Unique ethical problems in information technology

A distinction is made between moral indoctrination and instruction in ethics. It is argued that the legitimate and important field of computer ethics should not be permitted to become mere moral indoctrination. Computer ethics is an academic field in its own right with unique ethical issues that would not have existed if computer technology had not been invented. Several example issues are presented to illustrate this point. The failure to find satisfactory non-computer analogies testifies to the uniqueness of computer ethics. Lack of an effective analogy forces us to discover new moral values, formulate new moral principles, develop new policies, and find new ways to think about the issues presented to us. For all of these reasons, the kind of issues presented deserve to be addressed separately from others that might at first appear similar. At the very least, they have been so transformed by computing technology that their altered form demands special attention.     

Professional responsibility: The role of the engineer in society

We argue that the practice of engineering does not exist outside the domain of societal interests. That is, the practice of engineering has an inherent (and unavoidable) impact on society. Engineering is based upon that relationship with society (inter alia). An engineer’s conduct (as captured in professional codes of conduct) toward other engineers, toward employers, toward clients, and toward the public is an essential part of the life of a professional engineer, yet the education process and professional societies pay inadequate attention to the area. If one adopts Skooglund’s definition of professional ethics^I (how we agree to relate to one another), then the codes of professional conduct lay out a road map for professional relationships. As professionals, engineers need to internalize their codes and to realize that they have a personal stake in the application of codes as well as the process of developing the codes. Yet, most engineers view professional codes as static statements developed by “others” with little (or no) input from the individual engineer. Complicating the problem, questions of professionalism (such as ethics) are frequently viewed as topics outside the normal realm of engineering analysis and design. In reality, professional responsibility is an integral part of the engineering process.     

公共卫生实践中诸主体的道德责任

公共卫生伦理的实质是维护公共健康的道德责任,明确其实践诸主体的具体道德责任,即政府应当尽力提供与公正分配公共卫生资源,公众应当追求公共善基础上的合法权利,卫生职业者应当献身职业,进而为维护和促进公共健康利益、减少和预防疾病、降低和最小化风险与伤害提供伦理支撑,也将为公共卫生实践主体提供正确的价值引导.     

网上虚拟医院的责任伦理探讨

网上虚拟医院利用互联网、信息与计算机技术,辅助实体医院开展医疗、健康宣传和教育等,它具有数字化、虚拟化等诊疗特点。在现实操作中,网上虚拟医院由于交互主体的不在场,存在信任、交往、价值和情感等方面的诸多伦理道德困境。但网上虚拟医院是通过高科技来实现的新型医疗模式,蕴含在网上虚拟医院中的各种伦理关系是客观存在的。在加强技术管理的同时,提升医疗机构与医务人员乃至全体社会成员的责任伦理意识和道德主体性,是促进网上虚拟医院成立与完善的前提。     

Informatics and professional responsibility

Many problems in software development can be traced to a narrow understanding of professional responsibility. The author examines ways in which software developers have tried to avoid accepting responsibility for their work. After cataloguing various types of responsibility avoidance, the author introduces an expanded concept of positive responsibility. It is argued that the adoption of this sense of positive responsibility will reduce many problems in software development. An earlier version of this paper was written for inclusion in S. Rogerson and T. W. Bynum, eds., Computer Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Blackwell, (in press). Prepublished here with permission from the author and the editors.     

Richard Zaner’s “Troubled” Voice In <Emphasis Type="Italic">Troubled Voices</Emphasis>: Poseur,Posing, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Possibilizing</Emphasis>?

This essay considers Richard Zaner’s storytelling in Troubled Voices as a form of possibilizing which uses the stories to exemplify important moral themes such as contingency and freedom. Distinguishing between activities of moral discovery through the telling of a story and “posing” in the sense of writing to tell the “moral” of the story, I suggest that something crucial goes on for Zaner in his own tellings. Several of the more insistent implications Zaner reveals about the moral relationships encountered in the activity of clinical ethics consultation are examined in that light, especially regarding this question: is it more beneficial, or harmful, to articulate elements of core meanings and values that are entailed in individual viewpoints, which, prior to an ethics consultant’s participation, may have remained unspoken and possibly unacknowledged?     

Computers,information and ethics: A review of issues and literature

Editorial note:The following bibliographic survey of computer ethics is intended as a general introduction useful to guide both preliminary research and course development. It is the first of a series that Carl Mitcham will be doing on a number of specific discussions of ethics in science and technology. Future installments are projected on nuclear ethics, engineering ethics, ethics in scientific research, and biomedical ethics. With this [book] I issue “a call to arms.” The world needs much more discussion and writing on the social and ethical issues surrounding computing. I hope readers .... will take up the challenge.     

Molecular geneticists and moral responsibility: “maybe if we were working on the atom bomb I would have a different argument”

Senior molecular geneticists were interviewed about their perceptions of the ethical and social implications of genetic knowledge. Inductive analysis of these interviews identified a number of strategies through which the scientists negotiated their moral responsibilities as they participated in generating knowledge that presents difficult ethical questions. These strategies included: further analysis and application of scientific method; clarification of multiple roles; negotiation with the public through public debate, institutional processes of funding, ethics committees and legislation; and personal responsibility.     

美国医师的职责

在此讨论的主要问题是,什么样的社会力量能使医师对诊治病人和技术操作的质量担负起责任？这种社会力量的来源之一是职业理念;另一种约束力来自于正规社会机构的直接管理,相关权限的依据是国家和地区规范医院和医师行为的法律。第三种规范的形式和政府司法部门紧密相关,它在很大程度上是一种间接性的约束力,涉及病人因医疗事故对医生及其投保的责任保险公司所进行的索赔和诉讼。强调了第三种力量,并突出了在医师和医疗行业圈之外的社会力量对医疗活动的指导作用。     

RESPONSIBILITY AND DISABILITY

Abstract: This essay explores the boundaries of the moral community—the collection of agents eligible for moral responsibility—by focusing on those just inside it and those just outside it. In particular, it contrasts mild mental retardation with psychopathy, specifically among adults. For those who work with and know them, adults with mild mental retardation are thought to be obvious members of the moral community (albeit not full-fledged members). For those who work with and theorize about adult psychopaths, by contrast, they are not members of the moral community (albeit not in such a full-fledged fashion as the insane). Both psychopaths and adults with MMR have a disability, and the essay is interested in how disability sometimes exempts one from the moral community and sometimes doesn't. It will be through two associated puzzles that we will eventually come to see the complicated tripartite relation between disability, responsibility, and moral community.     

论深化医疗卫生事业改革的伦理基础——兼谈《关于深化医药卫生体制改革的意见(征求意见稿)》

长期以来,我国医疗卫生事业改革发展受多方面因素的冲击与影响,陷入伦理精神缺失、公益性质淡化、价值目标扭曲、整体效率低下的窘境。深化医药卫生体制改革应当全面加强医疗卫生事业的伦理基础建设,努力实现行业伦理精神回归。新医改只有将解决当前群众反映强烈的“看病难、看病贵”的最大现实难题与合理规划长远发展战略相协调,着重从微观层面上提出切中要害的可操作性实施方案、监管制度、政策法规措施,才能切实引导医疗卫生事业摆脱困境,实现又好又快发展。     

技术、虚无与责任:汉斯·约纳斯的伦理思想研究

现代技术远非古代技术所能比拟,其导致的危害也是前所未有的.约纳斯认为,现代技术本质上是一种现代虚无主义.以往本质上是人类中心主义的传统伦理学无法应对现代技术在道德上挑战.他提出了一种“责任伦理”观,主张医学和医术有一种特殊的责任,当今人类应该对自然及未来的人类负责.     

Future ethics: risk,care and non-reciprocal responsibility

As the number of intrinsically unknowable technologically produced risks global society faces continues to grow, it is evident that the question of our responsibilities towards future people is of urgent importance. However, the concepts with which this question is generally approached are, it is argued, deficient in comprehending the nature of these risks. In particular, the individualistic language of rights presents severe difficulties. An alternative understanding of responsibility is required, which, it is argued, can be developed from phenomenological and feminist concepts of care. Such concepts privilege an understanding of human beings that is primarily relational rather than individualistic, and show that responsibility is, in the first place, about connection rather than respecting separation. Care, by opening up for us an understanding of the diversity of values that are constitutive of a worthwhile life, also connects us to the future as the future of care. As such, it provides us with ethical resources that can guide us in the face of uncertainty, including general principles of action and the desire for institutions that can articulate them.     

The definition of adequate care in externally sponsored clinical trials: The terminological controversy about the concept “standard of care”

The treatment of the control group in externally sponsored clinical trials is the issue of one of the most heated debates in international research ethics. The paradigmatic cases are the mother-to-child HIV-transmission trials that took place in 16 developing countries in 1997, where the control group received a placebo while proven treatment was available in industrialized countries. From this circumstance results the controversy as to whether the sponsor and researchers of externally sponsored trials have to supply a treatment that is usually not available in the host country. From the beginning of the debate the controversial level of treatment has been called “standard of care”. However, besides the disagreement about the quality of the care that has to be supplied, there is as yet no widely accepted clear meaning of this concept. This article examines the fundamental ambiguity of the term and its formal function as an ethical criterion including suggestions on its further use. This paper was presented at the 6th International Bioethics Conference on the subject of ‘The Responsible Conduct of Basic and Clinical Research’, held in Warsaw, Poland, 3–4 June 2005.     

科技伦理责任功效探微

高科技发展所带来的伦理问题引发了社会对于科技伦理责任的关注。本文主要对科技伦理责任功效问题进行探讨,指出科技伦理责任能够提供科技进步的精神动力,引导科技行为的道德选择,影响科技主体的价值信念。同时,分析了科技伦理责任功效的实现基础,即观念、态度、动力和控制四大系统。     

Ethics in Long-Term Care: Are the Principles Different?

It has become common in medical ethics to discuss difficult cases in terms of the principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. These moral concepts or principles serve as maxims that are suggestive of appropriate clinical behavior. Because this language evolved primarily in the acute care setting, I consider whether it is in need of supplementation in order to be useful in the long-term care setting. Through analysis of two typical cases involving residents of long-term care facilities, I argue for the additional principles of candor and responsibility for narrative integrity.