The law and counselor ethics

Counselors cannot look only to the law to solve their professional problems in dealing with information about students. Nevertheless, they must understand confidentiality, privilege, and privacy in the context of ethical standards and legal requirements if they are to meet their responsibilities to clients, the profession, and to themselves.     

现象学伦理学的基础:意向性感受

E. Husserl’s reflections in Logical Investigations on “intentional feelings” and “non-intentional feelings” are significant in both his later ethical explorations and M. Scheler’s thought on ethics. Through the incorporation of the views of Husserl and Scheler, we find that the phenomenology of the intentional feeling-acts is not only the foundation of the non-formal ethics of values in Scheler’s phenomenology, but also at least the constitutive foundation of the ethics of Husserl’s first orientation. Translated by Yu Xin and Zhang Wei from Huazhong keji daxue xuebao 华中科技大学学报 (Journal of Huazhong University of Science and Technology), 2007, (6): 14–20     

World ethics: Its foundation

Although there are enormous differences between humans, it is also the case that they are fundamentally alike in certain ways. As a prelude to universal ethics, this paper enumerates many commonalities among humans.     

The ethics of social science research

ABSTRACT Ethical thinking about social science research is dominated by a biomedical model whose salient features are the assumption that only potential harms to subjects of research are relevant in the ethical evaluation of that research, and in the emphasis on securing informed consent in order to establish ethical probity. A number of counter-examples are considered to the assumption, a number of defences against these counter-examples are examined, and an alternative model is proposed for the ethical evaluation of social science research: a model which can cope with the systemic harms (harms other than those to participants as participants) which have been identified. This model is based on John Rawls's idea of original position reasoning and treats social science research as an institutional feature of the basic structure of society.     

The Muslim community and English law

This article addresses what are perceived as being the main areas of English law likely to present Muslims in Britain with problems or difficulties. Some English legal provisions relating to the family, education and religious freedom are inconsistent with Islamic beliefs and practices. While English law has to be obeyed by all those living in England, there are plenty of opportunities for Muslims to exploit its liberal principles and practical flexibility to suit their own needs. Furthermore, English law can be reformed to make it more consonant with the values and traditions of minority faiths, as the Sikhs have recently demonstrated. So far, Muslim pressure groups have failed to achieve similar reforms and some possible explanations for this are given. The future emphasis of the English legal system should lie in promoting cultural and religious pluralism, within a set of shared core values, and various concrete suggestions for change are offered.

This article is based on a paper given at Cumberland Lodge, Windsor on 29 November 1991 to a conference on ‘Islam: The British Experience’ organized by the St. Catherine's Foundation.     

The ethos and ethics of translational research

Calls for the "translation" of research from bench to bedside are increasingly demanding. What is translation, and why does it matter? We sketch the recent history of outcome-oriented translational research in the United States, with a particular focus on the Roadmap Initiative of the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD). Our main example of contemporary translational research is stem cell research, which has superseded genomics as the translational object of choice. We explore the nature of and obstacles to translational research and assess the ethical and biomedical challenges of embracing a translational ethos.     

The ethics of human stem cell research

The medical and clinical promise of stem cell research is widely heralded, but moral judgments about it collide. This article takes general stock of such judgments and offers one specific resolution. It canvasses a spectrum of value judgments on sources, complicity, adult stem cells, and public and private contexts. It then examines how debates about abortion and stem cell research converge and diverge. Finally, it proposes to extend the principle of "nothing is lost" to current debates. This extension links historical discussions of the ethics of direct killing with unprecedented possibilities that in vitro fertilization procedures yield. A definite normative region to inhabit is located, within a larger range of rival value judgments. The creation of embryos for research purposes only should be resisted, yet research on "excess' embryos is permissible by virtue of an appeal to the "nothing is lost" principle.     

Informed consent in psychiatric practice: The primacy of ethics over law

In recent years, concern with informed consent in psychiatry has led to an overemphasis on legal formulations of the problem and a heated debate about when physician paternalism can be justified. This paper proposes that the principle of respect for persons provides better guidance for treatment decisions than do legal guidelines based on a questionable standard of competency.     

Rethinking research ethics

Contemporary research ethics policies started with reflection on the atrocities perpetrated upon concentration camp inmates by Nazi doctors. Apparently, as a consequence of that experience, the policies that now guide human subject research focus on the protection of human subjects by making informed consent the centerpiece of regulatory attention. I take the choice of context for policy design, the initial prioritization of informed consent, and several associated conceptual missteps, to have set research ethics off in the wrong direction. The aim of this paper is to sort out these confusions and their implications and to offer instead a straightforward framework for considering the ethical conduct of human subject research. In the course of this discussion I clarify different senses of autonomy that have been confounded and present more intelligible justifications for informed consent. I also take issue with several of the now accepted dogmas that govern research ethics. These include: the primacy of informed consent, the protection of the vulnerable, the substitution of beneficence for research's social purpose, and the introduction of an untenable distinction between innovation and research.     

Empirical research on research ethics

Ethics is normative; ethics indicates, in broad terms, what researchers should do. For example, researchers should respect human participants. Empirical study tells us what actually happens. Empirical research is often needed to fine-tune the best ways to achieve normative objectives, for example, to discover how best to achieve the dual aims of gaining important knowledge and respecting participants. Ethical decision making by scientists and institutional review boards should not be based on hunches and anecdotes (e.g., about such matters as what information potential research participants would want to know and what they understand, or what they consider to be acceptable risks). These questions should be answered through empirical research. Some of the preceding articles in this special issue illustrate uses of empirical research on research ethics. This article places empirical research on research ethics into broader perspective and challenges investigators to use the tools of their disciplines to proactively solve ethical problems for which there currently exist no empirically proven solutions.     

Rethinking research ethics

Contemporary research ethics policies started with reflection on the atrocities perpetrated upon concentration camp inmates by Nazi doctors. Apparently, as a consequence of that experience, the policies that now guide human subject research focus on the protection of human subjects by making informed consent the centerpiece of regulatory attention. I take the choice of context for policy design, the initial prioritization of informed consent, and several associated conceptual missteps, to have set research ethics off in the wrong direction. The aim of this paper is to sort out these confusions and their implications and to offer instead a straightforward framework for considering the ethical conduct of human subject research. In the course of this discussion I clarify different senses of autonomy that have been confounded and present more intelligible justifications for informed consent. I also take issue with several of the now accepted dogmas that govern research ethics. These include: the primacy of informed consent, the protection of the vulnerable, the substitution of beneficence for research's social purpose, and the introduction of an untenable distinction between innovation and research.     

法律的道德审视:当代中国卫生法伦理学研究的使命

卫生法伦理学是由医学、法学和伦理学三大学科相互交融、渗透而结合的产物.卫生法伦理学作为一门独立的学科有着独特的研究对象.法律的道德审视,不仅是法伦理学研究的基础途径,更是当代中国卫生法伦理学研究的使命.     

法律的道德审视:当代中国卫生法伦理学研究的使命

卫生法伦理学是由医学、法学和伦理学三大学科相互交融、渗透而结合的产物。卫生法伦理学作为一门独立的学科有着独特的研究对象。法律的道德审视,不仅是法伦理学研究的基础途径,更是当代中国卫生法伦理学研究的使命。     

The limits of empirical studies on research ethics

The results of empirical research in psychology and psychiatry are increasingly being used to formulate as well as understand problems at the interface of law and psychiatry. There has been a proliferation of studies, such as the determinants of individual competence or threat to self or others, the results of which are influencing policy and legislative decisions as well as buttressing holdings in court cases. In this article, I explore the issues of interpretation of epidemiological studies, particularly the role of ideological positions on the design and results of empirical findings, the importance of the way data are interpreted, and the role of ideologies in the way research findings are presented to provide support for policy positions. Two levels of analysis are involved in determining the validity of a study. The first addresses the questions of whether the study meets the statistical and epidemiological requirements for reliable results. These include considerations such as the appropriateness of the study design and methods for gathering and interpreting data. The second focuses on the underlying framework of the study. This involves factors such as the perspectives and values of those conducting the study, the explicit and implicit dominating ideologies where they operate, and the extent to which the study is constructed to reaffirm specific ideologies. This level of analysis is essential for disclosing the influences of ideologies on the results of studies and the way in which data are interpreted. In this article, I try to demonstrate through critiques of selected studies that the first stage of analysis is insufficient without an examination of underlying preconceived values to establish the meaningfulness of results.