The Ethics of Geoengineering: Moral Considerability and the Convergence Hypothesis

Although it could avoid some harmful effects of climate change, sulphate aerosol geoengineering (SAG), or injecting sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere in order to reflect incoming solar radiation, threatens substantial harm to humans and non‐humans. I argue that SAG is prima facie ethically problematic from anthropocentric, animal liberationist, and biocentric perspectives. This might be taken to suggest that ethical evaluations of SAG can rely on Bryan Norton's convergence hypothesis, which predicts that anthropocentrists and non‐anthropocentrists will agree to implement the same or similar environmental policies. However, there are potential scenarios in which anthropocentrists and non‐anthropocentrists would seem to diverge on whether a particular SAG policy ought to be implemented. This suggests that the convergence hypothesis should not be relied on in ethical evaluation of SAG. Instead, ethicists should consider the merits and deficiencies of both non‐anthropocentric perspectives and the ethical evaluations of SAG such perspectives afford.     

Casuistry and Principlism: The Convergence of Method in Biomedical Ethics

Casuistry and principlism are two of the leading contenders to be considered the methodology of bioethics. These methods may be incommensurable since the former emphasizes the examination of cases while the latter focuses on moral principles. Conversely, since both analyze cases in terms of mid-level principles, there is hope that these methods may be reconcilable or complementary. I analyze the role of principles in each and thereby show that these theories are virtually identical when interpreted in a certain light. That is, if the gaps in each method are filled by a concept of judgment or Aristotelian practical wisdom, these methods converge.     

Action and Ethics Education

This paper provides a model for testing the relation between a particular action (cheating) and ethics education. The test is for a difference in the incidence of cheating (answer copying) between two groups: students who have and students who have not taken a course in ethics. The model facilitates testing by obtaining a relation between the unobservable variable (cheating) and an observable variable (a wrong answer on the target question which is the same as the answer of a nearby student). The required sample size is large but roughly comparable to the size that has been used with an answer copying index. Unlike an answer copying index, the model does not rely on extensive copying by individual students. The model is best suited for faculty who use in-class, multiple-choice exams.     

研究者由行德而知德——伦理审查的实践路径

伦理审查作为一种实践的研究,其目的是"为善",使研究者的行为符合德性.然而,研究者不是先获得德性再做合德性的事,而是通过做合德性的事而成为有德性的人."研究者行德"在伦理审查为善目的中具有基础性地位,"研究者知德"是伦理审查为善目的的理想目标,伦理审查为善目的的实践路径是"研究者由行德而知德".     

The Ethics of Geoengineering: A Literature Review

Science and Engineering Ethics - Geoengineering as a technological intervention to avert the dangerous climate change has been on the table at least since 2006. The global outreach of the...     

英国研究伦理审查体系及其启示

全面介绍了英国当前医学研究伦理审查体系与现行法规,总结其特色在于:建立了全国自上而下的中央化审查管理模式,独立于研究者、资助方、申办方以及开展研究的机构;分布在不同区域的各类别伦理委员会采用全国统一的标准操作规程运行;通过电子信息化系统统一受理全国的伦理申请;伦理审查采用与项目特点相称的审查形式,并关注公众参与及受试者权益保护等。结合国内现状,提出建立更全面的伦理监管体系并探索多样化的伦理审查形式。另外,医疗机构内应加强临床研究全流程管理,确保伦理委员会聚焦并围绕受试者权益保护,进行充分、有效的伦理审查。     

Influences of Marital Conflict on Child Adjustment: Review of Theory and Research

This review summarizes the literature on the relationship between marital conflict and child maladjustment with an emphasis on variables that qualify, explain the association, or both. Following a historical review, the modest findings on the strength of the association between marital conflict and child maladjustment is explored. The definition of marital conflict is clarified through specification of its various dimensions (frequency, intensity, content, resolution). The role of variables that serve to moderate and/or mediate the relationship between marital conflict and child maladjustment are elaborated. Mediating models include exposure theories (Modeling, Cognitive–Contextual effects: appraisal of threat and blame, and Emotional Insecurity) and changes in the parent–child relationship (Spillover). Variables that moderate or qualify the relationship include children's cognitions and behaviors, contextual factors, and demographic differences. A model is presented summarizing these mechanisms. Research recommendations are proposed and the clinical implications of this literature are addressed.     

The Ethics of Digital Well-Being: A Thematic Review

Science and Engineering Ethics - This article presents the first thematic review of the literature on the ethical issues concerning digital well-being. The term ‘digital well-being’ is...     

A Troubled Dance: Doing the Work of Research Ethics Review

The fast growing interest in the work of university ethics review boards is evident in the proliferation of research and literature in the area. This article focuses on a Research Ethics Board (REB) in the Canadian context. In-depth, open-ended interviews with REB members and findings from a qualitative study designed to examine the ethics review of school-based research are used to illustrate points raised in the paper. The author’s experiences as academic researcher, advisor to student researchers and a 3-year term as an REB member inform the discussion. Macro issues related to the general workings of the board (e.g., maintaining appropriate membership) and micro issues connected to individual REB members’ experiences of reviewing research applications are examined. The author’s goal is to contribute to a fastgrowing conversation related to the issues that influence university ethics review while drawing attention to the contribution that faculty members’ understandings of their work as REB members can make to that conversation.     

Eudaimonist Virtue Ethics and Right Action: A Reassessment

My question in this paper concerns what eudaimonist virtue ethics (EVE) might have to say about what makes right actions right. This is obviously an important question if we want to know what (if anything) distinguishes EVE from various forms of consequentialism and deontology in ethical theorizing. The answer most commonly given is that according to EVE, an action is right if and only if it is what a virtuous person would do in the circumstances. However, understood as a claim about what makes particular actions right, this is not especially plausible. What makes a virtuous person??s actions right must reasonably be a matter of the feature, or features, which she, via her practical wisdom, appreciates as ethically relevant in the circumstances, and not the fact that someone such as herself would perform those actions. I argue that EVE instead should be understood as a more radical alternative in ethical philosophy, an alternative that relies on the background assumption that no general account or criterion for what makes right actions right is available to us: right action is simply too complex to be captured in a ??finite and manageable set of??moral principles?? (McKeever and Ridge, Principled ethics, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 139). This does not rule out the possibility that there might be some generalizations about how we should act which hold true without exception. Perhaps there are some things which we must never do, as well as some features of the world which always carry normative weight (even though their exact weight may vary from one context to another). Still, these things are arguably few and far between, and what we must do to ensure that we reliably recognize what is right in particular situations is to acquire practical wisdom. Nothing short of that could do the job.     

The Emergence and Development of Animal Research Ethics: A Review with a Focus on Nonhuman Primates

Science and Engineering Ethics - The ethics of using nonhuman animals in biomedical research is usually seen as a subfield of animal ethics. In recent years, however, the ethics of animal research...     

New Angles and Tangles in the Ethics Review of Research

This articles considers the larger, external and the micro, internal forces that impinge on the nature and impact of contemporary research-ethics codes. The larger forces that shape the impact of codes involve the increase in public and governmental concern with privacy protection, changes within disciplines, and the rise of research entrepreneurship. In terms of micro-level forces, the article explores the continuing problems associated with the bio-medical approach to research-ethics, on-going instability for some types of social research, slippages between REBs and researchers, and variability of local interpretations of ethics codes. A number of ethics-review fads also produce instability in the ethics regime.     

Looking from the Outside/In: Re-thinking Research Ethics Review

This paper shares my reflections on the research ethics review process, from the point of view of both a qualitative researcher and a member of an institutional research ethics review board. By considering research ethics review, first as practice, then as policy, as a relationship and, finally, as a performance, I attempt to outline a new vision of research ethics, one that engages seriously with the relationship between receiving ethics approval, and conducting ethical research.     

同伴冲突解决策略及其影响因素的研究进展

同伴冲突对儿童的认知和社会性发展具有重要作用。在同伴冲突的各成分中,冲突解决方式是决定冲突结果的关键因素。以往有关同伴冲突解决策略的研究主要集中在冲突解决策略的内容、分类、影响因素等方面。在综述相关研究基础上,本文还对冲突解决策略的研究方法进行了回顾,并指出了进一步研究的方向。     

Right Motive, Wrong Action: Direct Consequentialism and Evaluative Conflict

In this paper I look at attempts to develop forms of consequentialism which do not have a feature considered problematic in Direct Consequentialist theories (that is, those consequentialist theories that apply the criterion of rightness directly in the evaluation of any set of options). The problematic feature in question (which I refer to as ‘evaluative conflict’) is the possibility that, for example, a right motive might lead an agent to perform a wrong act. Theories aiming to avoid this phenomenon must argue that causal relationship entails motives and acts (for example) having the same moral status. I argue that attempts to ensure such ‘evaluative consistency’ are themselves deeply problematic, and that we must therefore accept evaluative conflict.