Teaching ethics in engineering and computer science: A panel discussion

At a conference, two engineering professors and a philosophy professor discussed the teaching of ethics in engineering and computer science. The panelists considered the integration of material on ethics into technical courses, the role of ethical theory in teaching applied ethics, the relationship between cases and codes of ethics, the enlisting of support of engineering faculty, the background needed to teach ethics, and the assessment of student outcomes. Several audience members contributed comments, particularly on teaching ethical theory and on student assessment. This panel discussion took place at a mini-conference, Practicing and Teaching Ethics in Engineering and Computing, held during the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, Washington, D.C., March 8–9, 1997. Biographical information on panelists: Charles Glagola is an assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Florida. He is a registered professional engineer in the states of Florida and Alabama. Before coming to academia, he had extensive industry experience culminating with his owning and operating a construction and engineering firm in Pensacola, Florida. He currently teaches engineering ethics as part of a professional issues course in the Department of Civil Engineering, and a one-hour engineering ethics course that is offered to all engineering students through the College of Engineering. Moshe Kam is professor of electrical and computer engineering at Drexel University. He heads Drexel’s Data Fusion Laboratory which specializes in multisensor systems and robot navigation. His professional interests include detection and estimation, distributed decision making, forensic applications of image processing, and engineering ethics. Michael Loui is professor of electrical and computer engineering and associate dean of the Graduate College at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From 1990 to 1991, he served at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. His scholarly interests include computational complexity theory, theory of parallel and distributed computation, fault-tolerant software, and professional ethics. Caroline Whitbeck is a philosopher of science, technology and medicine and is the Elmer G. Beamer-Hubert H. Shneider Professor in Ethics at Case-Western Reserve University. She also directs the WWW Ethics Center for Engineering & Science— http://ethics.cwru.edu— under a grant from the National Science Foundation. The focus of her current work is practical ethics, especially ethics in scholarly and scientific research. Her book, Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research, will appear from Cambridge University Press in winter 1997–98.     

公务员正常高值血压的流行现状及危险因素分析

对吉林省516名公务员的血压及心血管疾病危险因素进行描述性分析,用二分类Logistic回归法筛选危险因素。公务员正常高值血压现患率为34．9％。正常高值血压人群体重指数、腰围、空腹血糖、总胆固醇、低密度脂蛋白胆固醇、甘油三酯、血清肌酐、血尿酸、心一踝血管指数水平以及代谢综合征患病率均高于正常血压组低于高血压组,高密度...     

Empirical tests of philosophical intuitions

Experimental philosophy seeks to examine empirically various factual issues that, either explicitly or implicitly, lie at the foundations of philosophical positions. A study of this genre (Miller & Feltz, 2011) was critiqued. Questions about the study were raised and broader issues pertaining to the field of experimental philosophy were discussed.     

Justification and legitimacy in global civil society

As some thinkers have sought in the concept of global civil society an ethically driven site of deliberation and even resistance, so others have criticized global civil society for its lack of legitimacy and representativeness. This article attempts to answer these criticisms – at least in part – by invoking a moral commitment to the value of justification. I argue that the idea of justification, when examined, offers us a particular understanding of legitimacy which would be attainable for global civil society actors. The article begins by setting out the case for concern about the legitimacy of global civil society. I then outline a certain understanding of justification, showing how a commitment to this conception provides both a response to critics of global civil society and an ethical baseline for humane actors within global civil society. I move on to trace the significance of the moral relevance of justification for actors' strategies. Lastly, however, I highlight the difficulty of justification in a diverse world. This is to say that the issues of legitimacy and strategy facing global civil society are only made more tractable, not dissolved, by an appeal to the importance of justification.     

Beyond the International Relations framework: an essay in descriptive global ethics

Discussions of global ethics—about the types of ethical claim made on individuals and groups, not only states, by individuals and groups around the world—have had to move beyond the categories inherited in the International Relations discipline. Many important positions are not captured by a framework developed for discussion of inter-state relations. The blindspots seem to reflect an outmoded expectation that (i) giving low normative weight to national boundaries correlates strongly with (ii) giving more normative weight to people beyond one's national boundaries, and vice versa; in other words that these two dimensions in practice reduce to one. The paper develops an enriched categorisation. We need to recognise the separate importance of the two dimensions, and thus distinguish various types of ‘cosmopolitan’ position, including many varieties of libertarian position which give neither national boundaries nor pan-human obligations much (if any) importance.     

Misconduct in science and the german law

In the past, only norms and rules developed for other types of illegal activities could be applied to misconduct in science in Germany. But only particularly blatant cases of misconduct can be dealt with efficiently in this way. Nowadays, a couple of very important funding agencies and research institutions have enacted special procedures that apply in cases of suspected scientific misconduct. A strongly decentralised system of dealing with misconduct in science is being established in Germany. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a symposium, Scientific Misconduct. An International Perspective, organised by The Medical University of Warsaw, 16 November, 1998.     

Democracy,Deliberation and Disobedience

This paper develops a theory of civil disobedience informed by a deliberative conception of democracy. In particular, it explores the justification of illegal, public and political acts of protest in constitutional deliberative democracies. Civil disobedience becomes justifiable when processes of public deliberation fail to respect the principles of a deliberative democracy in the following three ways: when deliberation is insufficiently inclusive; when it is manipulated by powerful participants; and when it is insufficiently informed. As a contribution to ongoing processes of public deliberation, civil disobedience should be carried out in a way that respects the principles of deliberative democracy, which entails a commitment to persuasive, non-violent forms of protest.Civil disobedience is understood in this paper as public, illegal and political protest carried out against state laws or policies. Justification here is understood as a moral or political justification -- where civilly disobedient citizens claim that they are morally or politically entitled to disobey law. It does not imply legal justification.John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972); Ronald Dworkin, A Matter of Principle (London: Harvard University Press, 1985).     

Introduction: Law and Disobedience

This essay considers some major questions raised by civil and other forms of conscientious disobedience. What distinguishes that form of dissent? Can we recognise the legitimacy of a political system yet defy its laws? Is disobeying a democratic decision especially or entirely unacceptable, or can disobedience be an instrument of democracy? If a regime recognises rights, how should we regard disobedience that appeals to those rights in challenging the regime’s laws? How should reasons for obedience figure in our thinking about justified disobedience? The essay locates the contributions that make up this special issue of Res Publica within these debates about disobedience. It questions whether any general theory of justified disobedience can command agreement: the conditions that give rise to conscientious disobedience -- conflicting values and judgements -- seem to preclude consensus on when its use is justified.     

The Space of Argumentation: Urban Design, Civic Discourse, and the Dream of the Good City

In this paper, I explore connections between two disciplines not typically linked: argumentation theory and urban design. I first trace historical ties between the art of reasoned discourse and the idea of civic virtue. I next analyze discourse norms implicit in three theories of urban design: Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (1977), and Peter Katz's The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community (1994). I then propose a set of settlement issues of potential interest to both urban designers and argumentation theorists: size, density, heterogeneity, publicity, security, and identity. I conclude by suggesting that the good city be seen as both a spatial and a discursive entity. From such a perspective, good public discourse is dependent, at least in part, on good public space; and good public space is defined, at least in part, as a context conducive to good public discourse.     

Schreber, Perceval, and Van Gogh: Three Eminent Cases Considered from the Perspective of Four Characteristics of Psychosis

The psychotic dispositions of Schreber, Perceval, and Van Gogh are considered. Four characteristics appear to run through their psychoses, and these are identified and illustrated: (1) Negation, (2) persecutory belief, (3) obedience to a transcendental command, and (4) evangelism/martyrdom. Three of the elements have been identified previously, but evangelism/martyrdom is identified here for the first time. The characteristics tend to move in a linear direction, each reinforcing the psychotic state. Therapy requires a disruption of the path, whether through biochemical or psychosocial means or both.