Digital Commons Network^™

Toward Abolitionist Remedies: Police (Non)Reform Litigation After The 2020 Uprisings, Cara Mcclellan, Jamelia N. Morgan

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In the summer of 2020, across the country, Americans took to the street in protest of Mr. George Floyd’s murder and the police killings of countless other Black people. In too many cases, police responded to protesters with excessive force and the very brutality that had led people to protest police in the first place. In the wake of these horrific displays of force, over 40 lawsuits were filed nationwide that challenged police conduct at protests. Smith v. City of Philadelphia, one of the lawsuits brought on behalf of residents and protesters in Philadelphia, was unique because the tragic underlying …

Writing With Ai: University Students’ Use Of Chatgpt, Nikola Crcek, Jakob Patekar

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Background: ChatGPT, a chatbot based on a large language model, captured global attention toward the end of 2022. With its potential to generate comprehensive texts of a variety of genres based on a string of straightforward prompts, it was soon perceived as a threat by many in various fields, including – and in particular – education. Schools across the world began banning its use as instructors started to receive suspiciously well-written essays and assignments from their students.

Aim: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of use of ChatGPT among university students for written assignments, explore the ways students utilize …

Playing To Grow. Roundtable Interview On Games, Education, And Character, Owen Gottlieb, Matthew Farber, Paul Darvasi

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In this roundtable interview moderated by Paul Darvasi, lecturer at the University of Toronto and co-founder of Gold Bug Interactive, Owen Gottlieb and Matthew Farber discuss research and practice at the intersection of religion, character education, and games in schools. Gottlieb is an associate professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, founder and lead faculty at the Initiative in Religion, Culture, and Policy at the MAGIC center, and founder and director of the Interaction, Media, and Learning Lab at RIT, where he specializes in interactive media, learning, religion, and culture. Farber is an associate professor of educational technology and coordinator …

Engaging Bhakti As/In Translation: An Outline Of A Methodological Approach To Analyse Ranade's Views About The "Saints And Prophets Of Maharashtra", Rinku Lamba

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The analysis in this article suggests that M G Ranade’s reflections in his essay about the ‘Saints and Prophets of Maharashtra’ are significant because they offer a site to unravel shifts from a premodern to a modern conception of moral order on the Indian subcontinent, in the context of the encounter with colonialism. For its role in allowing such unravelling, and for the way it permits attention to hitherto neglected dimensions of Ranade’s comparison between bhakti and the Protestant Reformation, this article argues for the value of investigating Ranade’s reflections through the framework of translation. While doing the above, the …

Climate Justice In The Anthropocene And Its Relationship With Science And Technology: The Importance Of Ethics Of Responsibility, Paolo Davide Farah, Alessio Lo Giudice

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Climate change is a global phenomenon. Therefore, globalization is the necessary hermeneutical horizon to develop an analysis of the metamorphosis climate change could cause at a political, social, and economic level. Within this horizon, this Article shows how the relationship between the concept of the Anthropocene epoch and the request for justice allows for framing a climate-justice and intergenerational equity–focused political interpretation of the effects of climate change. In order to avoid reducing such an interpretation to merely an ideological critique of capitalism, the conception of climate justice needs to be grounded in a rational, ethical model. This Article proposes …

How Not To Lie: A Don't-Do-It-Yourself Guide For Litigators, Leonard Niehoff

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Over the past few years, a number of high-profile attorneys have been sanctioned or suspended from the practice of law because they lied. The instance that probably received the greatest media attention came in June of 2021, when the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York ordered the immediate suspension of Rudy Giuliani’s license because he had made demonstrably false statements to the courts, lawmakers, and the public at large concerning the 2020 presidential election. In a 33- page opinion, the court considered the arguments Giuliani raised in his defense but concluded that his pants …

National Medical Commission Act, 2019: The Need For Parity, Ov Nandimath, S. Suhas, Y. Malik, B.C. Malathesh

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The National Medical Commission (NMC) has replaced the erstwhile Medical Council of India with the intention of bringing about positive reforms in medical education and enforcing ethical standards in the practice of medicine in India. The NMC Act of 2019, under clauses 3 and 4 of Section 30, details the procedure of grievance redressal. However, these clauses in their current form empower doctors and patients unequally. While the Act empowers an aggrieved medical professional to approach the relevant appellate fora under the NMC, it is silent on a similar opportunity for an aggrieved patient or caregiver to appeal against the …

Feminist Ethics And Research With Women In Prison, Christina Quinlan, Lucy Baldwin, Natalie Booth

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In this article, a new model, An Ethic of Empathy, is proposed as a guide for researchers, particularly new scholars to the discipline. This model emerged from the authors’ concerns regarding the application of ethics to studies that focus on the experience of female offenders in criminal justice systems. The key issue is the vulnerability of incarcerated and post-release women in relationship to the powerful status of social scientist researchers. The complexity of ethics in such research settings necessitates a particular ethical preparation, involving formation, reflection, understanding, commitment, care, and empathy. Three cases are outlined which document the authors’ ethical …

Opportunities And Barriers Faced By Early-Career Civil Engineers Enacting Global Responsibility, Shannon Chance, Inês Direito, John Mitchell

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The term ‘global responsibility’ projects a holistic sense of ethics, sustainability, and obligation. To achieve the long-term viability of human life on Earth, civil engineering must be conducted in increasingly responsible ways, and civil engineers must value and enact global responsibility in their work. Interviews conducted with nine civil engineers in London provide insight regarding engineers’ familiarity with the term, how they learned about it, what opportunities and barriers they face, and what might be done by professional and educational institutions to help them practice more responsibly. Results indicate: the term itself is novel but underlying concepts are not; continuing …

A Study Of Tax Lawyers Discussing Duties, Michael Hatfield, Michelle Kwon

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This Article reports the first qualitative empirical study of U.S. tax lawyers. We interviewed women lawyers who were tax planning specialists. Though this is the first such study of U.S. tax lawyers, this methodology has been used often to study the professional ethics of other tax practitioners around the world. We had three research questions that we sought to answer through dynamic conversations on topics such as the distinctions between good and bad tax plans and good and bad tax lawyers and also the joys and stresses of tax practice. Our first research question was as to the make-up of …

Ethics, Safety, And Autonomous Vehicles, William H. Widen, Philip Koopma, Benjamin Kuipers, Marilyn Wolf

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This roundtable explores the ethical and safety implications of the rapidly evolving technology of autonomous vehicles.

The Promise And Limits Of Lawfulness: Inequality, Law, And The Techlash, Salomé Viljoen

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In response to widespread skepticism about the recent rise of “tech ethics”, many critics have called for legal reform instead. In contrast with the “ethics response”, critics consider the “lawfulness response” more capable of disciplining the excesses of the technology industry. In fact, both are simultaneously vulnerable to industry capture and capable of advancing a more democratic egalitarian agenda for the information economy. Both ethics and law offer a terrain of contestation, rather than a predetermined set of commitments by which to achieve more democratic and egalitarian technological production. In advancing this argument, the essay focuses on two misunderstandings common …

Teenagers’ Moral Advertising Literacy In An Influencer Marketing Context, Emma Sweeney, Margaret-Anne Lawlor, Mairead Brady

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Teenagers are avid consumers of social media and also constitute attractive target audiences for influencer marketing (IM). Teenagers can perceive strong, parasocial relationships with influencers, frequently regarding them as being akin to a peer or a friend. Furthermore, influencer endorsements are observed to carry greater credibility and authenticity than traditional forms of advertising. This therefore raises questions about young consumers’ discernment of, and critical evaluation of the overall appropriateness when influencers act as conduits of commercial messages on behalf of brands. This paper reports on a qualitative study of 29 teenagers aged 15–17 years. The aim was to explore the …

The Rise Of Law And The Fall Of Circular 230: Tax Lawyer Professional Standards, 1985-2015, Michael Hatfield

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This third article focuses on the two issues that dominated discussions of professional responsibility standards for tax lawyers in the 1985-2015 period: return position standards and tax shelter opinions. It opens with consideration of the ABA’s 1965 opinion providing “reasonable basis” as the standard for undisclosed return positions, and then traces the response to that opinion as the response prods the development of the 1985 replacement with its “realistic possibility of success” standard. The Article documents the extensive interaction between Congress, the Treasury Department, and the tax bar over the next 30 years during which penalties are studied and revised …

Rees/Aaee Special Focus On Ethics: Introduction By Guest Editor, Shannon Chance, Shannon Chance

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Today, more than ever, we see the significance of ethics in developing and sustaining the built, social, and natural environments around us. We also recognise the need to develop engineering students’ knowledge, skills, and values regarding engineering, innovation, design, production, and the like. Engineers’ actions can have intended as well as unintended consequences, and we as a community need to become more aware of the outcomes and implications of our work. In response to the many topics presented at the REES 2019, the REEN Board selected ethics as the focus for this special issue and joined with AAEE to publish …

Above And Beyond: Ethics And Responsibility In Civil Engineering, Shannon Chance, Rob Lawlor, Inês Direito Direito, John Mitchell

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This exploratory study investigates how nine London-based civil engineers have enacted ‘global responsibility’ and how their efforts involve ethics and professionalism. The study assesses moral philosophies related to ethics, as well as professional engineering bodies’ visions, accreditation standards, and requirements for continuing professional development. Regarding ethics, the study questions where the line falls between what an engineer ‘must do’ and what ‘would be good to do’. Although the term ethics did not spring to mind when participants were asked about making decisions related to global responsibility, participants’ concern for protecting the environment and making life better for people did, nonetheless, …

Living With Machines. Ethical Implications And Imaginative Agency As Local Tactics Of Dwelling And Resistance In Everyday Interactions With Artificial Intelligence, Ester Toribio-Roura

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With the widespread of the Internet of things (IoT), algorithms are increasingly managing our everyday life. From navigating our way in cities to keeping track of our health, artificial intelligence has been beneficial to us in many ways. However, its algorithms can also be detrimental as a consequence of biased human programming. The result is that while technological progress delivers more and more human-like artificial intelligence, humans become dehumanised and therefore, disempowered in their everyday interactions with artificial intelligence.The solution(s) is not single-handed and calls for combined interventions at the macro and micro levels. Whilst reviewing recent top-down developments on …

Expectations Of Artificial Intelligence And The Performativity Of Ethics: Implications For Communication Governance, Aphra Kerr, Marguerite Barry, John D. Kelleher

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This article draws on the sociology of expectations to examine the construction of expectations of ‘ethical AI’ and considers the implications of these expectations for communication governance. We first analyse a range of public documents to identify the key actors, mechanisms and issues which structure societal expectations around artificial intelligence (AI) and an emerging discourse on ethics. We then explore expectations of AI and ethics through a survey of members of the public. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for the role of AI in communication gover- nance. We find that, despite societal expectations that we can design …

The Personal Responsibility Pandemic: Centering Solidarity In Public Health And Employment Law, Lindsay F. Wiley, Samuel R. Bagenstos

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Our nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has revealed fundamental flaws in our legal regimes governing both public health and employment. Public health orders have called on individuals to make sacrifices to protect society as a whole. Simple fairness dictates that the burdens should be shared as widely as the benefits. And the case for burden-sharing does not rest on fairness alone. Public health measures are more likely to succeed when those who are subject to them understand them as fair1 and when their cooperation is supported. 2 Predictably, our pandemic response has placed disproportionate burdens on those who are …

Ethics Committees For Clinical Experimentation At International Level With A Focus On Italy, Zakira Naureen, Tommaso Beccari, Robert S. Marks, Richard Brown, Lorenzo Lorusso, Derek Pheby, Stanislav Miertus, Karen L. Herbst, Liborio Stuppia, Gary T. Henehan, Benedetto Falsini, Ludovica Lumer, Munis Dundar, Matteo Bertelli, International Bioethical Study Group

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Guiding legislation and associated bureaucracy for the ethical review of clinical trials observational studies and food related research play an important role in the competitiveness of a nation in the face of tough global competition to attract sponsors and investigators. This is of particular relevance in the case of multicentre trials and multidisciplinary research. Accordingly, in this report we tried to gather in-depth knowledge of the current role and practices of ethics committees nationwide in both clinical and research settings. This mini-review aims to describe the formulation and organization of ethical committees in Italy in order to provide a focus …

International Law And Political Philosophy: Uncovering New Linkages, Steven R. Ratner

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The legal regime regulating cross-border investment gives key rights to foreign investors and places significant duties on states hosting that investment. It also raises distinctive moral questions due to its potential to constrain a state’s ability to manage its economy and protect its people. Yet international investment law remains virtually untouched as a subject of philosophical inquiry. The questions of international political morality surrounding investment rules can be mapped through the lens of two critiques of the law – that it systemically takes advantage of the global South and that it constrains the policy choices of states hosting investment. Each …

Artificial Intelligence Policy: A Primer And Roadmap, Ryan Calo

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Talk of artificial intelligence is everywhere. People marvel at the capacity of machines to translate any language and master any game. Others condemn the use of secret algorithms to sentence criminal defendants or recoil at the prospect of machines gunning for blue, pink, and white-collar jobs. Some worry aloud that artificial intelligence will be humankind’s “final invention.” This essay, prepared in connection with UC Davis Law Review's 50th anniversary symposium, explains why AI is suddenly on everyone's mind and provides a roadmap to the major policy questions AI raises. The essay is designed to help policymakers, investors, technologists, scholars, and …

Addressing Cultural Bias In The Legal Profession, Debra Chopp

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Over the past two decades, there has been an outpouring of scholarship that explores the problem of implicit bias. Through this work, commentators have taken pains to define the phenomenon and to describe the ways in which it contributes to misunderstanding, discrimination, inequality, and more. This article addresses the role of implicit cultural bias in the delivery of legal services. Lawyers routinely represent clients with backgrounds and experiences that are vastly different from their own, and the fact of these differences can impede understanding, communication, and, ultimately, effective representation. While other professions, such as medicine and social work, have adopted …

Trust Me, I'M A Pragmatist: A Partially Pragmatic Critique Of Pragmatic Activism, Joshua Galperin

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Pragmatism is a robust philosophy, vernacular hand waiving, a method of judicial and administrative decisionmaking, and, more recently, justification for a certain type of political activism. While philosophical, judicial, and administrative pragmatism have garnered substantial attention and analysis from scholars, we have been much stingier with pragmatic activism — that which, in the spirit of the 21st Century’s 140-character limit, I will call “pragtivism.” This Article is intended as an introduction to pragtivism, a critique of the practice, and a constructive framework for addressing some of my critiques.

To highlight the contours of pragtivism, this Article tells the story of …

The Scrivener's Dilemma In Divorce Mediation: Promulgating Progressive Professional Parameters, Robert K. Collins

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No abstract provided.

Mindful Ethics And The Cultivation Of Concentration, Scott L. Rogers, Jan L. Jacobowitz

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No abstract provided.

Committee Opinions And Treasury Regulation: Tax Lawyer Ethics, 1965-1985, Michael Hatfield

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This first section of the Article highlights the themes and tones of the 1945-1965 tax ethics literature, and then provides the political context and an overview of the legal changes in 1965-1985 that frame the tax ethics literature of that period. Section II begins in 1965, documenting the history of the first Formal Opinion (Opinion) on tax lawyer ethics issued by the American Bar Association's (ABA) Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility (PR Committee), which after considerable criticism in the ensuing years was substantially revised by a second Opinion in 1985. Section III is focused on 1980-1985, investigating the first …

Shakespeare In The Classroom: How An Annual Student Production Of King Lear Adds Dimension To Teaching Trusts And Estates, Karen E. Boxx

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I always begin the first day of my Trusts and Estates course by discussing the reasons for taking the class. While I note that some students may take the class to help in passing the bar exam or because family members have already asked them to draft wills, my list of reasons instead include: (1) exposure to the fiduciary relationship; (2) the real life ethical dilemmas faced by the lawyers; (3) learning to read and interpret state statutes; and (4) consideration of how law responds to societal changes and governs human relationships. This last reason is critical: Trusts and Estates …

The Role Of Mindfulness In The Ongoing Evolution Of Legal Education, Scott L. Rogers

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No abstract provided.

Mindful Ethics - A Pedagogical And Practical Approach To Teaching Legal Ethics, Developing Professional Identity, And Encouraging Civility, Jan L. Jacobowitz, Scott L. Rogers

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Aristotle spoke of virtue and ethics as a combination of practical wisdom and habituation-an individual must learn from the application of critical reasoning skills to experience. Perhaps one of the earliest proclamations of the value of experiential learning, the Aristotelian view, reappears throughout history and is captured once again by the Carnegie Foundation's Report on Legal Education, which includes a call for instruction that provides practical skills and ethical grounding to complement the teaching of legal analysis. The Carnegie Report continues to play a role in the ongoing discussion of the need to reform legal education; a debate that is …