persons with disabilities on professional self-determination included questions on their knowledge of the essence of professional self-determination; (...) awareness of the importance and necessity of owning personal qualities, practical skills in organizing work on the professional self-determination of schoolchildren with developmental disabilities. In the course of the study, the levels of teachers' readiness were identified: high, average, below average according to the criteria: motivational, cognitive, procedural, organizational, evaluative. (shrink)

Research groups around the world are currently busy trying to invent new life in the laboratory, looking for extraterrestrial life, or making machines increasingly more life-like. In the case of astrobiology, any newly discovered life would likely be very old, but when discovered it would be new to us. In the case of synthetic organic life or life-like machines, humans will have invented life that did not exist before. Together, these endeavors amount to what we call the emerging plurality of (...) lives because we see a future where we are surrounded by, and interact with, life of many different origins, as well as entities that we have not traditionally seen as being alive. In the future these entities will likely possess properties that we so far have only associated with living beings, thereby transcending and perhaps blurring the borders between life and non-life. (shrink)

This book focuses on the role of philosophy across disciples. It gives several examples of how philosophical theories or particular concepts or lines of arguments, can be used in other (non-philosophical) disciplines, such as politics, business, psychology, art, and film studies.

Objective: To identify the frequency and nature of care conflict dilemmas that United States long-term care providers encounter, response strategies, and use of ethics resources to assist with dispute resolution. Design: An online cross-sectional survey was distributed to the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine (AMDA). Results: Two-thirds of participants, primarily medical directors, have rejected surrogate instructions and 71% have managed family conflict. Conflict over treatment decisions and issues interpreting advance directives were frequently reported. Half of facilities lack a (...) formal dispute mediation policy. Only five respondents have called an ethics consult for assistance. Conclusion: Ethically tense care conflicts commonly arise in long-term and post-acute care facilities. Few facility procedures incorporate ethics resources into actual practice. Recommendations are made to create actionable policy, increase access to ethics services, and support staff skill development in order to improve the end-of-life care experiences for patients, families, and care facility staff. (shrink)

Palliative care and medical-legal partnership are complementary disciplines dedicated to integrating care to treat the whole patient and intervening before a legal or medical issue is at a crisis point. In this paper, we discuss the founding and operations of the Yale Palliative Medical Legal Partnership, give examples of typical cases, explain special considerations in this area of law, and propose areas for further research.

Evidence of an emerging focus on the role of farmer knowledge in developed countries is highlighted by the debate on the nature of local and scientific knowledge. Less attention has been paid to the interaction of different ways of knowing for sustainable capital-intensive agriculture. This paper explores the relationship between local and scientific knowledge in managing temperate pasture and grazing systems in Australia. The nature of farmer knowledge is firstly examined by describing the experiences of farm families in managing native (...) and introduced perennial grasses in upland areas of the Murray-Darling Basin. The building of knowledge and skills through social learning was explored in group case studies and interviews with stakeholders involved in pasture research and development. The interchange of local and scientific knowledge in groups was shown to have a synergistic effect, whereby local knowledge was broadened and strengthened, and scientific knowledge adapted and molded to specific situations. The effectiveness of social learning was greatest in collaborative programs based on small, local groups involved in monitoring and evaluation of whole farm pasture and grazing systems. (shrink)

What is the state of play for science advice to the government and Parliament? After almost ten years with a prime minister’s chief science advisor, are there lessons to be learnt? How can we continue to ensure that science advice is effective, balanced, transparent and rigorous, while at the same time balancing the need for discretion and confidentiality? In this article, we suggest that the hallmarks of good science – transparency and peer review – can be balanced against the need (...) to provide confidential advice in an Aotearoa New Zealand context. To complement the advice to the prime minister, an expanded role for the Royal Society Te Apärangi would support public and parliamentary understanding of science and science issues relevant to policy. (shrink)

Machine learning (ML) techniques have become pervasive across a range of different applications, and are now widely used in areas as disparate as recidivism prediction, consumer credit-risk analysis, and insurance pricing. Likewise, in the physical world, ML models are critical components in autonomous agents such as robotic surgeons and self-driving cars. Among the many ethical dimensions that arise in the use of ML technology in such applications, analyzing morally permissible actions is both immediate and profound. For example, there is the (...) potential for learned algorithms to become biased against certain groups. More generally, in so much that the decisions of ML models impact society, both virtually (e.g., denying a loan) and physically (e.g., driving into a pedestrian), notions of accountability, blame and responsibility need to be carefully considered. In this article, we advocate for a two-pronged approach ethical decision-making enabled using rich models of autonomous agency: on the one hand, we need to draw on philosophical notions of such as beliefs, causes, effects and intentions, and look to formalise them, as attempted by the knowledge representation community, but on the other, from a computational perspective, such theories need to also address the problems of tractable reasoning and (probabilistic) knowledge acquisition. As a concrete instance of this tradeoff, we report on a few preliminary results that apply (propositional) tractable probabilistic models to problems in fair ML and automated reasoning of moral principles. Such models are compilation targets for certain types of knowledge representation languages, and can effectively reason in service some computational tasks. They can also be learned from data. Concretely, current evidence suggests that they are attractive structures for jointly addressing three fundamental challenges: reasoning about possible worlds + tractable computation + knowledge acquisition. Thus, these seems like a good starting point for modelling reasoning robots as part of the larger ecosystem where accountability and responsibility is understood more broadly. (shrink)

Part of the equation in sub-section “Key findings” is missing in the original publication of the article. The error was caused by the fact that the equation, due to its length, exceeded the page width. The missing part of the equation is given below.

Assuming that liberalism, liberal democracy, and the free market are here to stay, this book asks how sustainability can be interpreted in ways that respect liberal democratic values and institutions. Among the problems addressed are the compatibility of liberal procederalism with substantive "green" ideals, the existence and potential of eco-friendly principles and ideas in clasical liberal political theory, the role of rights and duties and of democracy and deliberation, and the "greening" potential of modern environmentally-focused practices in liberal democracies.

In recent years a number of commentators have discussed the importance of measuring quality of life in health care. We want to know whether an intervention will help people to live better, not just longer, and whether some treatments cause more trouble than they are worth. New technologies promise wondrous benefits. But when millions of people have no insured access to health care, and when many others face increasingly stringent limits on care, technologies’ high costs require us to choose what (...) we should do from the broader universe of what we can do.The challenges to measuring QL are formidable. Researchers debate whether to measure general QL or disease-specific QL; whether to focus on functional status such as the patient's ability to walk and dress himself, or on the value people ascribe to that functional status; whether to seek the values of the general public, or to concentrate on people actually affected by a given disease or disability. (shrink)

In recent years a number of commentators have discussed the importance of measuring quality of life in health care. We want to know whether an intervention will help people to live better, not just longer, and whether some treatments cause more trouble than they are worth. New technologies promise wondrous benefits. But when millions of people have no insured access to health care, and when many others face increasingly stringent limits on care, technologies’ high costs require us to choose what (...) we should do from the broader universe of what we can do.The challenges to measuring QL are formidable. Researchers debate whether to measure general QL or disease-specific QL; whether to focus on functional status such as the patient's ability to walk and dress himself, or on the value people ascribe to that functional status; whether to seek the values of the general public, or to concentrate on people actually affected by a given disease or disability. (shrink)