New Digital Technologies: A Kairos for Catholic Education in Rwanda

ABSTRACT

While the Catholic Church in Rwanda endeavors to revitalize Catholic Education, the Government of Rwanda is trying to leverage the use of digital technologies to raise access, improve the quality, and strengthen the relevance of education and training to the labor market. The purpose of this article is therefore to explore and assess the value and potentially constructive educational benefits offered by digital technologies in Catholic schools. The Catholic Church is one of the key educational development partners of the Government of Rwanda. Approximately 41% of students attend Catholic schools in Rwanda. The article scrutinizes some ethical concerns associated with the emergence of digital technologies in schools. Then it critically analyzes the position of the Catholic Church vis-à-vis digital technologies and sheds some light on their ethical and responsible use in Catholic schools. Consequently, the article suggests some actions that may be undertaken by the Catholic Church in order to assist the youth to make an informed choice among a diverse range of options offered by digital technologies in a way that aligns with the Catholic social teaching and tradition.     

When Moral Personality and Moral Ideology Meet Ethical Leadership: A Three-Way Interaction Model

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Commentary on neoliberal ideology in work and organizational psychology

I welcome the paper on Neoliberal ideology in WOP as a valuable critique of Work and Organizational Psychology (WOP) encouraging practitioners and researchers to think carefully about what they are trying to achieve and how they make sense of the world of work.     

亲组织非伦理行为对员工职业发展的影响：一个跨层的被调节中介

亲组织非伦理行为（UPB）作为一种非利己型的非伦理行为正逐渐受到学界的关注,当前研究大多围绕UPB的前因和形成机制展开,但缺乏对UPB结果变量的探讨。本研究通过对92名主管与399名员工的数据进行跨层次分析,探讨UPB对职业发展的影响机制。研究发现：UPB显著正向影响职业发展,上下级关系在UPB与职业发展之间起着部分中介作用,伦理型领导负向调节上下级关系对UPB与职业发展关系间的中介作用。     

医学遗传服务与遗传学研究的伦理问题

遗传工程的分子技术于本世纪７０年代问世。这一技术的创新使人类与医学遗传学突飞猛进,由此导致遗传医学的飞速发展。与此同步,医学伦理学兴起,临床医学遗传服务与遗传学研究的伦理问题日益成为人文科学关注的核心。世界卫生组织（ＷＨＯ）于１９９７年发布的《医学遗传学与遗传服务伦理问题的建议国际准则》。探讨我国医学伦理学发展的策略和面临的挑战,祈盼适合我国国情的中华医学遗传服务与遗传学研究的伦理准则早日问世。     

Service-learning and engineering ethics

This paper explores ways in which service-learning programs can enhance ethics education in engineering. Service-learning programs combine volunteer work and academic study. The National Society for Professional Engineers (NSPE) and American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) codes of ethics explicitly encourage engineers to seek opportunities, beyond their work-related responsibilities, to serve their communities. Examples of how this can be encouraged as a part of the educational experiences of engineering students are explored.     

Integrating ethics in design through the value-sensitive design approach

The Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) has declared that to achieve accredited status, “engineering programs must demonstrate that their graduates have an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.” Many engineering professors struggle to integrate this required ethics instruction in technical classes and projects because of the lack of a formalized ethics-in-design approach. However, one methodology developed in human-computer interaction research, the Value-Sensitive Design approach, can serve as an engineering education tool which bridges the gap between design and ethics for many engineering disciplines. The three major components of Value-Sensitive Design, conceptual, technical, and empirical, exemplified through a case study which focuses on the development of a command and control supervisory interface for a military cruise missile.     

Kidney Transplants From Young Children and the Mentally Retarded

Kidney donation by young children and the mentally retarded has been supported by court decisions, arguments based on obligations inherent in family relationships, an array of contextual factors, and the principle of beneficence. These justifications for taking organs from people who cannot protect themselves are problematic and must be weighed against our obligation to protect the vulnerable. A compromise solution is presented that strongly protects young children and the mentally retarded but does not abdicate all responsibility to relieve suffering. Guidelines are proposed that prohibit the retrieval of kidneys from young children and the mentally retarded but permit one exception. They would allow retrieval of a kidney when the consequence to a first order relative with whom the donor has a meaningful and valuable relationship is otherwise imminent death. This would be done in accordance with additional guidelines that minimize harm to the donor. Since most patients with end stage renal disease can be maintained on dialysis the need for a kidney to prevent death should be an uncommon occurrence. This compromise is proposed as a solution to a dilemma that exists because two ethical principles are in conflict and one cannot be honored without violating the other.     

Conflict of interest in biomedical research: a view from Europe

In this paper I address the conflict of interest (CoI) issue from a legal point of view at a European level. We will see that the regulatory framework that exists in Europe does state the need for the independence of ethics committee involved in authorisation of research and clinical trials. We will see that CoI is an element that has to be closely monitored at National and International level. Therefore, Member States and Newly Associated States do have to address CoI in the authorisation process of research and clinical protocols of biomedicine. The opinions here expressed are personal and do not commit the European Commission. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at a Conference on Conflict of Interest and Its Significance in Science and Medicine, 5–6 April, 2002, Warsaw, Poland. The author is a Scientific Officer in the Programme Science and Society dealing with ethics and science (Unit C.3).