Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Proposing A Measure Of Ethicality For Humans And Ai, Alejandro Jorge Napolitano Jawerbaum

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Smarter people or intelligent machines are able to make more accurate inferences about their environment and other agents more efficiently than less intelligent agents. Formally: ‘Intelligence measures an agent’s ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments.’ (Legg, 2008)

In this dissertation we extend this definition to include ethical behaviour and we will offer a mathematical formalism and a way to estimate how ethical an action is or will be, both for a human and for a computer, by calculating the expected values of random variables. Formally, we propose the following measure of ethicality, which is computable, or …

Exploring Moral Permissibility Of Nurse Participation In Limited Resuscitation, Felicia Stokes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers a novel approach to support nurses when they face conflict between clinicians and families or alternate decision-makers over potentially inappropriate end-of-life goals of care. This dissertation will provide a normative analysis of the moral permissibility of limited resuscitation, with arguments supported by analyses of families’ and nurses’ perspectives and actions in the EoL decision-making process. Limited resuscitation is a cardiopulmonary resuscitation effort where full pharmacologic and mechanical intervention is not used, or the length of the resuscitative effort is shortened. It is typically associated with deception because it is performed without the knowledge of patients and families. …

Ethics Of Interaction: Levinas And Enactivism On Affectivity, Responsibility, And Signification, Edward A. Lenzo

Middle Voices

In recent years, there have been a number of attempts to connect enactivism with the work of Emmanuel Levinas. This essay is such an attempt. Its major theme is the relationship between affectivity and ethics. My touchstones in enactivist thought are Giovanna Colombetti and Steve Torrances’ “Emotion and Ethics: an (inter-)enactive account” (2009) and the influential concept of participatory sense-making developed by Hanne De Jaegher and Ezequiel Di Paolo (2007). With respect to Levinas, I deploy major insights from Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being. I first show that enactivist thought (thus represented) and Levinas roughly agree on …

Natural Law, The Object Of The Act, And Double Effect: Moral Methodology For Catholic Health Care Ethics, Travis Stephens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pope John Paul II’s Encyclical Veritatis Splendor is the first and only magisterial document that systematically articulates a moral methodology for Catholic moral theology. This dissertation makes explicit the methodological connection between Vatican teaching and the United States Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. The thesis of the dissertation explains the systematic connection between Natural Law, the Moral Object of the Act, and the Principle of Double Effect and by extension the ethical Principle of Cooperation. Second, the thesis applies this complex moral method of official teaching to health care ethics.

Following the introduction, chapter …

The Ethics Of Occultic Communication: An Invocation Of Joshua Gunn And Sissela Bok, James Thomas Begley Jr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Occultic rhetoric, according to Joshua Gunn, is a genre of discourse concerned with the study and practice of secret communications. The strategic sharing of secret messages involves a host of methods and conventions designed for the selective disclosure of hidden knowledge, thus controlling the boundaries of (and accessibility to power between) insider and outsider groups. Occultic rhetoric has its uses in everyday encounters, but the abuse of such manipulative strategies, especially by those in the academy and other positions of power and trust, calls for an ethical response. This dissertation submits occultic rhetoric to moral investigation by incorporating the works …

Toward A New Reading Of Cicero's De Finibus, Kelsey Ward

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I argue that Cicero has two primary, interdependent aims in De finibus: the critical assessment of the dominant ethical positions, and the education of his readers. These aims are accomplished through four key devices. First, Cicero develops flat, useful readings of the dominant ethical positions without rejecting eudaimonism itself. This allows Cicero to demonstrate Academic practices while also insisting upon the importance of virtue, which suggests the best ethical view for Cicero is a skeptically grounded eudaimonism. Second, the arrangement of the text in reverse chronological order dramatically enacts Cicero’s own alternative to the cradle argument on …

Enhancing Quality Ethics Consultations In Pediatric Medicine, Ariel Clatty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Medical ethics consultations occur predominantly in the adult realm of medicine, alternatively in Pediatric Medicine there is a widespread lack of training and skilled professionals to service these requests. Most of the literature in pediatric ethics consultations revolves around mirroring adult ethics consultations. This dissertation seeks to identify and address the issues related to quality of ethics consultations in a clinical setting regarding the organizational and research settings for Pediatric Medicine, and how adopting and applying the guiding standards for ethics consultation using the Core Competencies of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities will better assist all parties to …