An explication of the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) code of ethics

This article reviews the work carried out by the NSGC ad hoc Committee on Ethical Codes and Principles between 1986 and 1991 and serves as a guide for interpreting the NSGC Code of Ethics. The NSGC Code of Ethics is written from the ethic of care perspective. It is based on the responsibilities that arise from the four primary relationships genetic counselors experience in their work: genetic counselors and themselves, their clients, their colleagues, and society. The values selected for each relationship and the resultant guidelines are explained. The Code of Ethics became effective January 1, 1992.     

Comment by Arvind Sharma

Comments on:
JRE Focus on The 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights, Journal of Religious Ethics 26.2 (Fall 1998)
"Rethinking Human Rights: A Review Essay on Religion, Relativism, and Other Matters" by David Little, Journal of Religious Ethics 27.1 (Spring 1999)     

The transcendental dimension of “praxis” in Husserl's phenomenology

This paper is a revised and reformed version of Husserl-genshogaku to jissen no mondai (Husserl's phenomenology and the problem of praxis) in: The Japanese Society for Ethics ed., Rinrigaku-nenpo (Annals of Ethics) No. 35 (Tokyo: Keiotsushin, 1986), pp. 105–121. It is my duty to express my gratitude to Mrs. Yu Tani for her advices about English and stylization.     

The professional ethics course

A professional ethics program was recently developed and implemented as a comparative values course at the University of Puget Sound. This article is a report ontheprogram, “Professional Ethics fora Technological Era.”The program consists of two courses: “Ethics for a Technological Era,” and “Values: Conflict and Compromise.” The first course emphasizes skills necessary for ethical decision making. The second course follows through with an opportunity to apply these skills to a major social policy program. This article discusses the approach to ethics, and participation, and the theoretical approach, including role modeling, speakers, and reading and discussion material, for “Professional Ethics in a Technological Era.”     

Comment by James Turner Johnson

Comments on:
"Just War Theory in Comparative Perspective: AReview Essay" by Simeon O. Ilesanmi Journal of Religious Ethics 28.1 (Spring 2000)     

Detrimental therapist-client relationships--beyond thinking of "dual" or "multiple" roles: reflections on the 2001 AAMFT Code of Ethics

This article presents reflections on and a critique of the recent revision of the AAMFT Code of Ethics on the multiple relationship ethical standard. A brief historical overview of terminology and the debate surrounding "dual" and "multiple" relationship ethical rules in marriage and family therapy is provided. The term "exploitation" is also delimited. Ethical principles and a set of standards addressing "detrimental" versus "potentially beneficial" interactions are introduced, deriving from works in other mental health professions. The article recommends: (a) the terms "dual" and "multiple" relationships should be abandoned; (b) the ethical principles underlying the AAMFT Code of Ethics need to be examined; and (c) the debate on the topic of detrimental therapist-client interactions in marriage and family therapy needs to be revisited, especially in light of a "positive ethics."     

Hospital ethics committees: One of many centers of responsibility

Ethical reality is coextensive with human dignity. Therefore, one essential way to understand ethics is as the systematic effort to discern the imperatives of human dignity. Seeing ethics in this way highlights the fact that health care institutions have many centers of ethical responsibility (CERs) — the Chief Executive Officer, Board of Trustees, senior management team, etc. The Ethics Committee is only one such CER and not the most important one. These other CERs will benefit from identifying: (1) the fact that they are consistently dealing with ethical reality and making ethical decisions; (2) some critical elements of good ethical decision-making: (i) having the appropriate community; (ii) making the guiding value priorities explicit and specific; (iii) gaining skill in using the needed intellectual tools; and (iv) fashioning appropriate process and structure for discernment.     

Letters, Notes, and Comments

Letter: Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the World's Religions
Commenting on "Leaping into the Boundless: A Daoist Reading of Comparative Religious Ethics" by Francisca Cho, "Moral Reason, Risk, and Comparative Inquiry" by Robin W. Lovin, "Heuristic Power as the Test of Theory" by Ronald M. Green, and "The Author Replies" by Francisca Cho     

Masculine and feminine voices: Making ethical decisions in the care of the dying

Drawing on the example of one specific Ethics Committee, the author delineates feminine and masculine styles of ethical decision making and work with the dying as two sides of what it means to be humanistic in patient care. The author draws particularly on the work of Carol Gilligan to differentiate feminine from masculine approaches.     

Reviews

Book reviews in this article: Population, Evolution, and Birth Control: A Collage of Controversial Ideas. Assembled by Garrett Hardin . Updating Life and Death: Essays in Ethics and Medicine. Edited by Donald R. Cutler . Who Shall Live? Medicine, Technology, Ethics. Edited by Kenneth Vaux . Sciences of Man and Social Ethics: Variations on the Theme of Human Dignity. Edited by Marvin Charles Katz .     

Credentialing and certification in ethics consultation: lessons from palliative care

In response to an article by Acres and colleagues, "Credentialing the Clinical Ethics Consultant: An Academic Medical Center Affirms Professionalism and Practice:" the authors urge continued action for the credentialing and certification of clinical ethics consultants. They also promote a vigorous and engaged model for ethics consultation.     

The Ethics of Technology: Response to Critics

The Ethics of Technology: A Geometric Analysis of Five Moral Principles proposes five moral principles for analyzing ethical issues related to engineering and technology. The objections raised by several authors to the multidimensional scaling technique used in the book reveal a lack of familiarity with this widely used technique.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Stephen R. L. Clark, The Political – Biology, Ethics and Politics
Torbjörn Tannsjö, Coercive Care
David Carr and Jan Steutel, Virture Ethics and Moral Education
Laura Westra and Patricia Werhane, The Business of Consumption: Environmental Ethics and the Global Community
David Conway, Free-Market Feminism     

Design, Development, and Evaluation of a Second Generation Interactive Simulator for Engineering Ethics Education (SEEE2)

This paper describes a second generation Simulator for Engineering Ethics Education. Details describing the first generation activities of this overall effort are published in Chung and Alfred (Sci Eng Ethics 15:189?C199, 2009). The second generation research effort represents a major development in the interactive simulator educational approach. As with the first generation effort, the simulator places students in first person perspective scenarios involving different types of ethical situations. Students must still gather data, assess the situation, and make decisions. The approach still requires students to develop their own ability to identify and respond to ethical engineering situations. However, were as, the generation one effort involved the use of a dogmatic model based on National Society of Professional Engineers?? Code of Ethics, the new generation two model is based on a mathematical model of the actual experiences of engineers involved in ethical situations. This approach also allows the use of feedback in the form of decision effectiveness and professional career impact. Statistical comparisons indicate a 59 percent increase in overall knowledge and a 19 percent improvement in teaching effectiveness over an Internet Engineering Ethics resource based approach.     

Incommensurability,slight pains and God

I will consider how the notion of incommensurability, as championed by Parfit (Reasons and persons, 1984), Griffin (Well-being: its meaning, measurement and importance, 1986), Chang (Ethics 112:659–688, 2002), and Hare (Philos Perspect 23:165–176, 2009), might affect both the argument from slight pain (which suggests God’s non-existence can be inferred from the merest stubbing of one’s toe) and Leibniz’s reply to this argument. I conclude that the notion of incommensurability may ultimately strengthen Leibniz’s general position.     

International Association for Education in Ethics

Announcement

International Association for Education in Ethics     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Ethics and Science. By HENRY MARGENAU. New York: Robert E. Krieger
Belief and Ethics: Essays in Ethics, the Human Sciences, and Ministry in Honor of W. Alvin Pitcher. Edited by W. WIDICK SCHROEDER and GIBSON WINTER.
Nature and Purpose. By JOHN F. HAUGHT. Lanham
Our Fragile Brains: A Christian Perspective on Brain Research. By D. GARETH JONES. Downers Grove     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
Christ and Spirit. Spirit-Christology in Trinitaraian Perspective by Ralph Delcolle
Winds of the Spriti: A constructive Christian Theology, Peter C. Hodgson
The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri de Lubac and john Zizioulas in Dialogue by Paul McParthan
Changing the Subject: Women's Discourses and Feminist Theology by Mary McClintock Fulkerson
Plurality and Christian Ethics, by Lan S. Markham
Ther fall to Voilence: Original sin in Relational Theology by Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki
Religion and Revelation: A Theology of Revelation in the World's Religion by Keith Ward
Power & Christian Ethics by James P. Mackey
Mystical Language of Unsaying by Michael A. Sells
Narratives of a Vulnerable God: Christ, Theology and Scripture by William C. Placher     

Book Reviews

Garrett Cullity and Berys Gaut (eds), Ethics and Practical Reason
Frank Jackson, From Metaphysics to Ethics: a Defence of Conceptual Analysis
John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza, Responsibility and Control: a Theory of Moral Responsibility
Ruth Chang, Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason
Mary Warnock, An Intelligent Person's Guide to Ethics
R.A. Duff, Criminal Attempts
Derek Bolton and Jonathan Hill, Mind, Meaning and Mental Disorder: the Nature of Causal Explanation in Psychology and Psychiatry
David Archard, Sexual Consent
Matthew Kieran, Media Ethics: a Philosophical Approach
John Cottingham, Philosophy and the Good Life: Reason and the Passions in Greek, Cartesian and Psychoanalytic Ethics
Richard Swinburne, Providence and the Problem of Evil
Simon Glendinning, On Being with Others: Heidegger – Derrida – Wittgenstein     

“Sherry’s Secret”

The case and commentaries below were developed as part of a project, Graduate Research Ethics Education, undertaken by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF Grant No. SBR 9421897 and NSF Grant No. 9817880). The project aims at training graduate students in research ethics and building a community of scientists and engineers who are interested in and capable of teaching research ethics. As part of the project, each graduate student participant develops a case for use in teaching and writes a commentary to go with the case, and then a staff member is asked to write additional commentary on the case. The case below was written in the second year of the project and was published in Research Ethics: Cases and Commentaries edited by B. Schrag, Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, Bloomington, Indiana, Vol. II (1998). Publication of these cases and commentaries will be a recurring feature of Science and Engineering Ethics.