Economist-philosopher Amartya Sen's writings on social and political issues have attracted wide audiences. Section 2 introduces his contributions on: how people reason as agents within society; social determinants of people's (lack of) access to goods and of the effective freedoms and agency they enjoy or lack; and associated advocacy of self-specification of identity and high expectations for ‘voice’ and reasoning democracy. Section 3 considers his relation to social theory, his tools for theorizing action in society, and his limited degree of (...) attention to work by sociologists and to capitalism and power structures. Section 4 characterizes a style marked by conceptual refinement, emphases on complexity and individuality, including personal individuality, and reformist optimism. Section 5 shows the features from Sections 3 and 4 at work in his conception of personhood that advocates freedom to make a reasoned composition of personal identity. Similarly, Section 6 addresses his conception of public reasoning and neglect of the sociology of democracy. It contrasts the ideal of a reasoning polity with features in many countries. Sen's programmes for critical autonomy in personhood and for reasoned politics play, nevertheless, a normic role, while his analytical formats help investigation of obstacles to more widespread agency, voice, and democratic participation. (shrink)

We concur with Baum and colleagues (2009) on the importance of pandemic planners taking explicit steps to employ public engagement methodologies. Thus far, as Baum and colleagues note, there have b...

This book is a comprehensive and unique text and reference in medical ethics. By far the most inclusive set of primary documents and articles in the field ever published, it contains over 100 selections. Virtually all pieces appear in their entirety, and a significant number would be difficult to obtain elsewhere. The volume draws upon the literature of history, medicine, philosophical and religious ethics, economics, and sociology. A wide range of topics and issues are covered, such as law (...) and medicine, truth-telling by the physician, research, population policy, genetics, abortion, dying, and individual rights in medical care. The selections span the centuries, beginning with material from the works of Hippocrates, continuing through Thomas Percival, John Stuart Mill, and Claude Bernard, down to modern commentators like Henry K. Beecher, Walsh McDermott, David L. Bazelon, Paul Freund, H. L. A. Hart, John Rawls, Paul Ramsey, Richard McCormick, Rashi Fein, and Bernard Barber. The text has eight major divisions, beginning with sections on the ethical dimensions of the physician-patient relationship in history; the moral bases of medical ethics; and regulation, compulsion, and protection of the consumer in clinical medicine and public health. Each of these sections includes key essays that appear for the first time. All of the book's major divisions contain primary documents: codes such as the Hippocratic Oath, Medieval Law for the Regulation of Medicine, and the first as well as the most recent code of the American Medical Association; court decisions, including those on Karen Quinlan and on abortion in the United States and West Germany; government documents such as the statement of the National Commission on the Protection of Human Subjects, the Tuskegee Syphilis Report, the British Parliamentary debate on euthanasia, and the Council of Europe on rights of the sick and dying; and various published guidelines such as the Harvard Medical School brain death criteria, the American Hospital Association on patient's rights, and Pope Pius XII on the prolongation of life. Cases that illustrate moral dilemmas are provided for discussion purposes. Each section is preceded by a succinct editor's introduction. The documents and essays are of practical value for practitioners and students in medicine, law, ethics, and counselling, and for individual patients and groups concerned with medical care. Through encompassing divergent viewpoints, the essays and primary documents were selected to encourage humane practices and deepen understanding of the multiple traditions that shaped and do shape the development of medicine. (shrink)

Publication ethics is an important aspect of both the research and publication enterprises. It is particularly important in the field of biomedical science because published data may directly affect human health. In this article, we examine publication ethics policies in biomedical journals published in Central and Eastern Europe. We were interested in possible differences between East European countries that are members of the European Union (Eastern EU) and South-East European countries (South-East Europe) that are not (...) members of the European Union.The most common ethical issues addressed by all journals in the region were redundant publication, peer review process, and copyright or licensing details. Image manipulation, editors’ conflicts of interest and registration of clinical trialswere the least common ethical policies. Three aspects were significantly morecommon in journals published outside the EU: statements on the endorsement of international editorial standards, contributorship policy, and image manipulation.On the other hand, copyright or licensing information were more prevalent in journals published in the Eastern EU. The existence of significant differences amongbiomedical journals’ ethical policies calls for further research and active measuresto harmonize policies across journals. On the other hand, copyright or licensing information were more prevalent in journals published in the Eastern EU. The existence of significant differences among biomedical journals’ ethical policies calls for further research and active measures to harmonize policies across journals. (shrink)

Publication ethics, an important subtopic of science ethics, deals with determination of the misconducts of science in performing research or in the dissemination of ideas, data and products. Science, the main features of which are secure, reliable and ethically obtained data, plays a major role in shaping the society. As long as science maintains its quality by being based on reliable and ethically obtained data, it will be possible to maintain its role in shaping the society. This (...) article is devoted to the presentation of opinions of PhD candidate students in health sciences in Ankara concerning publication ethics. The data obtained from 143 PhD students from the fields of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and veterinary reveal limited but unique experiences. It also shows that plagiarism is one of the worst issues in the publication ethics from the perspective of these young academics. (shrink)

Publication ethics is an important aspect of both the research and publication enterprises. It is particularly important in the field of biomedical science because published data may directly affect human health. In this article, we examine publication ethics policies in biomedical journals published in Central and Eastern Europe. We were interested in possible differences between East European countries that are members of the European Union and South-East European countries that are not members of the European (...) Union. The most common ethical issues addressed by all journals in the region were redundant publication, peer review process, and copyright or licensing details. Image manipulation, editors’ conflicts of interest and registration of clinical trials were the least common ethical policies. Three aspects were significantly more common in journals published outside the EU: statements on the endorsement of international editorial standards, contributorship policy, and image manipulation. On the other hand, copyright or licensing information were more prevalent in journals published in the Eastern EU. The existence of significant differences among biomedical journals’ ethical policies calls for further research and active measures to harmonize policies across journals. (shrink)

It is by now no secret that some scientific articles are ghost authored – that is, written by someone other than the person whose name appears at the top of the article. Ghost authorship, however, is only one sort of ghosting. In this article, we present evidence that pharmaceutical companies engage in the ghost management of the scientific literature, by controlling or shaping several crucial steps in the research, writing, and publication of scientific articles. Ghost management allows the pharmaceutical (...) industry to shape the literature in ways that serve its interests. This article aims to reinforce and expand publication ethics as an important area of concern for bioethics. Since ghost-managed research is primarily undertaken in the interests of marketing, large quantities of medical research violate not just publication norms but also research ethics. Much of this research involves human subjects, and yet is performed not primarily to increase knowledge for broad human benefit, but to disseminate results in the service of profits. Those who sponsor, manage, conduct, and publish such research therefore behave unethically, since they put patients at risk without justification. This leads us to a strong conclusion: if medical journals want to ensure that the research they publish is ethically sound, they should not publish articles that are commercially sponsored. (shrink)

The research assessment exercise forms the basis for determining the funding of higher education institutions in the UK. Monies are distributed according to a range of performance criteria, the most important of which is “research outputs”. Problems to do with publication misconduct, and in particular, issues of justice in attributing authorship, are endemic within the research community. It is here argued that the research assessment exercise currently makes no explicit attempt to address these concerns, and indeed, by focusing attention (...) on research outputs, may actually be fostering such ethical problems. (shrink)

It is by now no secret that some scientific articles are ghost authored – that is, written by someone other than the person whose name appears at the top of the article. Ghost authorship, however, is only one sort of ghosting. In this article, we present evidence that pharmaceutical companies engage in the ghost management of the scientific literature, by controlling or shaping several crucial steps in the research, writing, and publication of scientific articles. Ghost management allows the pharmaceutical (...) industry to shape the literature in ways that serve its interests.This article aims to reinforce and expand publication ethics as an important area of concern for bioethics. Since ghost‐managed research is primarily undertaken in the interests of marketing, large quantities of medical research violate not just publication norms but also research ethics. Much of this research involves human subjects, and yet is performed not primarily to increase knowledge for broad human benefit, but to disseminate results in the service of profits. Those who sponsor, manage, conduct, and publish such research therefore behave unethically, since they put patients at risk without justification. This leads us to a strong conclusion: if medical journals want to ensure that the research they publish is ethically sound, they should not publish articles that are commercially sponsored. (shrink)

Doctoral students in clinical, counseling, and school psychology programs often collaborate with faculty on research projects in their training as scientist-practitioners. Yet, the determination of publications' credit and order of authorship on resulting manuscripts continues to be a major concern and challenging process for professional psychologists and student collaborators. This article describes the use of case-based learning and semi-structured interview approaches to instruct first-year clinical psychology doctoral students in publication ethics during a research seminar. The instructor models ethical (...) decision-making with 1) a discussion of four cases from his own professional experiences and 2) a description of the Authorship Eligibility Assessment form, which he developed for use with junior researchers. The authors advocate for more educational strategies to supplement the APA standards in teaching the ethics of the publication process. Implications in terms of graduate student development and research collaborations in the field of professional psychology were discussed. (shrink)

Ethical violations can cause wasteful use of resources, unfair advantage for some scientists over others, and setting a bad example to the scientific community and young scientists_._ Awareness of these violations helps to prevent moral contamination of the academic community. A web-based survey with 30 items was sent to all residents and academic staff worked at different faculties in our university to evaluate the participants' thoughts and knowledge about academic publication ethics. There were 48 female and 53 male (...) respondents. 44.6% of the participants had never taken ethics courses. 57.4% of the participants think that the ethics course should be given throughout life. The responses to “when ethical course should be given?” was significantly different between males and females, but not according to academic titles and age ranges. Except residents, all participants had complete information about the predatory journals, books and congresses. 29% of the participants were not aware of ghost authorship and 20% were misinformed. The participants did not have sufficient knowledge and awareness about plagiarism, except for some sub-titles. Although lack of awareness is mostly evident among non-academicians, both academicians and non-academicians need to be educated and trained about plagiarism. (shrink)

Ethics deals with how we make decisions and the actions we perform. In decision-making, one weighs the pros and the cons of any course of action. Besides the realm of the private, there are ethical issues regularly dealt with in public discourses. Human identity in most instances is a cultural and religious construct. Our socio-historical background as human beings is constitutive of our identity and also informs our ethical decision making. In this essay, I argue for a possibility of (...) positively incorporating ideas from world religions and diverse cultures into public ethical discourses. Since world religions are about people, it is possible to appropriate humanity as understood in religions in the development of ethics. Hence, I present religions as practically relevant in the analysis of public ethical issues. Public ethical discourses are viewed as inclusive of history, religion, and culture. Further, the work of the philosopher Paul Ricoeur is presented as a way of reconciling subjectivity and objectivity in history and ethics. This essay is an analysis on ways in which the debate on ethical issues can incorporate all the voices in a society without excluding anyone while avoiding ideological extremism.  . (shrink)

Singer, Peter As someone who has been involved in contemporary ethics and political philosophy, what public ethics suggests to me is a concept that was put forward by the late twentieth-century American philosopher John Rawls. He wrote a famous book, A Theory of Justice, in which he talked about what he called 'public reason'. His idea is that in a pluralist society that does not have any established religion, when citizens argue about ethical issues they should do so (...) in a manner that can be accepted by other people in society, and doesn't presuppose beliefs that only a segment of that society is going to be able to endorse. (shrink)

The essays collected in this volume explore the ethical issues raised by the process and substance of policy-making, and discuss whether it is reasonable to expect ethical standards in public affairs.

Purpose – This paper discusses the publication “Challenges to ethical publishing in the digital era”. Design/methodology/approach – It is a critical analysis of the paper built around two main arguments: the need to stress the positive in ethical debates; the critique of apolitical professionalism; the crucial need to stress the ties between politics and ethics. Findings – No finding — it was simply argument. Research limitations/implications – Provocative challenge to dominant ethical debates. Practical implications – The need to (...) challenge the myths of professionalism. Originality/value – The need for the academe to embrace more the work coming out of the alternative public sphere. (shrink)

Dear Readers,Happy Summer Holidays for all of us up in the Northern Hemisphere. While we are basking in the warmth of sunny days our friends in Australia are buying winter clothes. How strange is this world! And stranger are the creations who are supposed to look after all other organic and inorganic objects in this planet and maybe beyond. The simple virtues of ethical and value based behavior is often forgotten when we are focus on getting the best for ourselves (...) without thinking or respecting the rights of others. The case of ethics in publication is not any different. We have few papers this issue but they are of extreme value and relevance. (shrink)

Publication bias is defined as “the tendency on the parts of investigators, reviewers, and editors to submit or accept manuscripts for publication based on the direction or the strength of the study findings.”Publication bias distorts the accumulated data in the literature, causes the over estimation of potential benefits of intervention and mantles the risks and adverse effects, and creates a barrier to assessing the clinical utility of drugs as well as evaluating the long-term safety of medical interventions. (...) The World Medical Association, the International Committee of Medical Journals, and the Committee on Publication Ethics have conferred responsibilities and ethical obligations to editors concerning the avoidance of publication bias. Despite the explicit statements in these international documents, the editors’ role in and ability to avoid publication bias is still being discussed. Unquestionably, all parties involved in clinical research have the ultimate responsibility to sustain the research integrity and validity of accumulated general knowledge. Cooperation and commitment is required at every step of a clinical trial. However, this holistic approach does not exclude effective measures to be taken at the editors’ level. The editors of major medical journals concluded that one precaution that editors can take is to mandate registration of all clinical trials in a public repository as a precondition to submitting manuscripts to journals. Raising awareness regarding the value of publishing negative data for the scientific community and human health, and increasing the number of journals that are dedicated to publishing negative results or that set aside a section in their pages to do so, are positive steps editors can take to avoid publication bias. (shrink)

Halakhah and ethics in the Jesus tradition -- Matthew's divorce texts in the light of pre-rabbinic Jewish law -- Let the dead bury their dead : Jesus and the law revisited -- James, Israel, and Antioch -- Natural law in Second Temple Judaism -- Natural law in the New Testament? -- The Noachide commandments and New Testament ethics -- The beginning of Christian public ethics : from Luke to Aristides and Diognetus -- Jewish and Christian public (...) class='Hi'>ethics in the early Roman Empire. (shrink)

Focusing on the work of one bioethics commission, the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, this article explores the role played by moral consensus in public ethics. Task Force members, who were appointed to represent diverse interests in New York State, identified a culturally strong value of individual autonomy as the ethical basis for their work on life-sustaining treatment. This moral consensus permitted the members to unite across their differences and develop public policy recommendations that (...) substantially reformed a highly troubling New York law. However, the principle of autonomy insufficiently guides decisions by caring family members for incompetent adults in cases where little is known of patient preference. A different, more innovative moral vision is required – one that grants a more robust moral authority to the family. While government efforts that rely on moral consensus developed in a broadbased and well-reasoned manner can serve us well, in some cases the consensus will provide inadequate moral guidance. Government bioethical efforts must guard against the limits of moral vision in light of their disproportionate societal power. Keywords: autonomy, consensus, family decisionmaking, government bioethics, incompetent patients, life-sustaining treatment, surrogate decisionmaking CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’. -Archilochus quoted in Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox, 22The fragment from the Greek poet Archilochus, quoted in Isaiah Berlin’s essay ‘The Hedgehog and the Fox’, serves as a metaphor for the long-standing contrast and rivalry between two radically different approaches to public ethics, each of which is couched in a radically different vision of the structure of moral value. On the one hand, the way of the (...) hedgehog corresponds to the creed of value monism, reflecting a faith in the ultimate unity of the moral universe and belief in the singularity, tidiness and completeness of moral and political purposes. On the other hand, the way of the fox corresponds to the nemesis of monism, the philosophical tradition of value pluralism, to which this collection of essays is devoted. This dissenting countermovement, which emerges most clearly in the writings of Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire, Bernard Williams and John Gray, is fuelled by an appreciation of the perpetuity of plurality and conflict and, correspondingly, by the conviction that visions of moral unity and harmony are incoherent and implausible. In the view of the value pluralists, ‘there is no completeness and no perfection to be found in morality’. (shrink)

Scientific societies can have a powerful influence on the professional lives of scientists. Using this influence, they have a responsibility to make long-term commitments and investments in promoting integrity in publication, just as in other areas of research ethics. Concepts that can inform the thinking and activities of scientific societies with regard to publication ethics are: the “hidden curriculum” (the message of actions rather than formal statements), a fresh look at the components of acting with integrity, (...) deviancy as a normally occurring phenomenon in human society, and the scientific community as an actual community. A society’s first step is to decide what values it will promote, within the framework of present-day standards of good conduct of science and given the society’s history and traditions. The society then must create educational programs that serve members across their careers. Scientific societies must take seriously the implications of the problem; set policies and standards for publication ethics for their members; educate about and enforce the standards; bring the issues before the members early and often; and maintain continuing dialogue with editors. (shrink)

Background: Breaches of publication ethics such as plagiarism, data fabrication and redundant publication are recognised as forms of research misconduct that can undermine the scientific literature. We surveyed journal editors to determine their views about a range of publication ethics issues. Methods: Questionnaire sent to 524 editors-in-chief of Wiley-Blackwell science journals asking about the severity and frequency of 16 ethical issues at their journals, their confidence in handling such issues, and their awareness and use of (...) guidelines. Results: Responses were obtained from 231 editors (44%), of whom 48% edited healthcare journals. The general level of concern about the 16 issues was low, with mean severity scores of <1 (on a scale of 0–3) for all but one. The issue of greatest concern (mean score 1.19) was redundant publication. Most editors felt confident in handling the issues, with <15% feeling “not at all confident” for all but one of the issues (gift authorship, 22% not confident). Most editors believed such problems occurred less than once a year and >20% of the editors stated that 12 of the 16 items never occurred at their journal. However, 13%–47% did not know the frequency of the problems. Awareness and use of guidelines was generally low. Most editors were unaware of all except other journals’ instructions. Conclusions: Most editors of science journals seem not very concerned about publication ethics and believe that misconduct occurs only rarely in their journals. Many editors are unfamiliar with available guidelines but would welcome more guidance or training. (shrink)

This paper draws on the underappreciated realist thought of Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire and Judith Shklar, rehearses their critique of moralism and extends it to a position which seems far from obvious a target: the dirty hands thesis, which is mostly owed to Michael Walzer, and which a number of contemporary realists have recently appealed to in their endeavour to challenge moralism and/or tackle the insufficiently addressed question of what a more affirmative, realist public ethic might involve. In illustrating that (...) the DH thesis is a thinly disguised brand of the moralism which realists reject, I shall not merely put some flesh on the bones of Shklar’s scattered, unsystematic objections to Walzer’s thought – the only realist who explicitly criticized his DH thesis. Rather, I wish to cast doubt on the internal coherence and ‘realism’ of contemporary realist positions which invoke that thesis and to illustrate that the discrepancy between Berlin’s, Shklar’s and Hampshire’s thought and the DH thesis: i) enriches our understanding of how we might wish to distinguish more meaningfully realism from the ideal/non-ideal theory debate; and ii) enables us to pursue a particular direction in which a more positive realist approach to public ethics and integrity might be developed – an approach which we might term Heraclitian realism, and which follows from their idiosyncratic, innovative, and radical account of the place of conflict in human life. (shrink)

The growing emphasis on the importance of publishing scientific findings in the academic world has led to increasing prevalence of potentially significant publications in which scientific and ethical rigour may be questioned. This has not only hindered research progress, but also eroded public trust in all scientific advances. In view of the increasing concern and the complexity of research misconduct, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) was established in 1997 to manage cases with ethical implications. In order to (...) review the outcomes of cases investigated by COPE, a total of 408 cases that had been managed by COPE were successfully extracted and analysed with respect to 7 distinct criteria. The results obtained indicate that the number of ethical implications per case has not changed significantly (p > 0.01) since the year COPE was instigated. Interestingly, the number of ethical cases, and to some extent, research misconduct, is not diminishing. Therefore, journal editors and publishers need to work closely together with COPE to inculcate adoption of appropriate research ethics and values in younger researchers while discouraging others from lowering standards. It is hoped that with a more concerted effort from the academic community and better public awareness, there will be fewer incidences of ethically and scientifically challenged publications. The ultimate aim being to enhance the quality of published works with concomittant public trust in the results. (shrink)

Abstract -/- Introduction: Publication ethics is a constant concern for academic and students alike as being an author has important academic, social, and financial implications. However, the perception of academics towards matters related to publication ethics is unclear and often a source of conflict. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate and compare students’ perceptions regarding publication ethics in two medical universities. Method: The target population was selected from two academic settings (Isfahan (...) University, n=279, University of Kuala Lumpur, n=216). Subjects were asked to fill in a standard questionnaire in a cross sectional study design, testing their perceptions towards publication ethics. Simple random sampling was employed. A p value of 0.05 was considered significant. Result: The result suggests that students from Isfahan had a higher level of knowledge in three areas: publication ethics (P=0.001), funding (P=0.001) and authorship (P=0.005) compared to students from the University of Kuala Lumpur. No significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of reporting the result (P=0.438). Conclusion: Student training on publication ethics is necessary to prevent academic disappointment and conflict. It is recommended that formal training be added to medical curricula and that publication ethics be practiced in university settings. (shrink)