Applied Ethics Commons^™

It Does Not Cost The Earth To Be Kind, Svetlana Feigin

Animal Sentience

The COVID-19 crisis is a wake-up call on a global scale. What lessons we learn from this crisis will determine our survival as a species. The global health crisis calls for individual and collective changes in our agricultural practices and our consumption habits. Most important, it is a call for us as a species to move towards an empathic way of living and interacting with nature.

Minding Morality: Ethical Artificial Societies For Public Policy Modeling, Saikou Y. Diallo, F. Leron Shults, Wesley J. Wildman

VMASC Publications

Public policies are designed to have an impact on particular societies, yet policy-oriented computer models and simulations often focus more on articulating the policies to be applied than on realistically rendering the cultural dynamics of the target society. This approach can lead to policy assessments that ignore crucial social contextual factors. For example, by leaving out distinctive moral and normative dimensions of cultural contexts in artificial societies, estimations of downstream policy effectiveness fail to account for dynamics that are fundamental in human life and central to many public policy challenges. In this paper, we supply evidence that incorporating morally salient …

Complicity And Climate Change, Shalomita Kristanugraha

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As individuals, how should we understand our personal complicity in climate change related harms? In this thesis, I argue that the predominant way we think of complicity within the Western moral paradigm—that is, as a distribution problem—is inadequate in helping us understand the nature of our complicity in climate change related harms. This inadequacy, in turn, psychologically hampers individual citizens residing in high-emitting nations of the Global North from effective and sustainable social and political engagement with climate change. To address the inadequacy and obstructions that result from it, I follow the discussion between Christopher Kutz and Iris Marion Young …

Philosophy, Ecology And Elephant Equality, Rebekah Humphreys

Animal Sentience

The considerable conservation research on environmental problems and climate change tends to focus on species “biodiversity” rather than individuals. Individuals of the same species get categorized as “wild” or “captive”, with the latter often omitted from conservationists’ concerns. But wild and captive animals, although they may require different treatment, have comparable interests as individuals. Equity requires taking this into account in conservation efforts.

Rethinking Rewilding Through Multispecies Justice, Danielle Celermajer

Animal Sentience

Baker & Winkler’s argument that some humans, especially some Indigenous peoples, neither conceive of themselves as ontologically distinct from nature, nor do they organize their lives as such, is an important one. However, one needs to understand how colonialism and global capitalism have drawn Indigenous peoples and animals into new political economies. The new situation and the constrained opportunities available may have introduced a range of injustices or forms of violence that did not previously exist. This commentary proposes how a multispecies justice lens might assist in evaluating the most just arrangement for all parties, human and non-human.

Minds Without Spines: Evolutionarily Inclusive Animal Ethics, Irina Mikhalevich, Russell Powell

Animal Sentience

Invertebrate animals are frequently lumped into a single category and denied welfare protections despite their considerable cognitive, behavioral, and evolutionary diversity. Some ethical and policy inroads have been made for cephalopod molluscs and crustaceans, but the vast majority of arthropods, including the insects, remain excluded from moral consideration. We argue that this exclusion is unwarranted given the existing evidence. Anachronistic readings of evolution, which view invertebrates as lower in the scala naturae, continue to influence public policy and common morality. The assumption that small brains are unlikely to support cognition or sentience likewise persists, despite growing evidence that arthropods …

Invertebrate Welfare In The Wild, Asher Soryl

Animal Sentience

Mikhalevich & Powell argue that certain cognitive-affective biases might distort people’s consideration of invertebrate minds and that the moral risks of false negatives in sentience research deserve greater consideration under precautionary frameworks. In this commentary, I draw comparisons between biases that concern wild animals and conditions in nature, arguing that the moral risks of disregarding the possible mental welfare of invertebrates are compounded by facts about their lives in the wild.

Whether Invertebrates Are Sentient Matters To Bioethics And Science Policy, Michael L. Woodruff

Animal Sentience

Mikhalevich & Powell provide convincing empirical evidence that at least some invertebrates are sentient and hence should be granted moral status. I agree and argue that functional markers should be the primary indicators of sentience. Neuroanatomical homologies provide only secondary evidence. Consensus regarding the validity of these functional markers will be difficult to achieve. To be effective in practice, functional markers of sentience will have to be tested and accepted species by species to overcome the implicit biases against extending moral status to invertebrates.

Collaborative Conservation: A Philosophical Analysis Of The Efficacy And Commensurability Of Tek And Western Science, Anne M. Belldina

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis seeks to explore the similarities and differences between traditional ecological knowledge and Western science as a way to address long-held misconceptions about the efficacy of traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK. The motivation for this project arose from a deep desire to investigate the historical injustices toward Indigenous peoples in the name of conservation. The goal of this analysis is to illustrate that effective collaboration between Indigenous knowledge holders and Western scientists is not only possible, but desirable. I outline three major barriers from which I draw out three minimum criteria which much be met if collaborative conservation efforts …

Ethical Eating: Overcoming Alienation In The Industrial Food System By Aligning Our Practices With Our Principles, André Kushnir

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis arose out of a moment of discord, while an environmental philosopher was eating blackberries in the middle of a blizzard in Missoula, Montana. What follows is an attempt to bridge the gap between our principles and our practices, by asking the questions: What does ethical eating look like? Is it possible within our current industrial food system? and If not, what needs to change? Responding to the publication of the 2019 EAT-Lancet report, this essay moves beyond thinking of ethical eating as “healthy” and “sustainable” and challenges the networks of suffering and labour that we take for …

Ethical Consistency And Experience: An Attempt To Influence Researcher Attitudes Toward Questionable Research Practices Through Reading Prompts, Samuel V. Bruton, Mitch Brown, Donald F. Sacco

Faculty Publications

Over the past couple of decades, the apparent widespread occurrence of Questionable Research Practices (QRPs) in scientific research has been widely discussed in the research ethics literature as a source of concern. Various ways of reducing their use have been proposed and implemented, ranging from improved training and incentives for adopting best practices to systematic reforms. This article reports on the results of two studies that investigated the efficacy of simple, psychological interventions aimed at changing researcher attitudes toward QRPs. While the interventions did not significantly modify researchers’ reactions to QRPs, they showed differential efficacy depending on scientists’ experience, suggesting …

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 …

Moral Principles For Establishing Rules Of Fair Governance, Uktam Shakarov

The Light of Islam

The article discusses the role of ethical principles in the creation of management regulations. It states that governance based on established ethical values can serve as a legal basis for resolving various conflicts and disputes that may arise in society and is an important tool for ensuring good governance.

Spiritual-Moral Environment And Its Basic Indicators, Matlyuba Qaxxarova, Hamida Tuychieva

The Light of Islam

The article considers the problems of the spiritual and moral environment of society as a socio-historical phenomenon, the features of its development in a civil society and the laws of its development. The main attention is paid to ethical principles and means, ways to meet the needs of the individual, the importance of moral ideal, as well as objective conditions and subjective factors of the spiritual and moral environment.

In order to comprehensively improve the spiritual and moral climate in society, a philosophical approach to the question of the beliefs and beliefs of the individual was made in order to …

The Trolley Problem In Virtual Reality, Jungsu Pak, Ariane Guirguis, Nicholas Mirchandani, Scott Cummings, Uri Maoz

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Would people react to the Trolley problem differently based on the medium? Immersive Virtual Reality Driving Simulator was used to examine participants respond to the trolley problem in a realistic and controlled simulated environment.

In Search Of Work-Life Balance: Organizational And Economic Challenges Confronting Women In Banking And Management Consulting Firms In Southwest Nigeria, Oluwafisayo Ogundoro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Married women in the banking and management consulting firms in Nigeria encounter challenges that affect their commitment to their families while working long hours in demanding jobs. This study explores the challenges married women encounter and the impacts they have on women’s family lives, social lives, and health. I analyze primary and secondary sources to understand how organizational work culture such as long working hours, work competitiveness, and Nigeria’s unstable economy negatively affect the work-life balance of married women in banking and management consulting firms. Although participants shared the belief that their workplaces practiced “equality,” their descriptions of daily life …

Is Google's Sensorvault Database Morally Acceptable To Use In Law Enforcement Geofence Warrants?, University Of Mississippi. Ethics Bowl Team

The Great Debate

November 14, 2019 at 5:30 p.m. in Bryant Hall Room 209. Reception following in the Bryant Hall Rotunda.

Through the clear presentation of claims and civil dialogue, we hope to make headway on difficult and pressing questions in our society.

Format: Judges' questions and a Q&A will follow the debate between members of the UM Ethics Bowl, with an emphasis on how to address specific claims and arguments civilly for a productive conversation.

Sponsored by: Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Hume Bryant Chair of Ethics, The Department of Philosophy and Religion, The Society for Philosophers in America (SOPHIA) dedicated to promoting …

Don’T Demean “Invasives”: Conservation And Wrongful Species Discrimination, C. E. Abbate, Bob Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Research

It is common for conservationists to refer to non-native species that have undesirable impacts on humans as “invasive”. We argue that the classification of any species as “invasive” constitutes wrongful discrimination. Moreover, we argue that its being wrong to categorize a species as invasive is perfectly compatible with it being morally permissible to kill animals—assuming that conservationists “kill equally”. It simply is not compatible with the double standard that conservationists tend to employ in their decisions about who lives and who dies.

Depaul Digest

DePaul Magazine

DePaulia Fantasy Football League; Democratizing Medicine; Campus/Alumni Calendar of Events; Regional Chapters; Musings: DePaul FEST; Milestones; Student Profile: Gabby Henderson; Master Class: The Perniciousness of "Ethical Decision-Making"

Firing Queer Teachers From Catholic Schools: Ethical And Theological Considerations, Ish Ruiz

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Since 2007, there have been over 90 cases of queer employees fired from Catholic institutions – many of which include dismissals of queer educators from Catholic schools. As religious institutions, Catholic schools are constitutionally protected by a ministerial exception that offers legal immunity to Catholic educational institutions that fire queer employees (which are sometimes considered “ministers” by the courts). The ministerial exception is an extension of the institution’s right to religious freedom to promote its doctrine though its schools. Although this right to discriminate is legally protected, from a moral standpoint, one may argue that the exercise of one human …