Digital Commons Network^™

Research Ethics, Informed Consent And The Disempowerment Of First Nation Peoples, Juan M. Tauri

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Recently, Indigenous commentators have begun to analyse the way in which institutional Research Ethics Boards (REBs) engage with Indigenous researchers and participants, respond to Indigenous peoples' concerns with academic research activities, and scrutinise the ethics proposals of Indigenous scholars. Of particular concern for Indigenous commentators is that the work of REBs often results in the marginalisation of Indigenous approaches to knowledge construction and dissemination, especially in relation to the vexed issue of informed consent. Based on analysis of the results of research with Indigenous researchers and research participants, this paper argues that institutionalised REBs' preference for 'universal' and 'individualised' approaches …

Overdiagnosis, Ethics, And Trolley Problems: Why Factors Other Than Outcomes Matter-An Essay, Stacy M. Carter

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

In February 2014, the non-governmental Swiss Medical Board recommended that mammography programmes in Switzerland may eventually be closed down because they might not deliver more benefits than harms. In the resulting uproar the board was accused of being "unethical." Controversy about mammography has persisted in the UK, US, Canada, and elsewhere, and disputes about overdiagnosis exist in prostate cancer, chronic kidney disease, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and many other conditions. People concerned about overdiagnosis are compelled by evidence of harms outweighing benefits. But not everyone is equally compelled. This may be because of disagreements over the evidence, conflicts of interest, or …

The Ethics Of Menu Labelling, Stacy M. Carter

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

In this commentary, I explore the ethically relevant dimensions of menu labelling. The evidence that menu labelling changes purchasing or consumption behaviour is contentious and inconclusive; there is some suggestion that menu labelling may preferentially influence the behaviour of healthier and wealthier citizens. Some suggest that menu labelling is unjust, as it fails to direct resources towards those who most need them. An alternative is to see menu labels as just one of a set of strategies that can increase people's real opportunities to be healthy. Complementing strategies will be necessary to ensure that all citizens can consider and value …

Health Promotion Practice, Research Ethics And Publishing In The Health Promotion Journal Of Australia, Stacy M. Carter, Annette J. Braunack-Mayer, Jonine Jancey

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This special issue of the HPJA focuses on ethics in the context of health promotion practice. This editorial takes a narrower focus: the issue of Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) approval for health promotion research, evaluation and quality assurance (QA). We will focus on three papers in the special issue: each argue that those working in health promotion should consider ethics from the very beginning of their research, evaluation and/or QA activities. The first paper, by Ainsley Newson and Wendy Lipworth, is entitled ‘Why should ethics approval be required before publication of health promotion research?’ In it they argue that …

Ethics And Health Promotion: Research, Theory, Policy And Practice, Annette J. Braunack-Mayer, Stacy M. Carter

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This special issue of the HPJA deals with ethics and health promotion. The accompanying editorial focuses particularly on Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) approval for health promotion research, evaluation and quality assurance (QA), based on the first three papers in this issue. In this brief editorial, we introduce the remaining papers, noting some common threads that are woven through the papers.

Ethics And Auditing: Setting The Bar Too Low, Keith Hooper, Jing Wang

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - from a philosophical and empirical perspective this paper seeks to show how the big audit firms have managed to set the bar low so that they offer only opinions on whether financial statements meet accounting standards. It is argued that while the concepts of virtue ethics have now largely disappeared, ethical legitimacy has moved beyond consequential ethics to a form of social Darwinism. It is a Social Darwinism that is legalistic and technical as evidenced by the audit firms' widespread use of the Bannerman clause attached to their opinions. Design - to illustrate the shift of ethical positions, …

Culture, Science And Bioethics: Interdisciplinary Understandings Of And Practices In Science, Culture And Ethics, Richard Chenhall, Lucia Martinelli, Janice Mclaughlin, Beritsmestad Paulsen, Kate Senior, Anna Lydia Svalastog, Hakan Tunon, Lars Werdelin

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This paper presents insights from four years of interdisciplinary discussions and analysis focusing on the complex and multidimensional character of the relationship between culture and ethics. This work started off with a clear perception of the present and cross-disciplinary importance of culture and ethics, in areas such as analysis of quality of life and familial and organizational cultures, as well as in bioprospecting, epidemiology, research ethics and clinical ethics. For example, we see the influence of culture in how contentions arise within bioprospecting linked to calls that values associated with traditional knowledge and benefit-sharing be recognised. While in studies of …

Living Memory And The Long Dead: The Ethics Of Laughing At The Middle Ages, Louise D'Arcens

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Is there an ethics particular to laughing at the Middle Ages? What are the stakes of making the medieval past an object of postmedieval humour, and can the long dead of the Middle Ages laugh back at modernity?

Global Ethics: Increasing Our Positive Impact, Keith Horton

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Global ethics is no ordinary subject. It includes some of the most urgent and momentous issues the world faces, such as extreme poverty and climate change. Given this, any adequate review of that subject should, I suggest, ask some questions about the relation between what those working in that subject do and the real-world phenomena that are the object of their study. The main question I focus on in this essay is this: should academics and others working in the field of global ethics take new measures aimed at having more real-world positive impact on the phenomena they study? Should …

Resisting Condescending Research Ethics In Aotearoa/New Zealand, Juan M. Tauri

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Recently, Indigenous scholars have raised a number of concerns with the activities of Research Ethics Boards (REBs) and their members, including the preference of REBs for Eurocentric conceptualizations of what does or does not constitute "ethical research conduct", and the privilege accorded liberal notions of the "autonomous individual participant". Informed by the author's refl ections on the REB process, those of Indigenous Canadian and New Zealand research participants, and the extant literature, this paper begins by critiquing the processes employed by New Zealand REBs to assess Indigenous- focused or Indigenous- led research in the criminological realm. The paper ends with …

A Book-End Approach To Ethics: The Increasing Importance Of Incorporating Ethics Into The First-Year Curriculum, Karina Murray

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Recently, the law degree has become a more generalist degree. Yet the Council of Australian Law Deans advises that almost two-thirds oflaw graduates ultimately seek admission to practice. This means that the majority of students commencing a law degree intend to become a solicitor or barrister. Few first-year students, however, are aware of the processes surrounding admission to the profession. They are unaware that merely completing an LLB degree does not a solicitor make. Prospective law students often do not realise that the degree needs to be supplemented by practical legal training (PLT). Beyond that, having satisfied these two academic …

Ethics-In-Practice In Collaborative Management Research, Richard Badham, Michael Zanko

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Reflections on ethics-in-practice and the informal, implicit, situational and political nature of ethical action as a social process stand in marked contrast to the restrictive focus of ethical formalism in the process of applying explicit and formal rules to adjudicate on matters of moral concern (Bauman 2003). Such reflections incorporate and address the inevitable 'practice gap' between what rules prescribe and situations demand (Taylor 1993). The call for greater transparency and reflexivity on this social process advocates cultivating increased sensitivity towards and honesty about such ethical activities (Bell & Bryman; Bell & Wray-Bliss 2009). One way of enhancing such an …

Macintyrean Virtue Ethics In Business: A Cross-Cultural Comparison, Mario Fernando, Geoff Moore

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper seeks to establish whether the categories of MacIntyrean virtue ethics as applied to business organizations are meaningful in a non-western business context. It does so by building on research reported in Moore (Organ Stud, 33(3): 363-387, 2012) in which the application of virtue ethics to business organizations was investigated empirically in the UK, based on a conceptual framework drawn from MacIntyre's work (After Virtue 2007). Comparing these results with an equivalent study in Sri Lanka, the paper finds that the categories are meaningful but that there are both similarities to and considerable differences in the content of these …

Rethinking The Secular: Religion, Ethics And Science In Food Regulation, Richard Mohr

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper explores some issues at the intersection of regulation and religion, as they apply to food. It reports on a work in progress examining the regulations and values that affect choices at food and drink outlets in an inner suburban street in Sydney.

It is part of a larger projected study of food as a central social, material and religious concern. In it we are exploring questions around community relations in a culturally and religiously diverse society. Here I focus on the ways religious, ethical and scientific considerations interact with regulatory regimes, whether those of government, industry, or religious …

A Public Health Ethics Approach To Non-Communicable Diseases, Stacy M. Carter, Lucie Rychetnik

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Symposium editorial

Animal Ethics Committees: Reassurances Rejected, Denise Russell Dr.

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The ethical and legal framework governing animal experimentation in Australia has changed little since 1990 despite the publication of new editions of the Code of Practice. The latest Code was published in 2012, again with minimal change. The problems which I outline apply to all editions of the Code from 1990 to the present. Allen and Halligan pick up on the framework for the 2004 Code suggesting that my criticisms relate to the period before 2004. My acquaintance with the workings of Animal Ethics Committees (AECs) and the various codes spans a long period pre-dating 2004 and extending to the …

Ethics In Engineering: Student Perceptions And Their Professional Identity Development, Brad Stappenbelt

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Professional ethics instruction in engineering is commonly conducted by examining case studies in light of the code of conduct of a suitable professional body. Although graphical presentations of spectacular failures, sobering stories of the repercussions and the solid framework provided by the tenets of a code of ethics may leave a lasting impression, students generally gain their professional identity from relatives and colleagues. Their professional ethics tend to be mostly an extension of their personal ethics. Instruction on ethics generally serves only to reinforce students' inclination to act ethically and provides encouragement to act on these beliefs. In this study …

How To Think About Health Promotion Ethics, Stacy M. Carter, Alan Cribb, John P. Allegrante

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Health promotion ethics is moral deliberation about health promotion and its practice. Although academics and practitioners have been writing about ethics, and especially values, in health promotion for decades, health promotion ethics is now regaining attention within the broader literature on public health ethics. Health promotion is difficult to define, and this has implications for health promotion ethics. Health promotion can be approached in two complementary ways: as a normative ideal, and as a practice. We consider the normative ideal of health promotion to be that aspect of public health practice that is particularly concerned with the equity of social …

Engaging In Good Faith: Ethics, Archives, Critical Constitutionalisms - An Invited Response To Samuel W. Calhoun, Stopping Philadelphia Abortion Provider Kermit Gosnell And Preventing Others Like Him: An Outcome That Both Pro-Choicers And Pro-Lifers Should Support, Penelope J. Pether

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Like Professor Calhoun, I hold little hope for an end to this distinctive national battle in what Australian constitutional law scholars Tony Blackshield and George Williams, echoing Justice Scalia’s opinion in Romer v. Evans, aptly call our “‘culture war’ over issues of sexuality.” Other battles in this war, such as the current litigation in the federal courts over the constitutionality of bans on same-sex marriage or the controversy of the Obama Administration’s departure from its “science standard” in refusing the National Institutes of Health’s recommendations that the “morning after pill” be made available over-the-counter to minors, presently dot the jurisdiction, …

Why Animal Ethics Committees Don't Work, Denise Russell

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Animal ethics committees have been set up in many countries as a way to scrutinize animal experimentation and to assure the public that if animals are used in research then it is for a worthwhile cause and suffering is kept to a minimum. The ideals of Refinement, Reduction and Replacement are commonly upheld. However, while refinement and reduction receive much attention in animal ethics committees, the replacement of animals is much more difficult to incorporate into the committees’ deliberations. At least in Australia there are certain structural reasons for this but it is likely that most of the reasons why …

Police Informers And Professional Ethics, Clive Harfield

Faculty of Law - Papers (Archive)

The use of informers is morally problematic for police institutions, for investigation managers, and for those individuals either who act as informers or who have daily responsibility for handling informers. This paper examines the moral issues concerning informers at each of these levels. Recourse to informers can be accommodated within Miller and Blackler's moral theory of policing. Within this context, criteria for the morally justifiable deployment of informers are proposed and supplemented with further proposed criteria for morally justifiable informer participation in crime. Morally justifiable recruitment of informers is also considered. Despite directly serving the purpose of policing, informers do …

Desire And Ethics, Ian M. Buchanan

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper argues that it is problematic for the future of Deleuze studies that it is difficult if not impossible to answer the question `what is the right thing to do?' from a Deleuzian perspective. It then argues that one of the key reasons Deleuze studies has made limited progress in this area is its over-emphasis on desire and the corresponding tendency to extrapolate 'ought' from 'is', which as Hume showed is a category mistake. It proposes that to develop a workable ethical discourse from Deleuze's work we need to rethink how we read his work and approach it afresh.

The Moral Terrains Of Ecotourism And The Ethics Of Consumption, Robert Melchior Figueroa, Gordon R. Waitt

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

In this chapter, we provide a brief overview of Western philosophical ethics as they may peliain to tourism. Our discussion then turns to one of the most popular attempts to address sustainability across the globe: ecotourism. Ecotourism as distinct from tourism writ large is earmarked by appeals to concepts and ethical practices peliaining to sustainability (in all its varied meanings), consumption, preservation, and the politics of colonialism and the dynamics of global development strategies. In order to bring the ethics of consumption into the context of ecotourism, we provide a case account of ecotourism that represents one of the more …

Australian Medical Students' Perceptions Of Professionalism And Ethics In Medical Television Programs, Roslyn Weaver, Ian G. Wilson

Graduate School of Medicine - Papers (Archive)

Background: Medical television programs offer students fictional representations of their chosen career. This study aimed to discover undergraduate medical students’ viewing of medical television programs and students’ perceptions of professionalism, ethics, realism and role models in the programs. The purpose was to consider implications for teaching strategies. Methods: A medical television survey was administered to 386 undergraduate medical students across Years 1 to 4 at a university in New South Wales, Australia. The survey collected data on demographics, year of course, viewing of medical television programs, perception of programs’ realism, depiction of ethics, professionalism and role models. Results: The shows …

Professional Ethics Education In Engineering, Brad Stappenbelt

Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)

There is much debate surrounding professional ethics education, in particular surrounding the question of whether professional ethics can be taught at all (Steneck, 1999; Bauer and Adams, 2005). Professional ethics instruction in engineering is commonly conducted by examining case studies in light of the code of conduct of a suitable professional body. Although graphical presentations of spectacular failures, sobering stories of the repercussions and the solid framework provided by the tenets of a code of ethics may leave a lasting impression, students generally gain their professional identity from relatives and colleagues (Loui, 2005). Their professional ethics tend to be mostly …

Beyond Rhetoric In Debates About The Ethics Of Marketing Prescription Medicines To Consumers: The Importance Of Vulnerability In People, Situations And Relationships, Stacy M. Carter, Gabrielle N. Samuel, Ian Kerridge, Richard Day, Rachel A. Ankeny, Christopher F. Jordens, Paul Komesaroff

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This article examines community responses to the marketing of prescription medicines. Historically, debates about such marketing have focused on alleged unscrupulousness of pharmaceutical companies and on the quality of information provided. Six focus groups were conducted in Sydney, Australia, three with older and three with younger community members. Analysis examined interactions between group members, the positions participants took up, conflicting arguments, and explanations for variation. Participants argued specifically rather than generally about consumer marketing of medicines. Neither the moral purpose of corporations nor the quality of information in advertisements was particularly important. Instead, pharmaceutical marketing was assessed in relation to …

Review: Ethics Of Internet Research: A Rhetorical Case-Based Approach, Andrew Whelan

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Ethics of Internet Research is the 59th volume in the Digital Formations series published by Peter Lang and the first volume in that series dedicated to research ethics, a subject not substantively addressed by Digital Formations since 2003's Online Social Research. It is a good companion piece to Digital Media Ethics by Charles Ess, also released in 2009 but published by Polity Press, which concentrates on more 'structural' issues, such as copyright.

Going Beyond Climate Ethics: Virtuousness In Climate Change Initiatives, Mario Fernando

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the place of virtuousness in climate change initiatives and presents a framework to assess the extent of virtuousness in mitigation and adaptation strategies. Although some argue that climate change is fundamentally an ethical issue, compared to the scientific literature on climate change, the body of climate ethics literature is more recent and considerably smaller. According to Posas (2007), since the first warning of climate change by an oceanographer in 1957, the most significant milestones in terms of introducing an ethical perspective to climate change was the Buenos Aires Declaration in December, 2004. At the same time, there …

Beyond Celebration: Australian Indigenous Festivals, Politics And Ethics, Lisa Slater

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

In contemporary Australia public discourse about Indigeneity in general and remote Indigenous communities in particular has been circumscribed by a climate of crisis. This has awakened mainstream Australia to vast inequalities, but the discursive frame continues to disable, or severely limit, an engagement with Indigenous lived experience and values. It also protects non-Indigenous, primarily I speak of, white, settler, Australians from comprehending and taking responsibility for their/our role in re-producing Indigenous marginality. The very sovereignty of the good, white, liberal subject-citizen rests upon being the universal image of good and healthy. I argue that the resistance by white, settler Australians …

E-Cheating, Online Sources And Technologies: A Critical Review Of Existing Literature, Zeenath Reza Khan, Stephen D. Samuel

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

Being tech-savvy in the twenty-first century is no eye-brow raiser. It is more the norm than the exception. Every academic institution across borders is trying hard to keep up with the technology outside classroom, bringing it to the students inside classrooms to help and enhance their teaching and learning experience. While their achievements have been very well received and appreciated, the negative impacts have not gone totally ignored. From defining technology in the classrooms, to looking closely at cheating, how to detect them and curb them, a lot has been written by various authors in different disciplines. This paper, however, …