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Ethical Implications (ethical + implication)
Selected AbstractsTHE ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH: A GLOBAL RENAISSANCE FOR BIOETHICSBIOETHICS, Issue 2 2009PATRICIA ILLINGWORTH First page of article [source] Ethical Implications of Physician Involvement in Lawsuits on Behalf of the Tobacco IndustryTHE JOURNAL OF LAW, MEDICINE & ETHICS, Issue 4 2007Jess Alderman The statements of physicians who serve as expert witnesses for the tobacco industry reveal subtle but significant problems. Some expert testimony obfuscates the important issues, and some initially reasonable statements later evolve into extreme positions during cross-examination. Such statements fall into a "gray area" of professional ethics, potentially misleading juries and adversely affecting professional integrity. Medical associations can and should strongly enforce professional standards that do not tolerate tobacco industry influence on physician expert witnesses. [source] Listening for the Other: Ethical Implications of the Buber-Levinas EncounterCOMMUNICATION THEORY, Issue 2 2004Lisbeth Lipari Despite their shared concerns with dialogic ethics and engagement with alterity, the discursive encounters between Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas were marked by miscommunication and misrecognition. This paper aims to trace the implications of these "failed" encounters for communication ethics. Beyond warning of the danger of the failure to make strange and see the other as wholly other, the story of the encounter between Levinas and Buber highlights a relation somewhat in shadow,the connection between listening and alterity. In contrast to previous readings of the Buber-Levinas engagement, this essay suggests that their "failure of communication" resulted primarily from each scholar's insufficient dialogic engagement with the alterity of the other,a failure, in short, to listen for the other. The point is not to discern what either scholar's work or their encounter "really means," but to loosen some of the rigidities within the received narratives about their relation and examine the connections between alterity and listening. [source] Considering effective divorce mediation: Three potential factorsCONFLICT RESOLUTION QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2002Jerry Gale The purpose of this exploratory, qualitative stgdy was to examine mediator efect by employing a repeated measures research design in which we videotaped mediators working with actors and a scripted divorce case scenario. What factors distinpish higher-rated mediators from lower-rated ones? Our discourse analysys of four divorce mediations suggested three signijcant factors of injuence that finction interactively and afect both mediation outcome and process. Ethical implications regarding how mediators achieve success in these three domains are discussed. This article presents implications for researchers, trainers, and practitioners; it suggests important directions for fiture research with nonsimulated mediation. [source] Imaging God: Cyborgs, Brain-Machine Interfaces, and a More Human FutureDIALOG, Issue 4 2005By Gregory R. Peterson Abstract:, Recent developments in the neurosciences have made possible the advent of brain-machine interfaces, potentially altering our understanding of our relationship with technology and even the very meaning of what it is to be human. This article briefly examines some of the recent developments in neuroengineering and considers the ethical implications. Working from Jesus' miracles as well as from a dynamic understanding of the image of God, I argue that the categories of healing and transformation should be employed in thinking through the implications of brain-machine interfaces specifically and neuroengineering generally. Although the vocabulary of the cyborg may represent the newfound freedom that this technology can bring, the category of the face may serve as a reminder of the boundedness of human nature. [source] The Ethics of Relational Leading: Gender MattersGENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 6 2008Jennifer Binns This article is concerned with the ethical implications of conceptualizing and enacting leadership as a relational practice, rather than as a heroic-individualistic performance. Using a small empirical study, it explores the possibilities and challenges of becoming an ethical subject against the pressures on leaders to instrumentalize and masculinize their relational work. Ethics is understood as a critical reflexive practice through which leaders come to understand the effects of their conduct and are able to transform or restyle themselves. This fashioning of an ethical subject is discussed in relation to the construction of masculinized certainty and feminized self-doubt. The article concludes with some tentative thoughts about the capacity of embodied subjects to transgress dominant modes of being and acting. [source] The ethics of evidence-based patient choiceHEALTH EXPECTATIONS, Issue 2 2001Michael Parker BEd PhD In this paper I analyse the ethical implications of the concept of ,evidence-based patient choice' in the light of criticism of the ,individualism' of patient-centred medicine. I argue that individualism in the sense used by the critics of patient centred medicine is not an inevitable consequence of an emphasis on patient choice and that a concern with the promotion of individual choices is not incompatible with ,communitarian' values. Indeed, I argue that any ethical approach to decision-making in health-care must be capable of taking seriously both the moral status of the individual (and of his or her choices) and the moral significance of the social dimensions of such choices. The best way to ensure respect for the principle of autonomy, I suggest, is to facilitate and encourage social interactions of a particular, deliberative, kind. This is also the best way to ensure that the broader public interest is taken into account in decision-making. [source] The impact of a short self-management training intervention in a retail banking environmentHUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2007Indira Pattni The study discussed in this article investigated the impact of a short self-management skills training course on frontline bank employees' learning about the use of self-management to overcome obstacles to the initiation of banking product sales, perceived self-efficacy in initiating the sale of a product, and performance in activities related to customer service. Trainees' scores on these measures were compared with a control group at three times (prior to training, four weeks posttraining, and twenty-four weeks posttraining). The results suggest that self-management training can be a valuable intervention in itself and need not be used solely as a posttraining intervention. Possible explanations for the across-the-board increase in performance observed in the study are discussed, as are some practical and ethical implications of this observation. [source] Muscle-derived stem cells: Implications for effective myoblast transfer therapyIUBMB LIFE, Issue 11 2005Tracey F. Lee-Pullen Abstract Stem cells have been proposed as a wonder solution for tissue repair in many situations and have attracted much attention in the media for both their therapeutic potential and ethical implications. In addition to the excitement generated by embryonic stem cells, research has now identified a number of stem cells within adult tissues which pose much more realistic targets for therapeutic interventions. Myoblast transfer therapy (MTT) has long been viewed as a potential therapy for the debilitating muscle-wasting disorder Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. This technique relies on the transplantation of committed muscle precursor cells directly into the muscle fibres but has had little success in clinical trials. The recent discovery of a population of cells within adult muscle with stem cell-like characteristics has interesting implications for the future of such putative cell transplantation therapies. This review focuses on the characterization and application of these potential muscle-derived stem cells (MDSC) to MTT. IUBMB Life, 57: 731-736, 2005 [source] A critical appraisal of evidence-based medicine: some ethical considerationsJOURNAL OF EVALUATION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE, Issue 2 2003M. Gupta MD CM FRCPC MA Abstract Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is a concept that has grown to dominate the medical literature over the last decade. EBM has provoked a variety of criticisms, scientific, philosophical and sociological. However, while its basic conclusion , that we should practise EBM , is ethical, there has been limited ethical analysis of EBM. This paper aims to provide an analysis of EBM from an ethical perspective and identify some of EBM's potential ethical implications. Following a description of what constitutes EBM, this paper will identify and assess some of the basic values and epistemological assumptions of EBM that provide support for the moral duty to practise EBM. It will then examine potential ethical implications that could arise from practising EBM, given the challenges that have been made of EBM's assumptions and claims to authority. This paper will conclude by arguing that practitioners could strengthen the ethics of EBM by embracing a broader definition of evidence and including ethical criteria in the critical appraisal of research studies. [source] Withdrawal of neonatal mechanical ventilation against the parents' wishesJOURNAL OF PAEDIATRICS AND CHILD HEALTH, Issue 5 2006David Isaacs Abstract: Neonatologists and parents usually agree when intensive treatment should be stopped. We describe the management of two babies where there was disagreement between the parents and hospital staff, and discuss the medical, legal and ethical implications of the two cases. [source] Socioscience and ethics in science classrooms: Teacher perspectives and strategiesJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 4 2006Troy D. Sadler This study explored teacher perspectives on the use of socioscientific issues (SSI) and on dealing with ethics in the context of science instruction. Twenty-two middle and high school science teachers from three US states participated in semi-structured interviews, and researchers employed inductive analyses to explore emergent patterns relative to the following two questions. (1) How do science teachers conceptualize the place of ethics in science and science education? (2) How do science teachers handle topics with ethical implications and expression of their own values in their classrooms? Profiles were developed to capture the views and reported practices, relative to the place of ethics in science and science classrooms, of participants. Profile A comprising teachers who embraced the notion of infusing science curricula with SSI and cited examples of using controversial topics in their classes. Profile B participants supported SSI curricula in theory but reported significant constraints which prohibited them from actualizing these goals. Profile C described teachers who were non-committal with respect to focusing instruction on SSI and ethics. Profile D was based on the position that science and science education should be value-free. Profile E transcended the question of ethics in science education; these teachers felt very strongly that all education should contribute to their students' ethical development. Participants also expressed a wide range of perspectives regarding the expression of their own values in the classroom. Implications of this research for science education are discussed. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 353,376, 2006 [source] Culture and Rights after Culture and RightsAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 1 2006JANE K. COWAN Building on a critical, theoretical approach outlined in Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives (Cowan et al. 2001a), I posit rights processes as complex and contradictory: Both enabling and constraining, they produce new subjectivities and social relations and entail unintended consequences. To encourage interdisciplinary engagement on these themes, I explore selected texts that consider the relationship between culture and rights, addressing two literatures: (1) debates on culture, rights, and recognition in the context of multiculturalism among political philosophers and (2) an emerging literature by anthropologists, feminists, critical legal scholars, and engaged practitioners analyzing empirical cases. Although political philosophers elucidate ethical implications and clarify political projects, an outmoded arsenal of theoretical concepts of "culture,""society," and "the individual" has hampered their debates. When accounts are both theoretically informed and empirically grounded, contradictions, ambiguities, and impasses of culture and rights are more fully explored and the liberal model of rights and multiculturalism is more open to interrogation. [source] The Invitational Conference: A Strategy for Exploring Ethical IssuesNURSING FORUM, Issue 2 2000Betty Kupperschmidt RN The author describes an invitational conference format with prepared participants and Socratic questioning techniques used to facilitate exploration of the ethical implications of using unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP). Examples of the issues discussed are failure to treat UAP with respect, nurses not used to their fullest potential, and professional nurses' claims that UAP lack the knowledge and skills to permit effective delegation. The author recommends this strategy to facilitate exploration of other ethical issues. [source] New challenges in the management of prolonged survivors of pediatric neuromuscular diseases: A pulmonologist's perspectivePEDIATRIC PULMONOLOGY, Issue 12 2006David J. Birnkrant MD Abstract Many patients with pediatric neuromuscular diseases (NMDs) are now achieving prolonged survival through advances in management of the cardiopulmonary complications of their illnesses. Because respiratory complications are among the main causes of mortality and morbidity in these diseases, pulmonologists are in a unique position to observe and describe the largely unanticipated medical, social, and ethical problems generated when patients with progressive NMDs achieve prolonged survival. For example, prolonged survivors of pediatric NMDs are now experiencing previously rare or unknown medical complications, an unprecedented severity of burden of disease and the potential for prolonged impairment of quality of life. As the patients age, their families must cope with a high level of burden of care. Society's acceptance of the eligibility of these patients to utilize critical care resources, and issues related to the transition of prolonged survivors from pediatric to adult medical providers and venues have resulted in complex practical and ethical issues. In this article, the author, a pediatric pulmonologist closely involved in the care of patients with NMDs, will identify and discuss some of the major medical, social, and ethical implications of prolonged survival among these patients, with an emphasis on Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), the most common of the pediatric NMDs. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2006; 41:1113,1117. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Ethics commentary: subjects of knowledge and control in field primatologyAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY, Issue 9 2010N.M. Malone Abstract Our primate kin are routinely displaced from their habitats, hunted for meat, captured for trade, housed in zoos, made to perform for our entertainment, and used as subjects in biomedical testing. They are also the subjects of research inquiries by field primatologists. In this article, we place primate field studies on a continuum of human and alloprimate relationships as a heuristic device to explore the unifying ethical implications of such inter-relationships, as well as address specific ethical challenges arising from common research protocols "in the field" (e.g. risks associated with habituation, disease transmission, invasive collection of biological samples, etc.). Additionally, we question the widespread deployment of conservation- and/or local economic development-based justifications for field-based primatological pursuits. Informed by decades of combined fieldwork experience in Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, we demonstrate the process by which the adherence to a particular ethical calculus can lead to unregulated and ethically problematic research agendas. In conclusion, we offer several suggestions to consider in the establishment of a formalized code of ethics for field primatology. Am. J. Primatol. 72:779,784, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] WHEN SPEED TRULY MATTERS, OPENNESS IS THE ANSWERBIOETHICS, Issue 7 2009ANTONIO MARTURANO ABSTRACT In this paper I analyse the ethical implications of the two main competing methodologies in genomic research. I do not aim to provide another contribution from the mainstream legal and public policy perspective; rather I offer a novel approach in which I analyse and describe the patent-and-publish regime (the proprietary regime) led by biologist J. Craig Venter and the ,open-source' methodologies led by biotechnology Nobel laureate John Sulston. The ,open-source methodologies' arose in biotechnology as an alternative to the patent-and-publish regime in the wake of the explosion in computer technology. Indeed, the tremendous increase in computer technology has generated a corresponding increase in the pace of genomics research. I conclude this paper by arguing that while the patent-and-publish method is a transactional method based on the exchange of extrinsic goods (patents in exchange for research funds), the free and open-source methodology (FLOSS)1 is a transformational method based on a visionary ideal of science, which leads to prioritizing intrinsic goods in scientific research over extrinsic goods. [source] PRIVACY, THE INDIVIDUAL AND GENETIC INFORMATION: A BUDDHIST PERSPECTIVEBIOETHICS, Issue 7 2009SORAJ HONGLADAROM ABSTRACT Bioinformatics is a new field of study whose ethical implications involve a combination of bioethics, computer ethics and information ethics. This paper is an attempt to view some of these implications from the perspective of Buddhism. Privacy is a central concern in both computer/information ethics and bioethics, and with information technology being increasingly utilized to process biological and genetic data, the issue has become even more pronounced. Traditionally, privacy presupposes the individual self but as Buddhism does away with the ultimate conception of an individual self, it has to find a way to analyse and justify privacy that does not presuppose such a self. It does this through a pragmatic conception that does not depend on a positing of the substantial self, which is then found to be unnecessary for an effective protection of privacy. As it may be possible one day to link genetic data to individuals, the Buddhist conception perhaps offers a more flexible approach, as what is considered to be integral to an individual person is not fixed in objectivity but depends on convention. [source] PERSONAL IDENTITY, ENHANCEMENT AND NEUROSURGERY: A QUALITATIVE STUDY IN APPLIED NEUROETHICSBIOETHICS, Issue 6 2009NIR LIPSMAN ABSTRACT Recent developments in the field of neurosurgery, specifically those dealing with the modification of mood and affect as part of psychiatric disease, have led some researchers to discuss the ethical implications of surgery to alter personality and personal identity. As knowledge and technology advance, discussions of surgery to alter undesirable traits, or possibly the enhancement of normal traits, will play an increasingly larger role in the ethical literature. So far, identity and enhancement have yet to be explored in a neurosurgical context, despite the fact that 1) neurological disease and treatment both potentially alter identity, and 2) that neurosurgeons will likely be the purveyors of future enhancement implantable technology. Here, we use interviews with neurosurgical patients to shed light on the ethical issues and challenges that surround identity and enhancement in neurosurgery. The results provide insight into how patients approach their identity prior to potentially identity-altering procedures and what future ethical challenges lay ahead for clinicians and researchers in the field of neurotherapeutics. [source] TWO CONCEPTS OF EMPIRICAL ETHICSBIOETHICS, Issue 4 2009MALCOLM PARKER ABSTRACT The turn to empirical ethics answers two calls. The first is for a richer account of morality than that afforded by bioethical principlism, which is cast as excessively abstract and thin on the facts. The second is for the facts in question to be those of human experience and not some other, unworldly realm. Empirical ethics therefore promises a richer naturalistic ethics, but in fulfilling the second call it often fails to heed the metaethical requirements related to the first. Empirical ethics risks losing the normative edge which necessarily characterizes the ethical, by failing to account for the nature and the logic of moral norms. I sketch a naturalistic theory, teleological expressivism (TE), which negotiates the naturalistic fallacy by providing a more satisfactory means of taking into account facts and research data with ethical implications. The examples of informed consent and the euthanasia debate are used to illustrate the superiority of this approach, and the problems consequent on including the facts in the wrong kind of way. [source] Welfarism Versus ,Free Enterprise': Considerations Of Power And Justice In The Philippine Healthcare SystemBIOETHICS, Issue 5-6 2003Peter A. Sy ABSTRACT The just distribution of benefits and burdens of healthcare, at least in the contemporary Philippine context, is an issue that gravitates towards two opposing doctrines of welfarism and ,free enterprise.' Supported largely by popular opinion, welfarism maintains that social welfare and healthcare are primarily the responsibility of the government. Free enterprise (FE) doctrine, on the other hand, maintains that social welfare is basically a market function and that healthcare should be a private industry that operates under competitive conditions with minimal government control. I will examine the ethical implications of these two doctrines as they inform healthcare programmes by business and government, namely: (a) the Devolution of Health Services and (b) the Philippine Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). I will argue that these doctrines and the health programmes they inform are deficient in following respects: (1) equitable access to healthcare, (2) individual needs for premium healthcare, (3) optimal utilisation of health resources, and (4) the equitable assignment of burdens that healthcare entails. These respects, as considerations of justice, are consistent with an operational definition of ,power' proposed here as ,access to and control of resources.' [source] Spanish mutual fund fees and less sophisticated investors: examination and ethical implicationsBUSINESS ETHICS: A EUROPEAN REVIEW, Issue 3 2009Rocío Marco Crespo Some mutual funds not only apply the usual asset management and custodial fees, but also front loads and redemption fees as a kind of ,toll charge' payable on entering and/or leaving the fund. The aim of this work is to examine the implications of the different loads and fees applied to mutual fund investors in the Spanish market. The results show that there is a relationship between the various charges and fees. The fact that load fund companies charge higher management and custody fees proves the potential of the fund companies to impose higher fees on a segment of the clientele. The investors in load funds, which tend to be large in number of shareholders and belonging to banks and savings banks, are small investors who show a low cost sensitivity. A lower level of financial sophistication may be the reason for the apparent lower price awareness. The problem is that the investors in load funds are not financially compensated for the extra cost represented by the front-load and redemption fees. The only beneficiary seems to be the financial institution itself. On this view, the survival of load funds seems to depend on the lack of financial sophistication of their clientele, combined with market inefficiencies. It is worth asking about the ethics of a situation of market segmentation that allows managing institutions to benefit from the segment of the least sophisticated investors. [source] |